Gustaveauguste Ferri

Vocation

Notable

French radio pioneer and army general. After graduating from the École Polytechnique in 1891, he became an officer in the French army's Engineers Corps, specialising in the military telegraph service. After being named to a committee exploring wireless telegraphy between France and England, in 1899 he carried out such communications in collaboration with Guglielmo Marconi. Ferrié headed the French Radiotelegraphie Militaire before and during World War I, where in 1914 he led two linked advances in military radio communications : practical ground telegraphy made feasible by the adoption of vacuum tubes within radio receivers. The transmitter was a buzzer, and the receiver an amplifier with triode. By the end of the war the French had produced almost 10,000 such sets. Ferrié was made a General in 1919 and so remained until his death, having been exempted from retirement rules by a special law of 1930, and became general inspector of military telegraphy. Ferrié died on 16 February 1932, at the Val-du-Grâce military hospital in Paris. Several hours after his death he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour. Link to Wikipedia biography