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Broadcast Radio Turns 100
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Sat Dec 23, 2006 09:54 AM
from the century-of-dialing-in dept.
from the century-of-dialing-in dept.
GraWil writes "On Christmas eve 1906, a Canadian physicist named Reginald Fessenden presented the world's first wireless radio broadcast from his transmitter at Brant Rock, MA. The transmission included Christmas music and was heard by radio operators on board US Navy and United Fruit Company ships equipped with Fessenden's wireless receivers at various distances over the South and North Atlantic, and in the West Indies. Fessenden was a key rival of Marconi in the early 1900s who, using morse-code, succeeded in passing signals across the Atlantic in 1901. Fessenden's work was the first real departure from Marconi's damped-wave-coherer system for telegraphy and represent the first pioneering steps toward radio communications and radio broadcasting. He later became embroiled in a long-running legal dispute over the control of his radio-related patents, which were eventually acquired by RCA."
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And just in time to see it fall! (Score:4, Interesting)
The competition from these sat companies has lead to fewer commercials, a FAR more extensive playlist on LOCAL stations. KDKB has "deep cuts" where they take songs off popular albums that they never play on the radio. On weekends, KSLX plays ENTIRE ALBUMS *gasp*!
Now that sat radio has changed everything, I hope they don't run these locals out of town; they're just starting to get good!
As a side note, does anyone else who's taken physics see the issue with calling it "Satellite Radio" being as how it uses microwaves and not 'radio' waves?
Re:And just in time to see it fall! (Score:5, Informative)
The advantage of the microwave region is that a signal can occupy a larger range of frequencies and the wavelength from the low to the high end of the bandwidth doesn't change much due to the inverse relationship of frequency and wavelength. Calling it "satellite radio" is not deceptive except that it is a completely digital stream and the receiver's tuner doesn't necessarily tune to a different frequency for each "channel".
Re:And just in time to see it fall! (Score:4, Informative)
Microwaves are a subset of radio waves - there's nothing wrong with calling it "satellite radio".
The common usage of "Internet Radio" is the one that isn't technically correct, in most cases. (unless your 'Net connection is WiFi...)
Ex-Motorolan (Score:3, Interesting)
The Wireless (Score:5, Informative)
What I find interesting about the history of "radio" is that the word itself wasn't coined until some ten or twenty years after the invention. People used to call it "the wireless" before that. The guy who made up the word "radio" was an advertising expert named Waldo Warren. The same guy was later given the task to create a brand name for some of the early inventions of R. Buckminster Fuller. He came up with the word "Dymaxion", simply by jotting together syllables of random words Fuller used all the time: Dynamic Maximum Tension.
I like it that the word "radio" comes from the same heritage.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Ham radio to celebrate 100 years of broadcasting (Score:5, Informative)
How many broadcasters will let this event go unremarked? That is sad indeed.
Birth of FM radio (Score:4, Interesting)
Radio Music Box (Score:3, Interesting)
"I have in mind a plan of development which would make radio a 'household utility' in the same sense as the piano or phonograph. The idea is to bring music into the house by wireless.
"While this has been tried in the past by wires, it has been a failure because wires do not lend themselves to this scheme. With radio, however, it would seem to be entirely feasible. For example--a radio telephone transmitter having a range of say 25 to 50 miles can be installed at a fixed point where instrumental or vocal music or both are produced. The problem of transmitting music has already been solved in principle and therefore all the receivers attuned to the transmitting wave length should be capable of receiving such music. The receiver can be designed in the form of a simple 'Radio Music Box' and arranged for several different wave lengths, which should be changeable with the throwing of a single switch or pressing of a single button.
"The 'Radio Music Box' can be supplied with amplifying tubes and a loudspeaking telephone, all of which can be neatly mounted in one box. The box can be placed on a table in the parlor or living room, the switch set accordingly and the transmitted music received. There should be no difficulty in receiving music perfectly when transmitted within a radius of 25 to 50 miles. Within such a radius there reside hundreds of thousands of families; and as all can simultaneously receive from a single transmitter, there would be no question of obtaining sufficiently loud signals to make the performance enjoyable. The power of the transmitter can be made 5 k.w., if necessary, to cover even a short radius of 25 to 50 miles; thereby giving extra loud signals in the home if desired. The use of head telephones would be obviated by this method. The development of a small loop antenna to go with each 'Radio Music Box' would likewise solve the antennae problem.
"The same principle can be extended to numerous other fields as, for example, receiving lectures at home which be made perfectly audible; also events of national importance can be simultaneously announced and received. Baseball scores can be transmitted in the air by the use of one set installed at the Polo Grounds. The same would be true of other cities. This proposition would be especially interesting to farmers and others living in outlying districts removed from cities. By the purchase of a 'Radio Music Box' they could enjoy concerts, lectures, music, recitals, etc., which may be going on in the nearest city within their radius. While I have indicated a few of the most probable fields of usefulness for such a device, yet there are numerous other fields to which the principle can be extended...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Radio Is Older... And NOT Invented By Marconi (Score:3, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla [wikipedia.org]
http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_whoradio.html [pbs.org]
A really good book to read to learn more about one of the greatest electrical engineers in history is "Man Out Of Time" by Margaret Cheney.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This celebration is spot on since neither Tesla nor Marconi had anyone "listening" outside of their respective labs or work groups. Conversely,
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Tesla
Tesla First, As Usual (Score:4, Insightful)
What is it about Tesla that his pioneering inventions are usually ignored in favor of later copycats?
Re:Tesla First, As Usual (Score:4, Informative)
Tesla also demonstrated, in a famous demo, how he could grab the electrode while holding a bulb in his other hand, lighting the bulb brightly. Edison was trying to set up Tesla's AC technique to power NY state's new "electric chair" executions, to scare the public away from letting AC be chosen to carry Niagara Falls hydroelectic (generated by Tesla's generators) down to NYC. But Tesla's demo showed everyone that "AC is safe", and the rest is history.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Radio Killed the Internet Star (Score:4, Insightful)
But after a couple of decades, radio was reduced to a one-way, broadcast medium dominated by commercial corporate interests.
The main way this shutdown was executed was by the new US agency, the "FCC". The early tech made necessary a central registry of unique frequencies assigned to "stations", or multiple stations would "interfere", or really just all be heard by a receiver tuned to that frequency. A signaling protocol for yielding could have avoided that centralized control. A transceiver attempting a frequency could have first listened to the frequency for a signal:noise ratio above some standardized threshold before using it as a clear channel, and group comms could have signalled with a "heartbeat" above the threshold of human hearing. Or some other approach either automatic or negotiated. But the US Federal government legislated instead of letting tech solve the real problem. Which also let them control the content of the public airwaves, eventually requiring broadcasters to be officially licensed as publishers. Which now costs $millions, forcing mere hobbyists out of the market.
We can already see this same pattern repeating. Publishing streams of copyrighted material on the Net costs not only a ridiculous $0.0007 per "song" per listener (therefore 10K listeners costs $7, thousands of times more than broadcast, though the tech is cheaper). But the license requires a minimum $500 per year. Which is the cost of about 6 listeners continuously 24x7, to 4 minute average length songs. Or really more like 25 listeners, who'd have to pay $20 a year to listen (or $95 for each of 6) - just for the royalties. That minimum fee puts radio out of the reach of most hobbyists to even reach their friends. It forces streaming to go commercial. The first step towards the really expensive licenses that keep the official publishers in the same billionaire's club, with mostly the same agenda. Purely "political": controlling the people to ensure only rich commercial interests can publish.
And that's all before video streaming is really regulated. They'll surely increase the license fee for that, and probably raise the audio fees "now that the industry has gotten on its feet".
Who believes that "wireless networks", really just digital radio, will stay P2P, unregulated content, when the rest of the industry has the worst history of forcing regulations to define its limited competition? For those who do believe that, look at your radio dial. And, if you can stand it, try listening to it.
Re:Radio Killed the Internet Star (Score:4, Informative)
Back then, radios were big, expensive things that really didn't handle multiple frequencies well. Changing the radio transmitter's frequency, even by a bit, could literally involve swapping out parts, changing the length of the antenna, and so forth.
Additionally, it would have been impossible for broadcast radio to become the medium it was without having fixed frequencies. How would listeners tune in? "Tune in tommorow, same time, at another random place in the radio spectrum!"
Finally, I find it incredibly improbable that radio hobbyists 80 years ago had access to computers suitable for frequency negotiation and hand-off.
No, regulation of the spectrum, at least to a degree, was and IS absolutely necessary.
Error in subject title (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, it is not entirely accurate calling Fessenden Canadian. He lived in the US at the time of this breakthrough, and would for some time, before moving to Bermuda. He can be said to be of 'Canadian origin'.
I know much about Fessenden because of the house he had owned in Newton, Massachusetts during and after his Brant Rock experiments. After Fesseden's death, the house was sold to my mother's family, and she recalls that there was some strange laboratory equipment in the basement of that house, where she grew up. This house is now on the National Register of Historic Places.
Re:Super heterodyne? (Score:5, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDKA_(AM) [wikipedia.org]
I remember listening to school closings and football/baseball games on there growing up. On a good night, 600 miles away, I can still listen to them.
Re:Super heterodyne? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Super heterodyne? (Score:5, Informative)
"clear channel" stations are not allowed to increase power at night. While I haven't specifically mined the FCC database, I can say with considerable confidence that there are fewer than ten AM stations in North America that run more power at night than during the day.
However, "clear channel" stations are not required to *reduce* power at night. Most other stations are, and/or are required to switch to a directional antenna that concentrates all their power in a specific direction.
Technically, "clear channel" refers to the frequency, not to any specific station. For example, 720KHz is a "clear channel", and in theory any station operating on that frequency could call itself a "clear channel" station. Many do.
"clear channel" stations are divided into three classes, A, B, and D. Only one Class A station can exist on a frequency, and that's the dominant station most people think of when they think of a "clear channel" station. This station is allowed to operate 50,000 watts non-directional day & night, and is not required to protect any other station from interference. All other stations on the frequency must protect the Class A station.
For example, on 720KHz, WGN in Chicago is the Class A station. KDWN in Las Vegas is one of several Class B stations on 720; KDWN runs 50,000 watts 24/7, but is required to switch to a directional antenna at night, limiting the amount of power radiated in the direction of Chicago to maybe two or three dozen watts. (I think you can reasonably assume the KDWN transmitter is northeast of Las Vegas!).
Class D stations are those that are not allowed to operate at all at night, or are limited to nighttime powers less than that required for a new station. (generally, less than 250 watts; sometimes as little as one watt. No new Class D stations are being authorized.) An example of a Class D station on 720 is WGCR in western North Carolina, which goes off the air completely at sundown to protect WGN from interference.
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KDKA is 50 kW ND Unlimited station, meaning it broadcasts at 50,000 watts, non-directional, 24-hours a day.