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The Compagnie générale de la télégraphie sans fil (CSF: General Wireless Telegraphy Company) was a French company founded in 1918 during a reorganization and expansion of the Société française radio-électrique (SFR), which became a subsidiary. The company developed technology for radio-telegraphy, radio program
transmission Transmission or transmit may refer to: Science and technology * Power transmission ** Electric power transmission ** Transmission (mechanical device), technology that allows controlled application of power *** Automatic transmission *** Manual tra ...
, radar, television and other applications. It provided broadcasting and telegraphy services, and sold its equipment throughout the French colonial empire and in many other parts of the world. In 1968 CSF merged with the Thomson-Brandt to form
Thomson-CSF Thomson-CSF was a French company that specialized in the development and manufacture of electronics with a heavy focus upon the aerospace and defence sectors of the market. Thomson-CSF was formed in 1968 following the merger of Thomson-Hous ...
.


Background

From the mid-19th century the world was connected with an increasingly dense network of telegraph wires and submarine cables. In 1887
Heinrich Hertz Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (; ; 22 February 1857 – 1 January 1894) was a German physicist who first conclusively proved the existence of the electromagnetic waves predicted by James Clerk Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism. Biography Heinri ...
of Germany conclusively proved the existence of electromagnetic waves.
Alexander Stepanovich Popov Alexander Stepanovich Popov (sometimes spelled Popoff; ; – ) was a Russian physicist who was one of the first people to invent a radio receiving device. declassified 8 January 2008 Popov's work as a teacher at a Russian naval school led hi ...
of Russia developed antennas to transmit and receive radio waves. Scientists such as
Édouard Branly Édouard Eugène Désiré Branly (, ; ; 23 October 1844 – 24 March 1940) was a French physicist and inventor known for his early involvement in wireless telegraphy and his invention of the coherer in 1890. Biography He was born on 23 October 1 ...
and
Nikola Tesla Nikola Tesla (;"Tesla"
. ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.
; 10 July 1856 â€“ 7 ...
also contributed to development of the concepts. In 1895
Guglielmo Marconi Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi, 1st Marquess of Marconi ( ; ; 25 April 1874 – 20 July 1937) was an Italian electrical engineer, inventor, and politician known for his creation of a practical radio wave-based Wireless telegraphy, wireless tel ...
, a student at the University of Bologna, invented wireless telegraphy. In 1897 he founded the
Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company The Marconi Company was a British telecommunications and engineering company founded by Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi in 1897 which was a pioneer of wireless long distance communication and mass media broadcasting, eventually becoming on ...
in England. Its subsidiary the
Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America The Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America (commonly called American Marconi) was incorporated in 1899. It was established as a subsidiary of the British Marconi Company and held the U.S. and Cuban rights to Guglielmo Marconi's radio (then ...
was formed in the US in 1899. The
Telefunken Telefunken was a German radio and television producer, founded in Berlin in 1903 as a joint venture between Siemens & Halske and the ''AEG (German company), Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft'' (AEG) ("General electricity company"). Prior to ...
company was created in Germany in 1903 as a joint venture of
Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational technology conglomerate. It is focused on industrial automation, building automation, rail transport and health technology. Siemens is the largest engineering company in Europe, and holds the positi ...
and
AEG The initials AEG are used for or may refer to: Common meanings * AEG (German company) ; AEG) was a German producer of electrical equipment. It was established in 1883 by Emil Rathenau as the ''Deutsche Edison-Gesellschaft für angewandte El ...
. In France the engineer captain
Gustave-Auguste Ferrié Gustave-Auguste Ferrié (19 November 1868 – 16 February 1932) was a French radio pioneer and army general.
(1868–1932) gathered a team to work on wireless telegraphy for the military. Ferrié demonstrated the value of radio telegraphy to the government during the volcanic eruption of the
Mount Pelée Mount Pelée or Mont Pelée ( ; , ; ), meaning "bald mountain" or "peeled mountain" in French, is an active volcano at the northern end of Martinique, an island and French overseas department in the Lesser Antilles Volcanic Arc of the Caribbean ...
in
Martinique Martinique ( ; or ; Kalinago language, Kalinago: or ) is an island in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the eastern Caribbean Sea. It was previously known as Iguanacaera which translates to iguana island in Carib language, Kariʼn ...
, and showed the value of placing antennas at the summit of the
Eiffel Tower The Eiffel Tower ( ; ) is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower from 1887 to 1889. Locally nicknamed "''La dame de fe ...
. In 1908 the young polytechnic Émile Girardeau joined Ferrié's team. Girardeau and the scientist Joseph Bethenod decided to found a French company to meet military and civilian radio communication needs.


Société Française Radio-Electrique (1910–19)

The Société Française Radio-Electrique (SFR) was launched on 3 April 1910.
Paul Brenot Paul Brenot (19 September 1880 – 19 August 1967) was a French engineer and industrialist who was active in the development of radio in France. He was an advocate of free enterprise and had corporatist opinions. He was criticized after World War ...
was an important contributor to development of the SFR. Bethenod's new techniques were used in the first radiotelegraph link in the tropics, between
Brazzaville Brazzaville () is the capital (political), capital and largest city of the Republic of the Congo. Administratively, it is a Departments of the Republic of the Congo, department and a Communes of the Republic of the Congo, commune. Constituting t ...
and Loango. This led to orders for SFR equipment from Belgium, Mexico, Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Italy, Russia and China. Between 1910 and 1914 the SFR developed musical frequency resonance alternators, established stations in the Belgian Congo and Russia, developed field transmitters that could be carried by car or mule, which were tested in the 1912–13
Balkan Wars The Balkan Wars were two conflicts that took place in the Balkans, Balkan states in 1912 and 1913. In the First Balkan War, the four Balkan states of Kingdom of Greece (Glücksburg), Greece, Kingdom of Serbia, Serbia, Kingdom of Montenegro, M ...
, and installed the first transmitters on airships, airplanes, warships, fishing boats and passenger boats.
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
(1914–18) stimulated radio research. New stations were ordered by Serbia and Romania. The French Navy built a large center at Basse-Lande ( Brains, Loire-Atlantique), with two arc transmitters and one spark transmitter. SFR delivered 65 fixed stations with over 5 kW power, 18,000 aircraft stations, 300 stations on vessels and 300 mobile stations on vehicles. A new machine providing continuous waves using the Bethenod process was installed at the Lyon la Doua station.


Formation (1918–19)

Creation of the Compagnie générale de la télégraphie sans fil (CSF) in 1918 was due to the success of the SFR and the initiative of investors led by the
Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas The Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas (, ), generally referred to from 1982 as Paribas (), was a French investment bank based in Paris. In May 2000, it merged with the Banque Nationale de Paris to form BNP Paribas. History Background In the ...
(BPPB) and including the Compagnie Française des Câbles Télégraphiques (CFCT), which operated transatlantic telegraph lines. One of the benefits to the bank was that it allowed it to make use of the rights it had to German assets seized by the Allies. Émile Girardeau headed the CSF, which was a holding company that included the SFR for radio telegraphy and had other subsidiaries for management of radio telegram traffic, maritime radio and radio broadcasting. In 1919 the SFR created a factory in
Levallois-Perret Levallois-Perret () is a Communes of France, commune in the Hauts-de-Seine Departments of France, department and ÃŽle-de-France Regions of France, region of north-central France. It lies on the right bank of the Seine, some from the Kilometre z ...
in the northwest of Paris. Paul Brenot left the army to become technical director of the SFR. There were strong financial relations between BPPB and the CSF holding company, but BPPB did not have much involvement with the subsidiaries, for which the CSF played the role of banker. The CSF revenues came from royalties paid by the subsidiaries for the exploitation of patents held by the parent company. Dividends remained low. The CSF managed a general research laboratory at the central level, and held all the patents in the group.


Inter-war period (1919–39)

The CSF gave attractive salaries and facilities to young physicists who could not obtain academic positions. These included Yves Rocard (1903-1992), who joined Radiotechnique in 1928 and Maurice Ponte (1902-1983), who joined in 1929. Both Rocard and Ponte were graduates of the
École Normale Supérieure École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing i ...
in Paris.
Yves Rocard Yves-André Rocard (; 22 May 1903 – 16 March 1992) was a French physicist who helped develop the atomic bomb for France. Lifes Rocard was born in Vannes. After obtaining a double doctorate in mathematics (1927) and physics (1928) he was aw ...
later contributed to developing France's atomic bomb. Ponte was placed in charge of the SFR vacuum tubes department and of the general research laboratory, and was given a free hand in hiring physicists to assist in electronics and electromagnetic radiation research. In 1925 the CSF group had about 1,600 employees. By 1935 it had grown to 4,900 employees, including the workforce of
Radiotechnique Radiotechnique (RT) was a French electronics company that made radio transmitting and receiving vacuum tubes, and later more advanced components such as integrated circuits and solar panels. At first it was a subsidiary of the French Compagnie gé ...
, which at that time was jointly owned with
Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), simply branded Philips, is a Dutch multinational health technology company that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, its world headquarters have been situated in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarter ...
. In 1935 the state required that its most important suppliers have facilities south of the
Loire The Loire ( , , ; ; ; ; ) is the longest river in France and the 171st longest in the world. With a length of , it drains , more than a fifth of France's land, while its average discharge is only half that of the Rhône. It rises in the so ...
, and the SFR moved to
Cholet Cholet (, probably from Latin ''cauletum'', "cabbage") is a commune of western France, in the Maine-et-Loire department. With 54,307 inhabitants (2019), it is the second most populous commune of Maine-et-Loire, after the prefecture, Angers. ...
, Maine-et-Loire. The Cholet plant, which had been a subcontracting plant to the main Levallois factory, became an autonomous facility with the full range of administrative, technical and testing services. It grew from 25 workers in 1937 to 1,250 in 1957, with an area of . During the inter-war period the German Telefunken, the British Marconi, the American
RCA RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded in 1919 as the Radio Corporation of America. It was initially a patent pool, patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westinghou ...
and the French CSF operated as a cartel, avoiding competition. During meetings of the
International Broadcasting Union The International Broadcasting Union (IBU; official name in , UIR, modern translations in , UIR) was an alliance of European radio broadcasters, established on 3–4 April 1925. The union had its headquarters in Geneva. The UIR aimed to resolve in ...
ostensibly concerned with regulating use of radio frequencies the company leaders made agreements for cross-licensing of patents and for carving up the market. The CSF's main markets were France, the French colonial empire, Serbia, Argentina and Chile. The CSF also had branches in the Middle East, China Japan and the USSR.


Radio transmission services

To help promote radio technology, on 19 October 1920 the Secretary of State for Posts and Telegraphs granted the CSF the concession to build and operate all international radio links from France. One of the company's early achievements was construction of the Sainte-Assise long-wave transmission station, near
Melun Melun () is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the ÃŽle-de-France region, north-central France. It is located on the southeastern outskirts of Paris, about from the centre of the capital. Melun is the prefecture of Seine-et-Marne, ...
, through its subsidiary Radio-France. Eight towers supported two antennas fed by four 500KW alternators. The station entered operation in 1922. Short wave transmissions, reflected by the ionosphere, are generally a better solution for intercontinental transmissions but are sensitive to weather and variations in the ionosphere. The huge Sainte-Assise installation remained useful for emergencies. In Sainte Assise the Radio-France subsidiary began broadcasting to Europe, America and the Far East in 1921 under a 30-year state concession signed in 1920. The Société Radio-Orient was a subsidiary that provided a similar service in the Near East. The SFR, based in Levallois-Perret, began experimental broadcasts in June 1922. On 31 October 1922 it was authorized to broadcast regular programs, with the proviso that advertising was not allowed. The first broadcast of the Radiola station from Levallois was made in early November 1922. Radiola was the first French private radio broadcasting station. It was renamed Radio-Paris in 1924. Additional radio broadcast stations were created in Clichy,
Toulouse Toulouse (, ; ; ) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Haute-Garonne department and of the Occitania (administrative region), Occitania region. The city is on the banks of the Garonne, River Garonne, from ...
,
Algiers Algiers is the capital city of Algeria as well as the capital of the Algiers Province; it extends over many Communes of Algeria, communes without having its own separate governing body. With 2,988,145 residents in 2008Census 14 April 2008: Offi ...
,
Ankara Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and List of national capitals by area, the largest capital by area in the world. Located in the Central Anatolia Region, central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5,290,822 in its urban center ( ...
,
Tunis Tunis (, ') is the capital city, capital and largest city of Tunisia. The greater metropolitan area of Tunis, often referred to as "Grand Tunis", has about 2,700,000 inhabitants. , it is the third-largest city in the Maghreb region (after Casabl ...
,
Rennes Rennes (; ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Resnn''; ) is a city in the east of Brittany in Northwestern France at the confluence of the rivers Ille and Vilaine. Rennes is the prefecture of the Brittany (administrative region), Brittany Regions of F ...
,
Lille Lille (, ; ; ; ; ) is a city in the northern part of France, within French Flanders. Positioned along the Deûle river, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France Regions of France, region, the Prefectures in F ...
and
Strasbourg Strasbourg ( , ; ; ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est Regions of France, region of Geography of France, eastern France, in the historic region of Alsace. It is the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin Departmen ...
. In 1933 Radiola was sold to the state due to political pressure.


Radio equipment

CSF manufactured radio reception and transmission equipment for both amateurs and professionals. The Radio Maritime subsidiary provided equipment to merchant ships. The Radiotechnique subsidiary was formed in 1919 to research and develop electronic transmission and reception tubes at its
Suresnes Suresnes () is a commune in the western inner suburbs of Paris, France. Located in Hauts-de-Seine, from the centre of Paris, it had a population of 49,482 as of 2020. Suresnes borders the Bois de Boulogne in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, ...
plant. The "Radiola" trademark was used for radio receivers produced by Radiotechnique as well as for the radio station. Although France was not immediately affected by the
Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...
, CSF felt the effect in 1929 since radio transmission was mainly the result of global commercial activity. In 1929 it merged amateur equipment manufacturing into its Radiotechnique subsidiary and made an agreement with Philips of the Netherlands under which CSF would drop its amateur equipment line and Philips would not compete on professional equipment. Philips bought half the shares of Radiotechnique, but in practice fully controlled the subsidiary. The market for amateur receiving stations exploded in 1930. CSF used the sale of shares and its stake in Radiotechnique to strengthen its position in the professional sector. Development and manufacture of professional electronic tubes was transferred from Suresnes to the SFR plant at Levallois. In late 1937, Maurice Elie at SFR developed a means of pulse-modulating transmitter tubes. This led to a new 16 cm system with a peak power near 500W and a pulse width of 6μs. French and U.S. patents were filed in December 1939.


Radar

Rocard and Ponte both moved to Levallois after the spin-off of Radiotechnique. Ponte was appointed director of the "lampes" department, the name used for electronic tubes at the time, but continued to be directly involved in research, particularly into magnetrons to generate ultra-short waves for obstacle detection. This was an early form of Radar, although it was used to detect boats and icebergs rather than enemy aircraft. In the 1920s French physicists
Camille Gutton Camille Gutton (30 August 1872 â€“ 19 August 1963) was a French physicist who specialized in radioelectricity. He was responsible for various theoretical and practical advances. He followed some false leads such as research into the hypotheti ...
and Émile Pierret had experimented with 16 cm wavelengths. After researching the
cavity magnetron The cavity magnetron is a high-power vacuum tube used in early radar systems and subsequently in microwave ovens and in linear particle accelerators. A cavity magnetron generates microwaves using the interaction of a stream of electrons wit ...
system in the short wave domain at 16 cm and 80 cm, a CSF team led by Maurice Ponte and Henri Gutton, son of Camille Gutton, filed a patent for a radar detection system in 1934. In 1934–35 CSF equipped the SS Oregon and
SS Normandie SS ''Normandie'' was a French ocean liner built in Saint-Nazaire, France, for the French Line ''Compagnie Générale Transatlantique'' (CGT). She entered service in 1935 as the largest and fastest passenger ship afloat, transatlantic crossing, ...
with anti-iceberg collision detectors with a range of about .


Film and television

The PTT asked CSF to study television, and CSF launched the Radio-cinéma subsidiary for this purpose, with the first objective being to develop talking movie projectors for large cinemas. Radio-cinéma was founded as a subsidiary of CSF on 21 June 1929, in the year that talking movies first appeared. The first workshops were in the
20th arrondissement of Paris The 20th arrondissement of Paris (known in French as the ''XXe arrondissement de Paris'' or simply as "''le vingtième''") is the last of the consecutively numbered arrondissements of the capital city of France. Also known as Ménilmontant () af ...
. The subsidiary designed and made
movie projector A movie projector (or film projector) is an optics, opto-mechanics, mechanical device for displaying Film, motion picture film by projecting it onto a movie screen, screen. Most of the optical and mechanical elements, except for the illuminat ...
s for big cinema screening rooms. CSF did not get involved in television cameras and receivers, but from 1935 was the PTT's main contact for development of TV transmitters.


World War II (1939–45)

In 1939 the company had slightly more than 4,000 employees, still considerably less than Telefunken, Marconi, RCA and
Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), simply branded Philips, is a Dutch multinational health technology company that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, its world headquarters have been situated in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarter ...
of the Netherlands. In the early months of the war the Levallois laboratories made important advances in the development of the
cavity magnetron The cavity magnetron is a high-power vacuum tube used in early radar systems and subsequently in microwave ovens and in linear particle accelerators. A cavity magnetron generates microwaves using the interaction of a stream of electrons wit ...
, which paved the way for centimeter radar that will be widely used by the Allies from 1943 to equip hunters and bombers. On 8 May 1940 Maurice Ponte went to London in person to present the CSF magnetron to the British, who would combine the advantages of the SFR prototype and their own prototype. After the German occupation the Levallois and Cholet plants were placed under the supervision of Telefunken. The SIF plant in
Malakoff Malakhov () is a Russian language, Russian family name derived from the Biblical name of Malachi. Alternative spellings include Malakov and Malakoff. The name may refer to: People ''Listed alphabetically by given name'' *Andrey Malakhov (born 1972 ...
was placed under the supervision of Siemens & Halske, and the Radiotechnique plant in Suresnes under that of Philips Electro Special, a German subsidiary of Philips in Berlin. During the war Paul Brenot had the title of technical director of the SFR, but was the right-hand man of Émile Girardeau. Under the German occupation there were very friendly relations between the CSF and Telefunken, for which Brenot was later criticized. In his defense, Brenot said that Telefunken's permanent representative in Paris, Doctor Schultz, was a former composer and virtuoso pianist with whom he had formed cordial relations before the war, and who was liberal, anti-militaristic and anti-Nazi. The SFR set up a study center in the free zone in
Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...
. The Personnel Department was instructed to facilitate the transfer of all Jewish employees who wish to move there. A small factory was also set up in Algiers. Controlled by the occupants as a Telefunken production center, SFR produced mainly for the German army. 65% of its turnover was devoted to German armaments from 1940 to 1944, reaching 86% in 1943. The number of employees was 2,600 in February 1940, dropped to 1,000 in August 1940 but then rose to more than 4,000 by 1943. Most of the output was equipment designed by Telefunken. Several capital increases were arranged, supported by BPPB. Pierre Grivet, a graduate of the École Normale Supérieure, was appointed to the Lavallois-Perret research laboratory during World War II and participated in a project to develop a 60kV
oscilloscope An oscilloscope (formerly known as an oscillograph, informally scope or O-scope) is a type of electronic test instrument that graphically displays varying voltages of one or more signals as a function of time. Their main purpose is capturing i ...
, needed for television research. Grivet acquired expertise in electron optics, and obtained a government order for an electrostatic
electron microscope An electron microscope is a microscope that uses a beam of electrons as a source of illumination. It uses electron optics that are analogous to the glass lenses of an optical light microscope to control the electron beam, for instance focusing it ...
during the period of German occupation.


Post-war period (1945–68)

In the early 1950s Robert R. Warnecke was director of microwave research at the CSF in Paris. After World War II Radio-cinéma moved to
Courbevoie Courbevoie () is a Communes of France, commune located in the Hauts-de-Seine department of the ÃŽle-de-France region of France. It is a suburb of Paris, from the Kilometre zero, center of Paris. The centre of Courbevoie is situated from the ci ...
, near to the other factories in Levallois. The project to develop the Spectro-Lecteur spectrum analysis device was launched at Radio-Cinema in 1947 in response to a request from the metallurgical company
Pechiney Pechiney SA was a major aluminium conglomerate based in France. The company was acquired in 2003 by the Alcan Corporation, headquartered in Canada. In 2007, Alcan itself was taken over by mining giant Rio Tinto Alcan. Prior to its acquisitio ...
. Early in the 1950s Radio-Cinema acquired the company of
André Charlin André Marie Bernard Charlin (20 March 1903 – 28 November 1983) was a French audio engineer and entrepreneur. He was a prolific inventor and filed many patents for radio amplifiers, movie sound recording equipment, and music recording. He founde ...
, an engineer known for his expertise in talking movies, loudspeakers and stereophonics. In 1954 Radio-Cinema became the Compagnie des Applications Mécaniques et Electroniques au Cinéma et à l'Atomistique ( CAMECA). The company retained its core business but diversified into precision engineering, making scientific instrumentation and aerospace radars. In 1955 CAMECA was structured with three departments, one to produce Radio-Cinema and Charlin film projectors, one undertaking mechanical production for other CSF subsidiaries, and the third working on the Spectro-Lecteur. CAMECA went on to develop ion and electron
microprobe A microprobe is an instrument that applies a stable and well-focused beam of charged particles (electrons or ions) to a sample. Types When the primary beam consists of accelerated electrons, the probe is termed an electron microprobe, when the pr ...
s. In 1957 the CSF absorbed the SFR. In 1968 Thomson-Brandt and CSF were merged to form the large
Thomson-CSF Thomson-CSF was a French company that specialized in the development and manufacture of electronics with a heavy focus upon the aerospace and defence sectors of the market. Thomson-CSF was formed in 1968 following the merger of Thomson-Hous ...
group. Thomson-CSF was nationalized in 1982 and privatized in 1997.


Notes


Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Compagnie generale de la telegraphie sans fil Electronics companies established in 1918 Defence companies of France Electronics companies of France Telecommunications companies of France Companies disestablished in 1968 Thales Group History of radio French companies established in 1918