another to the American Marconi Company in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Alexanderson would receive a patent in 1911 for his device. The Alexanderson alternator followed Fessenden's rotary spark-gap transmitter as the second radio transmitter to be modulated to carry the human voice. Until the invention of vacuum-tube (valve) oscillators in 1913 such as the Armstrong oscillator, the Alexanderson alternator was an important high-power radio transmitter, and allowed amplitude modulation radio transmission of the human voice. The last remaining operable Alexanderson alternator is at the VLF transmitter Grimeton in Sweden and was in regular service until 1996. It continues to be operated for a few minutes on Alexanderson Day, which is either the last Sunday in June or first Sunday in July every year. World War I and the formation of RCA The outbreak of World War I forced European nations to temporarily abandon development of international radio communications networks, while the United States increased efforts to develop transoceanic radio. By the end of the war the Alexanderson alternator was operating to reliably provide transoceanic radio service. British Marconi offered General Electric $5,000 in business in exchange for exclusive rights to use the alternator, but just as the deal was about to go through, the American president Woodrow Wilson requested that GE decline the offer, which would have given the British (who were the leader in submarine communications cables) dominance over worldwide radio communications. GE complied with the request and joined with American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T), the United Fruit Company, the Western Electric Company and the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company to form the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), giving American companies control of American radio for the first time. Stations Thorn L. Mayes identified the production of ten pairs of 200 KW Alexanderson alternators, totaling 20 transmitters, in the period up to 1924: U.S. military use during and after World War II Beginning in 1941, seven of the twenty original 200 KW alternators were put into service by the U.S. Navy and Air Force: During World War II the U.S. Navy recognized the need for reliable distant longwave (VLF) transmissions to the Pacific fleet. A new facility was constructed at Haiku in Hawaii, where two 200 KW Alexanderson alternators transferred from the mainland were installed. The Navy also operated an existing transmitter at Bolinas, California, again for Pacific ocean communication. Both Haiku alternators were sold for salvage in 1969,