A história do rádio - TecMundo

This is the 100th episode of the History of Technology series, and first of all I wanted to thank everyone for following the board every week! Our team works hard to deliver the best possible and we are very happy with the feedback you give here in the comments! Thanks, and here's to another 100!

To celebrate, it's not the history of TecMundo yet, sorry guys, but it's the trajectory of one of the most important means of communication in humanity, which was the most popular for decades and still survives today! It's the radio and, just like we did with the internet, there will be two episodes! Before seeing the radio story, I'll ask you to leave your thumbs up here on the TecMundo channel.

Sign up, tap the bell to receive the notification, access the History of Technology playlist to see the other 100 episodes, and let's go to the history of radio! [Music] The radio was the first great means of communication of high distances and speeds that we had. He gathered the family around him, served as a source of entertainment and information and was essential in the military environment, but it is important, before knowing the history, to understand in a basic way how it works!

Basically, radio uses electromagnetic waves to send a signal from an antenna that is amplified in the form of electrical impulses. These impulses contain information, which is speech that can be recorded by microphone, music or just noise. And they will be read by a receiver, which is the radio device , which we call a radio.

The loudspeakers of the device emit the sound, which is the signal converted into vibrations. Today, with digital transmission, we can replace the antenna with satellites, with the device converting the data in the same way, but basically this is how it works. In 1888, the German Heinrich Hertz makes the first major practical contribution to this technology.

He proves the existence and functioning of electromagnetic waves, and named the unit of measurement for the frequency of these waves: Hertz, symbol Hz. Years earlier, scientist James Maxwell theorized this, but now it has been confirmed. For decades, the phenomenon was known as Hertzian waves, but since they were electromagnetic radiation and a radiated signal, the name stuck was radio.

And the first use thought was not to listen to music, but to allow communication between two points in a more efficient way than the most used at the time, which was the telegraph. The telegraphy method of communication was fast, but relied on wires and did not use voices, but Morse code. At about this time, Thomas Edison filed a patent for the grasshopper telegraph, a wireless communication system that communicated between trains and stations using electromagnetic induction.

This system worked, but it was ignored by the companies and then it did not go forward. Just discovering radio waves was not enough: the human being needed to dominate and transmit it. And at that time there was no more capable person than Nikola Tesla.

On March 1, 1893, Tesla made the first public demonstration of wireless transmission, a still very rudimentary technology using magnetic receivers. It was in Saint Louis, in the US state of Missouri. He even filed a patent in 1987, but unfortunately, as with many of his other inventions, his experiments were put aside over time.

Only in 1940, well after the scientist's death, did the US Supreme Court reverse a previous decision and give Tesla the patent for early radio experiments. Who was in front at the time was the Italian Guglielmo Marconi, who was rich and influential and who was based on Tesla's studies to do the experiment itself. He began researching the subject in 1895 and ordered the construction of two transmitting and receiving radio stations: one on the coast of the United States and the other in England.

There, on December 12, 1901, the researcher successfully made the first long-distance telegraphic transmission in history using radio waves. It repeatedly sends the letter S from one port of the English Channel to the other. There it was confirmed that these waves were resistant, covering enormous distances at a fast speed.

Marconi's discovery earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1909 along with Karl Ferdinand Braun, which will also be very important in another story: that of television. Marconi was also responsible for the 1st radio company in the world: the Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company. As you can see, radio was not invented all at once by one person.

A series of very similar experiments were carried out around the world, with some being more official than others either by fame or by patents. The fact is that now the radio exists, and it begins to be improved little by little. And if you're missing the Brazilian contribution to this story, which is more incredible than you might think and involves a priest, don't worry, because that's the subject of another video.

Now, let's move on to the other news and evolutions. In 1897, Oliver Lodge invented the tuned electrical circuit. This is the idea of ​​transmitting messages by tuning equipment to a certain frequency.

Ships then begin installing radios to communicate with each other. In 1906, Lee De Forest created the triode, or three-element valve. This piece heats up a lot to work and was used for decades in radios, TVs and even computers, and is essential for operation, in this case amplifying the waves and producing sound in sufficient volume to send and be reproduced.

Lee also made one of the first broadcasts of music in that period and kept it on the air in the first fixed programs, which even had bulletins of the presidential election of the United States, won by Woodrow Wilson. The Titanic sank in 1912 and hundreds of people survived thanks to the radio as the ship transmitted a distress signal and was attended to by a nearby vessel, which managed to initiate the rescue. Seeing the importance of this means of communication, the United States publishes one of the first laws on radio that same year requiring regulation of stations.

In 1916, the radio became essential battlefield equipment during World War I. Troops communicated using the equipment, information flowed from the fronts to the cities. This also increased the manufacture of radio receivers by companies such as the North American Westinghouse, which installed a large one playing music in the city and also began to sell radios for domestic use.

At the beginning of the decade, RCA, the Radio Corporation of America, was born, a giant that began as a subsidiary of General Electric. It dominated the radio industry in the West as a receiver manufacturer, patent holder for Marconi's company, and creator of the first radio network, NBC. During this period, Waler Cronkite and Edward Murrow became the first radio journalists, specializing in passing and commenting on the news.

Then begins the golden age of radio out there , with the popularization of broadcast radio transmissions and the professionalization of broadcasters, not just scientists who liked technology. In 1920, the first commercial radio station in the world, the North American KDKA, was born in Pittsburgh. It was one of the first to broadcast commercials , local notices, sports and a live orchestra.

In 21 there were four stations on the air in the United States, at the end of 22 the country already had 382 stations in operation. The programs at the time were quite varied: the stations had newspapers, but also hours dedicated to music and also entertainment. Fiction programs were serials of the most diverse genres, from mystery stories to science fiction and adventure.

Famous characters who weren't born there but made it big include FlashGordon, Abbott and Costello, Dick Tracy and more. And, look, I don't even need to say that in music an artist to break out on the radio was much more important than releasing records because the station's advertising attracted the public to the shows and stores. Elvis Presley is perhaps one of the greatest examples of this.

First on the radio, then on TV. In England, this year, the signal of the British Broadcast Company, known as the BBC, begins to be transmitted. It is the beginning of the era of large networks and in the beginning of the 1930s the first radios built into cars also appear.

They were manufactured by specialized companies of the time, like good old Motorola. Now we also need to talk about a researcher named Edwin Armstrong. He was already well known in the area for having patented the superheterodyne, a circuit for receivers that amplified the signal and ensured stability when tuning into stations, and also guarantees better frequency selectivity.

It took a few years to start being manufactured, but it became the operating standard of radios to this day. But Armstrong's greatest asset came in 1933 with the creation of a business called frequency modulation. A technology that further increased the quality of signal reception, reducing static and sending waves regularly to antennas and devices.

The only defect is that this signal had less range than the traditional one. That same year, he demonstrated the system to the US Army and RCA. Did you recognize what I'm talking about?

Modulated frequency is FM radio. The opposite is AM, acronym for amplitude modulated, which means that the strength and range of the waves is greater, but the frequency and sound quality ends up being lower, in addition to suffering more interference, especially nowadays with so many antennas . with so many devices out there.

Armstrong gradually managed to implement its system and the two formats began to coexist. FM was mostly used for professional purposes and also for music playback, while AM ​​was for simpler voice-focused or even amateur radio. The first FM radio in history dates back to 1939, and in 1942 General Electric began to produce FM devices.

But let's go back a little to a curious event on October 30, 1938: the young Orson Wells decided to adapt the book War of the Worlds by HG Wells, unrelated, to a radio newspaper format, as if it were all true. He said at the beginning of the broadcast that it was all fiction, but a lot of people missed the beginning, didn't pay attention, and really thought [laughs] that the station was broadcasting an alien invasion. What was said for a long time is that the War of the Worlds caused panic in the country, there were people thinking about suicide to face the ETs and everything, but nowadays we know that in fact the transmission was not that apocalyptic .

It did reach around 1 million people, but the business gained legendary status over time. At least the lesson in manipulation and the power of the radio is good and still valid. During the Second World War, radio established itself as the main information vehicle as a source of news and declarations of war, battle results, then surrenders, along with newsreels.

In 1946, magnetic tape recorders appeared, which made the radio very agile and also recorded quality. Another revolution in all technology comes November 1947, with the legendary researchers at Bell Labs. They created the transistor, that tiny component that amplified the signal and that could release and interrupt electric current in a way that was much more efficient, much more compact than the valves, the vacuum tubes that we were using until now in the radio.

This is where portability also begins, with radios being taken everywhere and people carrying their device around . The first battery powered radio marketed with transistors was the Regency TR-1, from 1954. Its biggest competitor became the Japanese Sony, which learned from the North American business model that launched the TR-55, the first transistorized radio in Japan and the first with this new company name.

It was one of the first here on the History of Technology chart, check it out later, but don't notice the difference, it's much better now. In the 1950s, radio begins to focus even more on music and on morning and afternoon programming, as TV begins to rise in the evening with entertainment and journalism. FM radio starts to be more successful, with genres like rock'n'roll dominating the charts.

But not all places were like that. In the UK , for example, the BBC played neither pop nor rock music, and pirate radios installed on ships broadcast chart albums illegally, but with overwhelming audiences. From then on, the great radio revolutions began to become more spaced out because the medium accommodated itself in people's daily lives and began to be exchanged by many people, but that does not mean the advances stopped.

On June 10, 1962, NASA launched TELSTAR, the first active communications satellite, into space. It was from AT&T and it relayed an amplified radio signal received from Earth to a much larger region. He was also essential for other stories, such as television and also the telephone.

And that also meant that the digital era was coming. In 1980, studies began on transmissions made via digital audio broadcast, acronym DAB. That was the promise of listening to the radio with CD quality, being able to receive texts and images in addition to voice and less interference.

In addition, transmission is more economical in terms of energy spent on transmitting and receiving the signal. There are four different formats there: two European, one American and one Japanese, and you have to pay to use these proprietary technologies. Each country decides to embark on digital radio and then needs to choose its standard.

And, look, not everyone has embarked on this since it requires a lot of debate and a whole change of habits on the part of the population. The first DAB radio started in 1995. Also in the beginning of the 90's, the radio amateur shows signs that he still lives with experiments that allow transmissions made by the computer using the same sound cards.

This spawned many amateur or even pirate stations, community radios and so on. There are also those who prefer to do internet radio by creating a station using specialized software to play with or just making professional programs. This fad lost a little strength nowadays, but it was a good alternative for those who had already abandoned the receivers.

Today, most people carry the radio either in their car as part of a stereo that is a true multimedia transmission system, or in their cell phone with FM radio applications that are not present in all devices. The first fully digital radio transmitter is called Pizzicato and was introduced in 2015 using computational powers to make the signal better than ever. But it's still going to take some time to get out of the labs.

And look at things changing. In 2017, Norway announced that it will be the first country to end FM transmission, adopting one of the DAB standards for good. Other European countries should follow the same strategy.

Apart from everything I've said, radio technology has had many other applications. It was used for discoveries in heating, radar, meteorology, medicine and more, not to mention internet via radio, which was popular here in Brazil as well. Also, without radio, we wouldn't have one of the favorite media for many people today, podcasts, but that's another story.

And this was the 100th episode of the History of Technology with the history of the radio, a means of communication that today we may pay less attention to, but which was the great king of technology for many, many ecades. Remembering that the history of radio in Brazil is for another very special video because we deserve it. If you have a suggestion for a company, product or service to appear here on the board, leave your comment so you know we read it.

I'll ask you again to give the video a thumbs-up, leave a subscription, ring the bell and check out the History of Technology playlist, which has another 100 episodes for you to watch! See you next time!