[AMRadio] A bit of Radio History

[CL in NC]

History class for a change of pace.  Some of you may have seen this before, but still good to refresh some roots.

>
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > Sometimes it is fun to find out how some of the many
> things that we take
> for
> > granted actually came into being! It all started with a
> woman's suggestion
> >
> >
> >
> > Seems like cars have always had radios, but they
> didn't.
> >
> > Here's the true story:
> >
> >
> >
> > SUNSET
> >
> > One evening, in 1929, two young men named William Lear
> and Elmer Wavering
> > drove their girlfriends to a lookout point high above
> the Mississippi
> River
> > town of Quincy, Illinois , to watch the sunset. It was
> a romantic night to
> > be sure, but one of the women observed that it would be
> even nicer if they
> > could listen to music in the car.
> >
> >
> >
> > Lear and Wavering liked the idea. Both men had tinkered
> with radios (Lear
> > had served as a radio operator in the U.S. Navy during
> World War I) and it
> > wasn't long before they were taking apart a home radio
> and trying to get
> it
> > to work in a car. But it wasn't as easy as it sounds:
> automobiles have
> > ignition switches, generators, spark plugs, and other
> electrical equipment
> > that generate noisy static interference, making it
> nearly impossible to
> > listen to the radio when the engine was running.
> >
> >
> >
> > SIGNING ON
> > One by one, Lear and Wavering identified and eliminated
> each source of
> > electrical interference. When they finally got their
> radio to work, they
> > took it to a radio convention in Chicago . There they
> met Paul Galvin,
> owner
> > of Galvin Manufacturing Corporation. He made a product
> called a "battery
> > eliminator" a device that allowed battery-powered
> radios to run on
> household
> > AC current. But as more homes were wired for
> electricity, more radio
> > manufacturers made AC-powered radios. Galvin needed a
> new product to
> > manufacture. When he met Lear and Wavering at the radio
> convention, he
> found
> > it. He believed that mass-produced, affordable car
> radios had the
> potential
> > to become a huge business.
> >
> >
> >
> > Lear and Wavering set up shop in Galvin's factory, and
> when they perfected
> > their first radio, they installed it in his Studebaker.
> Then Galvin went
> to
> > a local banker to apply for a loan. Thinking it might
> sweeten the deal, he
> > had his men install a radio in the banker's Packard.
> Good idea, but it
> > didn't work -- Half an hour after the installation, the
> banker's Packard
> > caught on fire. (They didn't get the loan.) Galvin
> didn't give up. He
> drove
> > his Studebaker nearly 800 miles to Atlantic City to
> show off the radio at
> > the 1930 Radio Manufacturers Association convention.
> Too broke to afford a
> > booth, he parked the car outside the convention hall
> and cranked up the
> > radio so that passing conventioneers could hear it.
> That idea worked -- He
> > got enough orders to put the radio into production.
> >
> >
> >
> > WHAT'S IN A NAME
> > That first production model was called the 5T71. Galvin
> decided he needed
> to
> > come up with something a little catchier. In those days
> many companies in
> > the phonograph and radio businesses used the suffix
> "ola" for their names
> --
> > Radiola, Columbiola, and Victrola were three of the
> biggest. Galvin
> decided
> > to do the same thing, and since his radio was intended
> for use in a motor
> > vehicle, he decided to call it the Motorola.
> >
> >
> >
> > But even with the name change, the radio still had
> problems:
> > When Motorola went on sale in 1930, it cost about $110
> uninstalled, at a
> > time when you could buy a brand-new car for $650, and
> the country was
> > sliding into the Great Depression. (By that measure, a
> radio for a new car
> > would cost about $3,000 today.) In 1930 it took two men
> several days to
> put
> > in a car radio -- The dashboard had to be taken apart
> so that the receiver
> > and a single speaker could be installed, and the
> ceiling had to be cut
> open
> > to install the antenna. These early radios ran on their
> own batteries, not
> > on the car battery, so holes had to be cut into the
> floorboard to
> > accommodate them. The installation manual had eight
> complete diagrams and
> 28
> > pages of instructions.
> >
> >
> >
> > HIT THE ROAD
> > Selling complicated car radios that cost 20 percent of
> the price of a
> > brand-new car wouldn't have been easy in the best of
> times, let alone
> during
> > the Great Depression -- Galvin lost money in 1930 and
> struggled for a
> couple
> > of years after that. But things picked up in 1933 when
> Ford began offering
> > Motorola's pre-installed at the factory. In 1934 they
> got another boost
> when
> > Galvin struck a deal with B.F. Goodrich tire company to
> sell and install
> > them in its chain of tire stores.
> >
> >
> >
> > By then the price of the radio, installation included,
> had dropped to $55.
> > The Motorola car radio was off and running. (The name
> of the company would
> > be officially changed from Galvin Manufacturing to
> "Motorola" in 1947.) In
> > the meantime, Galvin continued to develop new uses for
> car radios. In
> 1936,
> > the same year that it introduced push-button tuning, it
> also introduced
> the
> > Motorola Police Cruiser, a standard car radio that was
> factory preset to a
> > single frequency to pick up police broadcasts. In 1940
> he developed with
> the
> > first handheld two-way radio -- The Handie-Talkie --
> for the U. S. Army.
> >
> >
> > A lot of the communications technologies that we take
> for granted today
> were
> > born in Motorola labs in the years that followed World
> War II. In 1947
> they
> > came out with the first television to sell under $200.
> In 1956 the company
> > introduced the world's first pager; in 1969 it supplied
> the radio and
> > television equipment that was used to televise Neil
> Armstrong's first
> steps
> > on the Moon. In 1973 it invented the world's first
> handheld cellular
> phone.
> > Today Motorola is one of the largest cell phone
> manufacturer in the world
> --
> > And it all started with the car radio.
> >
> >
> >
> > WHATEVER HAPPENED TO
> > The two men who installed the first radio in Paul
> Galvin's car, Elmer
> > Wavering and William Lear, ended up taking very
> different paths in life.
> > Wavering stayed with Motorola. In the 1950's he helped
> change the
> automobile
> > experience again when he developed the first automotive
> alternator,
> > replacing inefficient and unreliable generators. The
> invention lead to
> such
> > luxuries as power windows, power seats, and,eventually,
> air-conditioning.
> >
> >
> >
> > Lear also continued inventing. He holds more than 150
> patents. Remember
> > eight-track tape players? Lear invented that. But what
> he's really famous
> > for are his contributions to the field of aviation. He
> invented radio
> > direction finders for planes, aided in the invention of
> the autopilot,
> > designed the first fully automatic aircraft landing
> system, and in 1963
> > introduced his most famous invention of all, the Lear
> Jet, the world's
> first
> > mass-produced, affordable business jet. (Not bad for a
> guy who dropped out
> > of school after the eighth grade.)
> 
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