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Broadcast Radio Turns 100
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."
I don't know about anyone else, but with satellite radio becoming more and more popular, both of the radio stations that I can stand to listen to here in Phoenix (KDKB and KSLX) have changed formats.
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?
Latewire
KDKA started broadcasting on November 2, 1920 as the first commercial radio station in the United States. It also claims to be the first radio station broadcasting on a regular schedule. That claim is complicated by the fact that radio prior to 1920 was mostly experimental and good records are not kept for all "experimental" signals of contesting stations. Further, another radio station in North America, XWA-AM in Montréal, Québec, Canada (renamed CFCF-AM on November 4, 1920), began its commercial, regular broadcast programming schedule on May 20, 1920 -- nearly six months before KDKA aired its first regularly scheduled broadcast.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDKA_(AM)
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.
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.
The ARRL is sponsoring an on-the-air celebration of the centennial of broadcasting. The Hello Radio campaign has been celebrating the upcoming event throughout most of 2006.
How many broadcasters will let this event go unremarked? That is sad indeed.
"Insanity is doing the same thing over again expecting a different result."
The Birthplace of FM Broadcasting, Alpine, N.J.
kdka is a "clear channel" station. Such stations are allowed to increase their power at night, and the signal is refracted by the ionosphere. Note that this has nothing to do with Clear Channel Communications.
"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...
"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.
Nikola Tesla demonstrated "wireless" communication (which became known as "radio") as early as 1893. In 1943, the Supreme Court declared that Tesla had invented the radio, not Marconi. I'm afraid this celebration is about thirteen years too late...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla
http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_whoradio.html
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.
libertarianswag.com
Nikola Tesla, ubergenius, invented radio over a decade before these demonstrations. He even transmitted electric power by radio, to power light bulbs. And probably the robot submarine he also invented - all in the 1800s.
What is it about Tesla that his pioneering inventions are usually ignored in favor of later copycats?
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make install -not war
In its early days, radio was a 2-way, peer-to-peer medium. It was instantaneous (zero latency), hifi (plus noise), and global. It could transmit pictures (by wiring it to a pantograph or fancier device). Everyone into the hobby thought it would become what we like to think the Internet is becoming today.
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.
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make install -not war
The story in Boca Raton, Florida, location of the original engineering design team, was that "XM" stood for "Ex-Motorolan," since a very large fraction of the engineers and engineering management came from a Motorola plant in nearby Boynton Beach that had just gone through several rounds of layoffs. (The Motorola plant has since been closed, sold and razed, replaced with condominiums.)
I'm pretty sure the story is apocryphal, but it's too good not to repeat.
What is important is not that Fessenden broadcast a signal to ships at sea, but that he did it using an audio signal, i.e. music and speech. He invented radio telephony. Before Fessenden, radio was purely Marconi's radio telegraphy (morse code).
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.
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.
Having previously worked at a daytime-only AM in Western Arizona for several years...couldn't broadcast even with a carrier only at night...due to another "clear channel" in Seattle at the 1000 kHz frequency. At the times the automation equipment went down at the tower for about a week or so & the in-studio system shutting off like normal at sunset with only the hum of the carrier at the frequency during these times after sunset...the "clear channel" in Seattle sent letters & called during business hours to complain. Seems that some local listeners contacted the Seattle station & complained...so it came down the line to me & the engineer to figure out what was going on.
Remember reading stories of some US AM stations being authorized to run at 1/2 million Watts or more after sunset during WWII. These powerhouses could literally knock the table radios off of the table when tuned to what frequency they were on. The reason for the increase was to get the signal into anyplace in the world without any interference.
Another station I worked at many years ago was at 1000 Watts during the daytime & went to 250 after sunset. Since they could operate at 250 at night...but didn't want to pay for staff & satellites hadn't come into widespread use yet...they shut it down at midnight.
With the proliferation of satellite & other mediums...the continuation of these dinosaurs as "clear channels" needs to stop. Before the advent & use of modern communication methods..."clear channels" was the only way rural populations could hear national/international news/programming. Since the FCC is still locked into early 20th century thinking about these types of stations...don't see it happening anytime soon.
Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia. - Charles M. Schulz