[AMRadio] A bit of Radio History

[Todd Carpenter]

Awesome, i love stories like that

Sent from my Samsung smartphone on AT&T

CL in NC <mjcal77 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>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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