The history of the radio

The History of The Radio

Today, music and morning shows are part of everyday life around the world. It's like magic, but how did we get here? The story begins in the 1860s, when James Maxwell formulated the theory of electromagnetic waves.

Then, in 1887, Heinrich Hertz proved the existence of radio waves by generating and detecting them in his lab, which were later named after him. Everything came to a halt until the 1890s-1910s, which is known as the age of the “Wireless” Pioneers. On December 12, 1901, Guglielmo Marconi, who was named the “Father” of the radio, sent out the first transatlantic radio transmission, sending the Morse code signal for the letter "S" (three dots) over 2,000 miles from Poldhu, Cornwall, to Signal Hill in St. John's, Newfoundland.

Inventors and scientists kept working long and hard until Nikola Tesla paved the way by inventing components of radio (like the Tesla Coil). After years of legal battles, the U.S. Supreme Court eventually ruled that Tesla owned several key radio patents over Marconi. Additionally, the radio's importance and the need for someone on the radio at sea became part of the most disastrous maritime sinking of the Titanic in 1912. 

Thousands of deaths could have been avoided by having someone on the radio on the SS Californian when the Titanic. Moreover, the Titanic sent the Marconi signal "CQD" rather than the new "SOS" standard. Operators Jack Phillips and Harold Bride sent, "Come at once. We have struck a berg. It’s a CQD, old man," followed by their position. The captain of the SS Californian saw the flares that the Titanic was using, but no one was on the receiving end of the radio, so they kept sailing away.  All of this caused the Radio Act of 1912, which required 24-hour radio watches on all ships.

The first commercial broadcast happened on KDKA in Pittsburgh just in time for the 1920 Warren G. Harding vs. James Cox presidential election. During this time, radio receivers were super expensive, costing around $200, which is around $2,500 in today's economy. Fast-forward 2 years, and household radio saw rapid growth, and by 1925, over 20% of the country had access to it. 

Fast-forward to the 1950s, and the first commercial transistor radio, the Regency TR-1, was developed jointly by Texas Instruments and IDEA (Industrial Development Engineering Associates) in 1954. While John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley invented the underlying transistor technology at Bell Labs in 1947, the portable radio was designed to commercialize their invention. 

At this point, handheld radios were very common, but they had a major issues internal components broke when temperatures exceeded 85 degrees. There was also an economic issue with handheld radios, transitioning Japan from a post-war economy known for cheap, low-quality goods to a global leader in high-tech manufacturing, while simultaneously starting the decline of U.S. consumer electronics dominance.

This era established a new trade dynamic in which Japanese firms (such as Sony, Panasonic, and Toshiba) flooded the U.S. market with affordable, portable, and innovative products, creating intense competition and long-term trade deficits for the United States.