Core 100
Brian Cogan
2/24/15
Chapter 4 Response In this chapter we will examine the scientific, cultural, political, and economic factors of radio and how it was developed. Radio did not get popular until the 1920s even though the telegraph was invented in the 1840s by Samuel Morse father of the Morse code that is a series of dots and dashes that stood for letters in the alphabet. Telegraph operators transmitted news and messages through a wire cable. By 1844 the first telegraph line was set up by Samuel Morse that ran between Washington D.C. and Baltimore. By 1861 telegraph lines where set up coast to coast and by 1866 the first transatlantic cable ran between America and Ireland along the ocean floor, which was able to transmit approximately 6 words a minute. James Maxwell later discovered Electro magnetic waves or invisible electronic impulses similar to visible light in the mid 1860s. He later theorized that signals could be sent from transmission point to a reception point. German physicist Heinrich Hertz who also proved Maxwell’s theories and built a device that permitted electrical spark to leap across a small gap between two steel balls as the electricity jumped the gap it made waves this was the first recorded transmission and reception of an electromagnetic wave. In 1894 Guglielmo Marconi developed a way to send high-speed messages to long distances. Then began installing the technology to British naval ships and private commercial ships. In 1901 Marconi successfully sent the first wireless signal across the Atlantic Ocean. Marconi is known to be the “father of radio”. In 1902 inventor Lee De Forest biggest breakthrough was the development of Audion, or triode, vacuum tube that detected radio signals and amplified them. His modifications were essential to the development of voice transmissions, long distance radio, and television. This was considered by many historians to be the beginning of modern electronics. The credit for the first voice broadcast belongs to Reginald Fessenden, who in 1906 sent a voice through the airways. Ship operators were amazed to hear voices being transmitted rather than the Morse code. By 1912 a radio act was set up because many people were messing with the radio causing interference, radio act of 1912 would require you to have a license to transmit radio waves. The formation of RCA was to ensure that radio parts were standardized by manufacturers and to control frequency interference by amateur radio operators, which became a bigger problem after WW2. The evolution of radio had started