The Media in the Age of Radio

& cinema c1920AD –

1950AD

The development of wireless transmissions. Marconi

Does Marconi deserve the title ‘The Father of Radio‘?

Early scientific discoveries and explorations that made radio possible.

Timeline of significant events

1600: William Gilbert. First book about electricity and magnets.

William Gilbert was a pioneer of the experimental method and the first to explain the magnetic compass. In 1600, Gilbert published De Magnete – the first ever book about experimental physics.

He was also the first person to use the terms "electric force," "magnetic pole," and "electric attraction".

Gilbert was also court physician to Queen Elizabeth I of England, and briefly to James VI/I.

Early observations of magnetism and electric current

1681 July 24: Lightning Damages a Ship's Compass. An early observation of the relationship between magnetism and electric current.

1732 December 6: Lightning Magnetizes Cutlery. An early observation of the relationship between magnetism and electric current

1746 January: Pieter van Musschenbroek. Discovery of the Leyden jar (electrical capacitor)

1748-49 February 22 (4 March 1749 N.S.): Lightning Destroys the Polarity of a Mariners Compass

Names familiar to those who study the sciences.

1781: Luigi Galvani. The electric effect of different metals 1785: Charles Augustin de Coulomb. Coulomb's Law of Electrostatic Force 1800: Count Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta. The first battery to supply

electric current. 1809: Von Soemmering's electric telegraph 1820: Hans Christian Oersted. Observation of magnetic effect of an electric current 1826: Andre Marie Ampere. Mathematical analysis of magnetic effect of electric current 1827: Georg Simon Ohm. Publication of Ohm's Law 1831: Michael Faraday. Discovery of electromagnetic induction

The Possibility of Wireless Becomes Reality

1884 October 11: Communication between Ships at Sea. Telegraphing across the ocean without a cable.

1888: Heinrich Hertz. Proof of the existence of electromagnetic radiation (radio waves)

1890: Edouard Branly. Invents a way to detect electromagnetic waves

The first practical instrument for detecting Hertzian waves. The coherer was a very useful device in the early days of experimentation with electromagnetic waves.   

We all are immersed continuously in a wash of electromagnetic radiation coming from all directions, yet – without suitable instruments – we are wholly unaware of it.  Today we have an amazing variety of everyday devices that are able to detect the presence of electromagnetic radiation, from ordinary radio receivers, mobile phones to GPS receivers.

1895 May 7: Alexander Stepanovich Popov. Early radio receiver

Alexander Popov was working on a way to detect thunderstorms using atmospheric radio waves.

In 1894 he built an apparatus that could register electrical disturbances due to lightning, and suggested that it could be used for receiving man-made signals. It contained a coherer.

This was a primitive radio receiver.

In 1896, he demonstrated the transmission of radio wave signals between different parts of the University of St. Petersburg.

1895: Marconi's early wireless experiments in Switzerland

1896 June 2: British Patent number 12039Guglielmo Marconi is awarded British Patent

number 12039, the world's first patent for a system of telegraphy using Hertzian waves (radio).

1897 January 29: Bose lectures on electromagnetic radiation

In this 1897 lecture, Bose demonstrated his devices for the generation and detection of radio waves.  More than five hundred people including Oliver Lodge, James John Thomson and Lord Kelvin had assembled to hear Bose. 

1897: Braun Invents the Cathode Ray Tube Oscillograph

Braun’s invention the first cathode ray tube (CRT) is an essential tool for working with radio waves. Beginning in the 1920s and to the present day, millions of CRT devices have been manufactured and sold, for oscilloscopes, television receivers, computer monitors, hospital electronic and monitoring devices, etc. 

In 1909, Braun was awarded the Nobel Prize jointly with Guglielmo Marconi. 

Commercialisation Begins

In 1897, with the help of wealthy relatives, Marconi founded the Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company.

The company was registered 20 July 1897.  On 24 March 1900, the name was changed

to Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company Limited.

1898 July 20: Kingstown Regatta Reported by Wireless

The results of the yacht races were not especially interesting, but the technology used to transmit them was revolutionary. 

Marconi was commissioned by T.P. Gill, editor of the Dublin Daily Express newspaper, to report the results of the races "direct from the high seas". 

The newspaper chartered a yacht and Marconi followed the regatta 10 miles out into Dublin Bay.

On July 20th, 1898, sent back the first-ever press report by wireless telegraphy to a land station.

1900 June 3: Brazilian broadcast of the human voice

Father Roberto Landell de Moura, a Roman Catholic priest and inventor, is said to have publicly demonstrated a radio broadcast of the human voice on 3 June 1900 in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

The ancient terror of silence

Until the dawn of this century (1900) ships great and small sailed for distant ports and, once they had passed over the horizon, were lost to the world until weeks or months later when they were again sighted on shore. Once out of sight of land those who went down to the sea in ships belonged to another world — a world of stark loneliness and utter silence. Ships burned or foundered in storms with not so much as a whisper reaching land to tell their fate. The crew of a sinking or burning ship fought their battle for life, silently and alone. Wireless telegraphy with its magic powers was to wrest from the sea its ancient terror of silence and to give speech to ships which had been mute since the dawn of navigation.

1901 October: International Yacht Races of 1901, at New York. Radio fiasco