History of Radio

Take a step back to yesteryear and read about the people that enable you to
enjoy the sounds that knock your socks off today.

Discovery

The theoretical basis of the propagation of electromagnetic waves was first
described in 1873 by James Clerk Maxwell in his paper to the Royal Society A
dynamical theory of the electromagnetic field, which followed his work between
1861 and 1865.

In 1878 David E. Hughes was the first to transmit and receive radio waves
when he noticed that his induction balance caused noise in the receiver of his
homemade telephone. He demonstrated his discovery to the Royal Society in 1880
but was told it was merely induction.

It was Heinrich Rudolf Hertz who, between 1886 and 1888, first validated
Maxwell's theory through experiment, demonstrating that radio radiation had
all the properties of waves (now called Hertzian waves), and discovering that
the electromagnetic equations could be reformulated into a partial
differential equation called the wave equation.

Invention and History

The identity of the original inventor of radio, at the time called wireless
telegraphy, is contentious. Claims have been made that Nathan Stubblefield
invented radio before either Nikola Tesla or Guglielmo Marconi, but his device
seems to have worked by induction transmission rather than radio transmission.

In 1893 in St. Louis, Missouri, Tesla made the first public demonstration
of radio communication. Addressing the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia and
the National Electric Light Association, he described and demonstrated in
detail the principles of radio communication. The apparatus that he used
contained all the elements that were incorporated into radio systems before
the development of the vacuum tube. He initially used magnetic receivers,
unlike the coherers used by Marconi and other early experimenters.

In 1894 British physicist Sir Oliver Lodge demonstrated the possibility of
signaling using radio waves using a detecting device called a coherer, a tube
filled with iron filings which had been invented by Temistocle
Calzecchi-Onesti at Fermo in Italy in 1884. Edouard Branly of France and
Alexander Popov of Russia later produced improved versions of the coherer.
Popov, who was the first to develop a practical communication system based on
the coherer, is usually considered by his own countrymen to have been the
inventor of radio. The Indian physicist, Jagdish Chandra Bose, demonstrated
publicly the use of radio waves in November of 1894 in Calcutta, but he was
not interested in patenting his work.

In 1895, Guglielmo Marconi sent a telegraph message without wires, but he
didn't send voice over the airwaves; Reginald Fessenden, in 1900, accomplished
that and made a weak transmission. On Christmas Eve, 1906, using his
heterodyne principle, Reginald Fessenden transmitted the first radio broadcast
in history from Brant Rock, Massachusetts. Ships at sea heard a broadcast that
included Fessenden playing the song "O Holy Night" on the violin and reading a
passage from the Bible.

In 1896 Marconi was awarded what is sometimes recognized as the world's
first patent for radio with British Patent 12039, Improvements in transmitting
electrical impulses and signals and in apparatus there-for. In 1897 he
established the world's first radio station on the Isle of Wight, England. The
same year in the U.S., some key developments in radio's early history were
created and patented by Tesla. The U.S. Patent Office reversed its decision in
1904, awarding Marconi a patent for the invention of radio, possibly
influenced by Marconi's financial backers in the States, who included Thomas
Edison and Andrew Carnegie. Some believe this was done to allow the U.S.
government to avoid having to pay the royalties that were being claimed by
Tesla for use of his patents.

In 1909, Marconi, with Karl Ferdinand Braun, was also awarded the Nobel
Prize in Physics for "contributions to the development of wireless
telegraphy". However, Tesla's patent (number 645576) was reinstated in 1943 by
the U.S. Supreme Court, shortly after his death. This decision was based on
the fact that prior art existed before the establishment of Marconi's patent.
Some believe the decision was made for financial reasons, to allow the U.S.
government to avoid having to pay damages that were being claimed by the
Marconi Company for use of its patents during World War I (ignoring the prior
art).

Marconi opened the world's first "wireless" factory in Hall Street,
Chelmsford, England in 1898, employing around 50 people. Around 1900, Tesla
opened the Wardenclyffe Tower facility and advertised services. By 1903, the
tower structure neared completion. Various theories exist on how Tesla
intended to achieve the goals of this wireless system (reportedly, a 200 kW
system). Tesla claimed that Wardenclyffe, as part of a World System of
transmitters, would have allowed secure multichannel transceiving of
information, universal navigation, time synchronization, and a global location
system.

The next great invention was the vacuum tube detector, invented by a team
of Westinghouse engineers.

On Christmas Eve, 1906, Reginald Fessenden (using his heterodyne principle)
transmitted the first radio audio broadcast in history from Brant Rock,
Massachusetts. Ships at sea heard a broadcast that included Fessenden playing
O Holy Night on the violin and reading a passage from the Bible. The world's
first radio news program was broadcast August 31, 1920 by station 8MK in
Detroit, Michigan. The world's first regular wireless broadcasts for
entertainment commenced in 1922 from the Marconi Research Centre at Writtle
near Chelmsford, England.

The first benefit seen to radio telegraphy was the ability to establish
communication between coast radio stations and ships at sea. A company called
British Marconi was established to make use of Marconi's and others' patents.
This company along with its subsidiary American Marconi, had a stranglehold on
ship to shore communication. It operated much the way American Telephone and
Telegraph operated until 1983, owning all of its own equipment and refusing to
communicate with non-Marconi equipped ships. Many inventions improved the
quality of radio, and amateurs experimented with uses of radio, thus the first
seeds of broadcasting were planted.

Radio Broadcasting is Born

Charles David Herrold, an electronics instructor in San Jose, California
constructed the first broadcasting station. It used the spark gap technology,
but modulated the carrier frequency with the human voice, and later music. The
station "San Jose Calling" (there were no call letters), was first established
in April 1909, and has continued an unbroken lineage to eventually become
today's KCBS in San Francisco.

Herrold, the son of a Santa Clara Valley farmer, coined the terms
"narrowcasting" and "broadcasting", respectively to identify transmissions
destined for a single receiver such as that on board a ship, and those
transmissions destined for a general audience. The term "broadcasting" had
been used in farming to define the tossing of seed in all directions. While
Charles Herrold did not claim to be the first to transmit the human voice, he
did claim to be the first to conduct "broadcasting". To facilitate the
spreading of the radio signal in all directions, he designed omni-directional
antennas, which he mounted on the rooftops of various buildings in San Jose.

Herrold also holds the title as the first broadcaster to accept
advertising. He exchanged publicity for a local record store for records to
play on his station.

Better known than Charles Herrold, Westinghouse in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
and the Scripps' Detroit News in Detroit, Michigan were mistakenly credited as
the first US broadcasters in the early 1920s. Broadcasting was not yet
commercially supported; the stations owned by the manufacturers and department
stores were established to sell radios and those owned by newspapers to sell
newspapers and express the opinions of the owners. Westinghouse was brought
into the patent allies group, General Electric, American Telephone and
Telegraph, and Radio Corporation of America, and became a part owner of RCA.
All radios made by GE and Westinghouse were sold under the RCA label 60% GE
and 40% Westinghouse. ATT's Western Electric would build radio transmitters.
The patent allies attempted to set up a monopoly, but they failed due to
successful competition. Much to the dismay of the patent allies, several of
the contracts for inventor's patents held clauses protecting "amateurs" and
allowing them to use the patents. Whether the competing manufacturers were
really amateurs was ignored by these competitors.

Old-Time Radio (OTR) or the Golden Age of Radio is a term used to refer to
radio programs mainly broadcast during the 1920s through the late 1950s. The
end of the OTR era was marked by the final CBS broadcasts of Suspense and
Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar on September 30, 1962.

Although very little radio comedy-drama currently airs on American radio,
it continues at full strength on British and Irish stations, and to a lesser
degree in Canada. Regular broadcasts of radio plays are also heard in South
Africa, Australia, New Zealand and other countries. In the United States,
vintage shows and new audio productions are accessible more on recordings
rather than over the air. The audio theatre art form was invented prior to
radio, developing in the 1880s and 1890s on early wax recordings. The first
examples were recordings of vaudeville sketches, sometimes modified for the
medium, but original audio pieces were being created well before Reginald
Fessenden first broadcast sound over the radio on Christmas Eve, 1906.

Before the expansion of television in the early 1950s, radio was the most
popular home entertainment system across the United States. With the rise of
the movie industry, America's appetite for mass entertainment grew. As with
films, early radio shows reflected vaudeville origins and usually featured
variety shows with music, ethnic humor and often suggestive situations. As the
medium matured, sophistication increased. By the mid-1930s radio featured
genres and formats popular in other forms of American entertainment --
adventure, comedy, drama, horror, mystery, musical variety, romance, thrillers
-- along with farm reports, news, weather, commentary and panel discussion
shows.

Old Time Radio

Old-Time Radio (OTR) or the Golden Age of Radio is a term used to refer to
radio programs mainly broadcast during the 1920s through the late 1950s. The
end of the OTR era was marked by the final CBS broadcasts of Suspense and
Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar on September 30, 1962.

Although very little radio comedy-drama currently airs on American radio,
it continues at full strength on British and Irish stations, and to a lesser
degree in Canada. Regular broadcasts of radio plays are also heard in South
Africa, Australia, New Zealand and other countries. In the United States,
vintage shows and new audio productions are accessible more on recordings
rather than over the air. The audio theatre art form was invented prior to
radio, developing in the 1880s and 1890s on early wax recordings. The first
examples were recordings of vaudeville sketches, sometimes modified for the
medium, but original audio pieces were being created well before Reginald
Fessenden first broadcast sound over the radio on Christmas Eve, 1906.

Before the expansion of television in the early 1950s, radio was the most
popular home entertainment system across the United States. With the rise of
the movie industry, America's appetite for mass entertainment grew. As with
films, early radio shows reflected vaudeville origins and usually featured
variety shows with music, ethnic humor and often suggestive situations. As the
medium matured, sophistication increased. By the mid-1930s radio featured
genres and formats popular in other forms of American entertainment --
adventure, comedy, drama, horror, mystery, musical variety, romance, thrillers
-- along with farm reports, news, weather, commentary and panel discussion
shows.

Top comedy talents surfed the airwaves for many years: Fred Allen, Jack
Benny, Victor Borge, Fanny Brice. Bob Burns, Bob Hope, Groucho Marx, Red
Skelton and Ed Wynn. More laughter was generated by such shows as Abbott and
Costello, Amos 'n' Andy, Burns and Allen, Ethel and Albert, Fibber McGee and
Molly, The Great Gildersleeve and The Halls of Ivy. Radio comedy ran the gamut
from the country humor of Lum and Abner and Minnie Pearl to the dialect
characterizations of Mel Blanc and the caustic sarcasm of Henry Morgan. Gags
galore were delivered weekly on Stop Me If You've Heard This One and Can You
Top This?, panel programs devoted to the art of telling jokes. Quiz shows were
lampooned on It Pays to Be Ignorant, and other memorable parodies were
presented by such satirists as Spike Jones, Stoopnagle and Budd, Stan Freberg
and Bob and Ray.

Some shows originated as stage productions: Clifford Goldsmith's play What
a Life was reworked into NBC's popular, long-run The Aldrich Family
(1939-1953) with the familiar catchphrase, "Coming, Mother!" Moss Hart and
George S. Kaufman's Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway hit, You Can't Take It
with You (1936), became a weekly situation comedy heard on Mutual (1944) with
Everett Sloane and later on NBC (1951) with Walter Brennan.

Other shows were adapted from comic strips, such as Blondie, The Gumps,
Li'l Abner, Little Orphan Annie, Popeye the Sailor, Red Ryder, Reg'lar
Fellers, Terry and the Pirates and Tillie the Toiler. Bob Montana's redheaded
teen of comic strips and comic books was heard on radio's Archie Andrews from
1943 to 1953. The Timid Soul was a 1941-1942 comedy based on cartoonist H.T.
Webster's famed Casper Milquetoast character.

The Lux Radio Theater offered adaptations of Hollywood movies, performed
before a live audience, often with cast members from the original films.
Suspense, Escape, The Mysterious Traveler, Inner Sanctum were popular thriller
anthology series. Leading writers who created original material for radio
included Norman Corwin, Archibald MacLeish, Arthur Miller, Arch Oboler, Rod
Serling and Irwin Shaw.

Most American radio network programs were presented live, and they were
often re-performed for listeners in Western time zones. Network policy did not
permit the broadcast of recorded programming during most of the OTR era. For a
variety of reasons, however, many programs were recorded as they were
broadcast. In some cases, the recording was made at the point of origination
(usually network studios in New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles). In other
cases, it was made at an affiliate station. For example, a program originating
at CBS in New York might be recorded off the network circuit at WJSV in
Washington. A relatively few surviving programs were recorded off the air ("airchecks"),
usually at a recording studio, since home recording equipment was uncommon
during the OTR era. Before magnetic tape came into use in the early 1950s, the
format was normally 16-inch diameter "transcription disks" (also known as ETs,
for "electrical transcription"). Most of the OTR programs in circulation among
collectors � whether on tape, CD or MP3 � originated with these ETs.

During part of the OTR era, the Armed Forces Radio Service (later Armed
Forces Radio and Television Service) obtained copies of network radio
entertainment programming for distribution to AFRS radio stations serving U.S.
troops overseas. The programs were edited to delete commercials, and disks
were pressed for shipment to stations. Many OTR shows have survived only in
the edited AFRS version. (Some exist in both original and AFRS formats.)

A relatively small number of surviving series were recorded for
syndication. These programs were typically distributed to stations on
transcription disk, and the station would then play the program on the air at
their convenience. Like syndicated television programming today, different
stations played the programs at different days and times.

Vintage radio is fondly remembered by most Americans of the right age for
at least a few trademark sounds, phrases and events: the famous broadcast of
The War of the Worlds by Orson Welles' Mercury Theater on the Air; the
creaking-door sound effect which framed each episode of Inner Sanctum; Jack
Benny's famous call for "Rochester" (and the famous answers of Eddie Anderson;
the clipped speech of Jack Webb on Dragnet; the "Hi-Yo, Silver!"call of the
Lone Ranger; the cackle of The Shadow: "Who knows what evil lurks in the
hearts of men? The Shadow knows..."

History of RCA�

RCA was formed in 1919 as a publicly-held company owned in part by AT&T and
GE. David Sarnoff was named General Manager. RCA's charter required it be
mostly American-owned. RCA took over the assets of American Marconi, and was
responsible for marketing GE and Westinghouse's radio equipment. It also
acquired the patents of United Fruit and Westinghouse, in exchange for
ownership stakes.

In many ways the story of RCA is the story of David Sarnoff. His drive and
business acumen led to RCA becoming one of the largest companies in the world,
successfully turning it into a conglomerate during their era of their success.

By 1926, RCA had grasped the market for commercial radio, and purchased the
WEAF and WCAP radio stations and network from AT&T, merged them with RCA's own
attempt at networking, the WJZ New York/WRC Washington chain, and formed the
National Broadcasting Company (NBC).

In 1929, RCA purchased the Victor Talking Machine Company, then the world's
largest manufacturer of phonographs (including the famous "Victrola") and
phonograph records (in British English, "gramophone records"). The company
then became RCA-Victor. With Victor, RCA acquired New World rights to the
famous Nipper trademark. RCA Victor produced many radio-phonographs. The
company also created new techniques for adding sound to film.

In 1939, RCA demonstrated the first television system at the New York
World's Fair. With the introduction of the NTSC standard, the Federal
Communications Commission authorized the start of commmercial television
transmission on July 1, 1941. World War II slowed the deployment of television
in the US, but RCA began selling television sets almost immediately after the
war was over.

Antitrust concerns led to the breakup of the NBC radio networks by the FCC,
a breakup affirmed by the United States Supreme Court. On October 12, 1943,
the "NBC Blue" radio network was sold to Life Savers candy magnate Edward J.
Noble for $8,000,000, and renamed "The Blue Network, Inc". It would become the
American Broadcasting Company (ABC) in 1946. The "NBC Red" network retained
the NBC name, and RCA retained ownership.

In 1949, RCA-Victor developed and released the first 45 rpm record to the
public, answering CBS/Columbia's 33⅓ rpm "LP".

RCA Video-Tape machineIn 1953, RCA's color-TV standard was adopted as the
standard for American color TV. RCA cameras and studio gear, particularly of
the TK-40/41 series, became standard equipment at many American television
network affiliates. Perhaps surprisingly David Sarnoff commented in 1955,
"Television will never be a medium of entertainment".

Today, beautiful replicas of old RCA radios and Victrola phonographs can be
found gracing homes and offices everywhere.

These articles are licensed under the "GNU Free Documentation License".
They use material from the Wikipedia articles; "Radio",
"History_of_radio",
"RCA"
and "Old-time_radio".

Crosley� Radio History

The year was 1920 - Cincinnati native, Powel Crosley founded the
company that pioneered radio broadcasting and mass-market radio manufacturing.
Dismayed with the $130 price tag for the radio receiver he promised to buy for
his son's birthday, Crosley decided to make his own. Upon successfully
building a working set for only $35, he was quick to spot the mass market
potential.

Crosley's idea was a simple one. Design a fully functioning radio,
meticulously craft each unit with obsessive detail and precise accuracy, and
of course add a measure of consideration for the wallet. Because of his
creativity, innovation and ingenuity Crosley was dubbed �The Henry Ford of
Radio' - and so began Crosley Radio which was to become the world's
largest radio manufacturer.

He's most well-known for the mass production and marketing of radios and
the creation of WLW - "The Nation's Station" and the 500,000 watt tower he
constructed that transmitted FDR's fireside chats. Those signals were reported
to have been heard as far away as Australia! By the mid 1900's, he presided
over a star-studded radio empire that featured such stars as Rosemary Clooney,
Red Skelton, Jack Benny and more.

A true industrialist, Crosley also became known for a multitude of
ventures. He was infamous for the Crosley - a miniature-sized automobile,
fashioned after the lightweight European cars. The chubby-profiled vehicle
promised 50 miles to the gallon and was sold in department stores for just
$325. He got involved in many other ventures including the Shelvador
refrigerator, the Moonbeam airplane, the first car radio - the Roamio, the
Icy-Ball chemical-mechanical ice box and the Go-bi-bi go-kart/stroller, to
name a few.

Today, the Crosley philosophy remains virtually unchanged. The Crosley
name lives on with superbly detailed replicas that truly transcend time.
Reintroductions of original vintage radios and turntables feature the newest
technologies graced by unforgettable Crosley stylings. As a leading
manufacturer of vintage wares, the Crosley Collection will excite you with
completely unexpected treasures featuring pleasantly familiar twists. Their
extensive collection of antique replicas are painstakingly rendered after
yesterday's old radios, jukeboxes and phonographs we've all come to know and
love.

This article uses material by permission of The Crosley Radio
Corporation.