Father Roberto Landell de Moura (January 21, 1861 – June 30, 1928), commonly known as Roberto Landell, was a Brazilian Roman Catholic priest and inventor. He is best known for his attempts in the 1880s to develop long-distance audio transmissions device that combined an improved megaphone device and a photophone (using light beams). Landell received patents in Brazil and the United States during the first decade of the 1900s in which he also included designs that he claimed could transmit voice using radio waves.
Early life Roberto Landell de Moura was born in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 1861. His father was Ignacio de Moura, and he had five brothers: João, Edmundo and Ricardo (all apothecaries), Dr. Ignacio Landell, a physician, and Pedro Landell de Moura, a São Paulo merchant. He was ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1886 in Rome, and also conducted studies in the physical sciences.
Experimental work Landell began experiments in wireless communication in Campinas and São Paulo in the period 1893–1894. A biographical review recounted that he "...invented his apparatus in Porto Alegre, and as soon as he arrived in São Paulo in 1896, he began with preliminary experiments, to achieve his object — to transmit human voice through the air.
Reported demonstrations The June 10, 1900 issue of the Jornal do Commercio reported that on June 3 Landell made a public wireless telephony demonstration in the town of Alto de Sant Anna in the city of São Paulo, and the witnesses included P. C. P. Lupton, the British Consul, and his family. Shortly thereafter, the newspaper's June 16, 1900 issue printed the text of a letter Father Landell sent to Lupton prior to the demonstration, which noted that he would only be able to demonstrate five of his numerous inventions: the "Telauxiofono", "Caleofono", "Anematofono", "Teletiton" and "Edifono". In 1907 The Brazil of To-day provided English language descriptions of these devices:
Telauxiofono (also spelled "telauxiophono" and "telauxiophone") "is the last word of the telephone, not only because of the force and intelligibility with which it transmits the words, but also because with it telephoning at great distances becomes a practical and economical reality." Caleofono (also spelled "caleophono", "kaleophono" and "kaleophone") "works also with wire, and presents the originality of not needing to ring the bell to call, to hear the articulated sounds, or that of the instrument." Anematofono (also spelled "anematophono" and anematophone") and teletiton "are wireless telephones. The perfect operation of these apparatus, according to what their inventor says, reveals laws entirely new and is altogether most curious." Edifono (also spelled "ediphono" and "ediphone") "is useful to purify and soften the phonographed voice of the parasitical vibrations, reproducing it just as the natural voice." In his letter Landell also proposed that, with the support of British government, he could continue research to commercially develop his inventions, being compensated only for living expenses and the funds needed to continue his studies and scientific experiments. In addition, he offered to establish two facilities in England, dedicated to providing care for the sons and daughters of soldiers recently killed in the Second Boer War. However, the British government did not take him up on his offer. In late 1900, a Rio de Janeiro newspaper carried an article about an American invention, Colonel George Edward Gouraud's "Gouraudphone" (rendered as Gouraudphono in Portuguese), which was a high-powered megaphone designed for long-distance communication. Contemporary accounts describe the Gouraudphone as a "talking foghorn": a sound amplifier that operated by "working a piston-valve in a cylinder and vibrating a current of air or gas, entering another cylinder and vibrating a large diaphragm which gives out an imitation of the original sounds. The intensity of the sound can be increased by having more than one piston and cylinder regulating air currents, so that the speech might be heard for several miles." Dr. José Rodrigues Botet took exception to this report, and the December 16, 1900 issue of the La Voz de España carried a letter from him insisting that it was actually Landell who deserved credit for developing the underlying technology used by the Gouraudphone. Botet's letter stated that over the years he had personally witnessed Landell, working alone, develop advanced wire and wireless telegraphy and telephony equipment, while never receiving the recognition he deserved as "Brazil's eminent son".
Patents
1901 Brazilian patent
Landell received his first patent, no. 3,279, from the Brazilian government on March 9, 1901. It covered a device for providing two-way "Phonetic transmission at a distance, with or without wire, through space, Earth and water". Two configurations were described: a full design, known as the "Tellogostomo", and a simpler version, called the "Telauxiophone":
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