Frequency-Hopping Of Hedy Lamarr

Frequency-Hopping Of Hedy Lamarr
© Surazeus
2018 05 20

You reached the person you are looking for.
I am Hedy Lamarr, the famous actress,
who invented process frequency-hopping,
once the most beautiful girl in the world,
now a recluse hiding from the cruel world.
I am glad that you called me on the phone
since I spend all my time living alone.

I had to build a strong protective shell
around my heart to keep my spirit safe
because journalists attack me in papers,
writing that I am now an ugly recluse.
I hope you will tell real story about me
since now that you have called me on the phone
I will be happy to share my strange adventure.
I am glad that you will interview me
so I can tell my story in my own words.
Everyone always sees my glamorous face
but no one can see the real me inside.

I will explain how George Antheil and I
invented frequency-hopping spread spectrum,
the method for transmitting radio signals
by rapidly switching carrier waves
among a broad range of frequency channels
by using a precoded random sequence
programmed in both transmitter and receiver.

Back in the darkest days of the world war,
I was terrified about Adolf Hitler,
that evil monster and his war machine
who conquered and annexed to his empire
my beautiful homeland, lush Austria.
He conquered Poland in brutal blitzkrieg
and since then had occupied all of Europe,
so I feared he would also conquer Britain,
then invade my new home America.

I did not feel very comfortable then,
sitting safe in Hollywood as a star
and earning lots of money for myself
while our world was in this horrible state
of brutality and destructive war.
I wanted to do something that would help
my new homeland America fight back
and defeat Hitler, that horrible monster
who was attacking and killing my people.

Along with the whole world you only see
the glamorous and beautiful movie star,
but no one can see the real Hedwig Kiesler
behind glamorous mask of Hedy Lamarr.
My face is a mask I cannot remove.
I must always live with it, but I curse it.
Any girl can be glamorous since all
she has to do is stand still and look stupid.
I was bored making silly romance movies
so I built an invention table at home
where I could experiment with ideas,
like a pill that would carbonate fresh water.

When I was dating the weird Howard Hughes
he told me how he wanted to construct
the fastest airplanes that have ever flown
for the United States Air Force to buy
so we could win the world war against Hitler.
I noticed how wings on airplanes were square
so I looked at pictures in nature books
showing birds and fish that can move the fastest,
and thus I designed the new sloping wings
used on airplanes so they fly faster now.

When I was a young girl in Austria,
learning arts of piano and ballet,
my mother would tell me that I am ugly,
so I was not aware till I grew older
that my face could enchant men with desire.
I started working in a film studio,
writing scripts and editing finished films,
then I began to play small roles on screen.
When I made this film titled Ecstasy,
I was filmed running naked in the woods,
then lying on a bed in a forest cabin,
but they tricked me, composing the scenes
to make it look like I had an orgasm.

Everyone was scandalized by this film,
so Hitler, the Pope, and Americans
banned it from playing in all their theaters.
Next I attempted to redeem my name
by playing the role of Queen Sissy on stage,
but this attracted to my dressing room
a rich man who manufactured munitions,
Friedrich Mandl, the Jew who became Christian,
so he wooed my heart with jewels and gold,
and I married him for security.

My husband kept me as his prisoner,
locking me inside our grand castle home.
I knew very soon I could never play
a movie actress while I was his wife.
He was the absolute monarch and king
of his marriage while I was like a doll.
To him I was nothing more than a thing,
some object of art which had to be guarded
and imprisoned in his beautiful castle,
having no mind and no life of its own.

I could not play the object of his pride
so I sewed all my jewels into my coat,
disguised myself as one of the house maids
and escaped the gold prison of my home
by riding my bike into the dark night.
Thus I escaped my homeland Austria
just as Hitler invaded and killed Jews.
My mother and my father were both Jews
who converted to Catholics to get jobs.

Before I escaped to Paris, then London,
while still married to the rich Friedrich Mandl,
I acted hostess for his lavish parties
attended by Hitler and Mussolini
who purchased munitions, canons and bombs,
that he manufactured in factories.
I accompanied him to business meetings
where he would confer with smart scientists
involved in the design and manufacture
of new complex military technology
Germany employed to conquer the world.

While in those meetings I learned many things
about submarines, missiles, and torpedoes,
and how they jam radio frequencies
to prevent efficient communications.
What I remember most from all those meetings
was how they can employ radio to guide
torpedoes they shoot at quick-moving ships,
so that is how they sank so many ships
while no one could strike back at their U-boats.
They also talked about the problem how
radio-guided torpedoes can be jammed
by beaming frequencies of radio signals
to interfere with clear communications.

When a German U-boat destroyed a ship
full of refugees who drowned in the sea,
I started thinking of how I could help
develop method to use radio signals
that could guide torpedoes through the dark sea
while avoiding their signal interference.
Because we use one radio frequency
they can jam the signal with static noise.

I realized that, while we are talking words,
we are changing frequencies all the time,
and that signal is much harder to jam.
If we can switch the channel frequency
with unpredictable method of change
the enemy would never know which bands
of radio signals they would have to block
to disrupt radio control of torpedoes.

I could not figure out how to change bands
till I bought the Philco mystery control
which I could use to quickly change the channel,
switching between bands on the radio.
The secret to avoid their jamming signal
would be to vary the length of time spent
on each channel, switching between the bands
at different unpredictable intervals
in a technique I call frequency-hopping.

But I could not figure out how to sync
the radio transmitter up in the plane
and the radio receiver in the torpedo
till I met George Antheil at a social party.
George was a composer who wrote weird music
like his famous work, Ballet Mecanique,
which he wrote for some obscure abstract film,
that involved mechanically synchronizing
sixteen player pianos at one time.

When I described to George my new idea
of frequency-hopping to avoid jamming,
he proposed the method that we could use
which would coordinate through radio signals
the transmitter on a plane in the sky
and the receiver built inside the torpedo
by controlling the switching between channels
with two identical piano rolls
that would be running at the same speed in both.

By using two player piano rolls
synchronized to control frequency changes
the high altitude observation plane
could then steer the radio-controlled torpedo
so Germans could not jam the radio signal.
By manipulating radio frequencies
at random irregular intervals
between transmission and reception of signals,
my invention allows radios to beam
clear unbreakable code to prevent
classified information in messages
from being intercepted and understood
by enemy personnel during combat.

We drew up designs that describe in detail
our new Secret Communication System,
and won the patent for our novel invention.
We sent our patent to the Navy office
but they just dismissed our clever idea
since they could not put a player piano
inside a torpedo to guide its flight.
Our idea got forgotten and lost,
and, after I toured across the whole country
to raise money for the troops with war bonds,
I went on to star in many more movies.

Recently I learned that some ten years later
our patent was obtained by engineers
at Sylvania Electronic Systems Division
who adopted the concept I invented
by using the transistor to send signals.
I learned that my frequency-hopping system
developed by Sylvania was installed
on Navy ships they sent to blockade Cuba
during the terrifying missile crisis,
so my idea helped save the whole world
from getting destroyed by nuclear bombs.

My son tells me my invention is used
in electronic communication systems
such as faxes, cell phones, and wi-fi signals
so computers and phones communicate
sending beams of information in waves.
Though I had long received no recognition
for my invention of frequency-hopping,
I was recently honored for my work
with a wonderful Pioneer Award
from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

I am honored you called to hear my story.
Though I am now old, and keep to myself,
and often suffered from being exploited
by the greedy Hollywood movie system,
I have no regrets for the life I lived.
Saving the whole world from annihilation
through my invention gives me honest pride
that sustains me in the last days of my life.
My life has been an amazing adventure,
and I played my humble role as an actress
in the ancient epic tale of humanity,
making this world a better place for all
who share this planet spinning in the stars.