History of radio

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programming of early radio stations, see Old-time radio.
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The early history of radio is the history of technology that produced radio instruments
that use radio waves. Within the timeline of radio, many people contributed theory and
inventions in what became radio.[1] Radio development began as "wireless telegraphy".
[1]
Later radio history increasingly involves matters of programming and content.

Who invented the radio?

In the history of radio and

development of "wireless
telegraphy", several people are
claimed to have "invented the
radio" leading to a great radio
controversy. The most commonly
accepted claims are:

 Jagadish Chandra Bose

 Guglielmo Marconi, who
equipped ships with life-
saving wireless
communications,
conducted a reported
transatlantic radio
communications
experiments in 1901 and
established the first
commercial transatlantic
radio service in 1907.
 Alexander Stepanovich
Popov
 Nikola Tesla, who
developed means to
produce radio frequency
currents, publicly
demonstrated the
principles of radio, and
transmitted long distance
 signals.

Radio technology is a product of

many different discoveries and
developments.

Various scientists proposed that electricity and magnetism, both capable of causing
attraction and repulsion of objects, were linked. In 1802 Gian Domenico Romagnosi
suggested the relationship between electric current and magnetism, but his reports went
unnoticed. In 1820 Hans Christian Ørsted performed a widely known experiment on
man-made electric current and magnetism. He demonstrated that a wire carrying a
current could deflect a magnetized compass needle. Ørsted's experiments discovered the
relationship between electricity and magnetism in a very simple experiment. Ørsted's
work influenced André-Marie Ampère to produce a theory of electromagnetism. During
its early development and long after wide use of the technology, disputes persisted as to
who could claim sole credit for this obvious boon to mankind. Closely related, radio
was developed along with two other key inventions, the telegraph and the telephone.[1]

Contents
[hide]

 1 Wireless experiments of the 19th century

o 1.1 Faraday
o 1.2 Maxwell
o 1.3 William Henry Ward
o 1.4 Mahlon Loomis
o 1.5 Edison (1875)
o 1.6 David E. Hughes
o 1.7 Calzecchi-Onesti
o 1.8 Edouard Branly
o 1.9 Edison (1885)
o 1.10 Hertz
o 1.11 Stubblefield
o 1.12 Landell de Moura
 2 Beginnings of radio
o 2.1 Nikola Tesla
o 2.2 Oliver Lodge
o 2.3 Jagdish Chandra Bose
o 2.4 Alexander Popov
o 2.5 Ernest Rutherford
o 2.6 Guglielmo Marconi
o 2.7 Julio Cervera Baviera
o 2.8 Turn of the century
 3 Early radio telegraphy and telephony
o 3.1 British Marconi
o 3.2 Telefunken
o 3.3 Reginald Fessenden
 o 3.4 Ferdinand Braun
o 3.5 Charles David Herrold
o 3.6 Harold J. Power
o 3.7 Edwin Armstrong
 4 Other innovators
 5 Audio broadcasting (1919 to 1950s)
o 5.1 Crystal sets
o 5.2 The first vacuum tubes
o 5.3 Licensed commercial public radio stations
o 5.4 Dates of first radio stations
 5.4.1 US and Canadian territories
 5.4.2 Other countries
o 5.5 FM and television start
o 5.6 Marconi/Tesla priority dispute
o 5.7 FM in Europe
 6 Later 20th century developments
o 6.1 Color television and digital
o 6.2 Telex on radio
 7 21st century development
o 7.1 Internet radio
o 7.2 Digital audio broadcasting
o 7.3 Related articles
 8 Legal issues with radio
 9 Exotic technologies
 10 See also
 11 Notes and citations
 12 Footnotes
 13 References
o 13.1 Primary sources
o 13.2 Secondary sources
 14 Media and documentaries
 15 External links

Wireless experiments of the 19th century

In the late 19th century it was clear to various scientists and experimenters that wireless
communication was possible. Various theoretical and experimental innovations led to
the development of radio and the communication system we know today. Some early
work was done by local effects and experiments of electromagnetic induction. Many
understood that there was nothing similar to the "ethereal telegraphy" [2][3] and
telegraphy by induction; the phenomena being wholly distinct. Wireless telegraphy was
beginning to take hold and the practice of transmitting messages without wires was
being developed. Many people worked on developing the devices and improvements.

Faraday
James Clerk Maxwell, a theoretical physicist who developed a set of equations
describing electromagnetic waves. These later later became known as Maxwell's
equations.

In 1831, Michael Faraday began a series of experiments in which he discovered

electromagnetic induction. The relation was mathematically modelled by Faraday's law,
which subsequently became one of the four Maxwell equations. Faraday proposed that
electromagnetic forces extended into the empty space around the conductor, but did not
complete his work involving that proposal.

Maxwell

Between 1861 and 1865, based on the earlier experimental work of Faraday and other
scientists, James Clerk Maxwell developed his theory of electromagnetism, which
predicted the existence of electromagnetic waves. In 1873 Maxwell described the
theoretical basis of the propagation of electromagnetic waves in his paper to the Royal
Society, "A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field."

William Henry Ward

In April 1872 William Henry Ward received U.S. Patent 126,356 for radio
development. However, this patent did not refer to any known scientific theory of
electromagnetism and could never have received and transmitted radio waves.

Mahlon Loomis

A few months after Ward received his patent, Mahlon Loomis of West Virginia
received U.S. Patent 129,971 for a "wireless telegraph" in July 1872. This claimed to
utilize atmospheric electricity to eliminate the overhead wire used by the existing
telegraph systems. It did not contain diagrams or specific methods and it did not refer to
or incorporate any known scientific theory. It is substantially similar to William Henry
Ward's patent and could not have transmitted and received radio waves.

Edison (1875)
Towards the end of 1875, while experimenting with the telegraph, Thomas Edison
noted a phenomenon that he termed "etheric force", announcing it to the press on
November 28. He abandoned this research when Elihu Thomson, among others,
ridiculed the idea. The idea was not based on the electromagnetic waves described by
Maxwell.

David E. Hughes

In 1878, David E. Hughes noticed that sparks could be heard in a telephone receiver
when experimenting with his carbon microphone. He developed this carbon-based
detector further and eventually could detect signals over a few hundred yards. He
demonstrated his discovery to the Royal Society in 1880, but was told it was merely
induction, and therefore abandoned further research.

Calzecchi-Onesti

In 1884, Temistocle Calzecchi-Onesti at Fermo in Italy invented a primitive device that

responded to radio waves. It consisted of a tube filled with iron filings, called a
"coherer". This device was a critical discovery because it would later be developed to
become the first practical radio detector.

Edouard Branly

Between 1884 and 1886, Edouard Branly of France produced an improved version of
the coherer.

Edison (1885)

In 1885, Edison took out U.S. Patent 465,971 on a system of radio communication
between ships (which later he sold to Marconi). The patent, however, was not based on
the transmission and reception of electromagnetic waves.

Hertz

Between 1886 and 1888, Heinrich Rudolf Hertz studied Maxwell's theory and validated
it through experiment. He demonstrated the transmission and reception of the
electromagnetic waves predicted by Maxwell and thus was the first person to
intentionally transmit and receive radio. He discovered that the electromagnetic
equations could be reformulated into a partial differential equation called the wave
equation. Famously, he saw no practical use for his discovery. For more information see
Hertz's radio work.

Stubblefield

Claims have been made that Murray, Kentucky farmer Nathan Stubblefield developed
radio between 1885 and 1892, before either Tesla or Marconi, but his devices seemed to
have worked by induction transmission rather than radio transmission.

Landell de Moura
Between 1893 and 1894, Roberto Landell de Moura, a Brazilian priest and scientist,
conducted experiments in wireless transmissions. He did not publicize his achievement
until 1900, when he held a public demonstration of a wireless transmission of voice in
São Paulo, Brazil on June 3.

Beginnings of radio

Nikola Tesla developed means to reliably produce radio frequencies, publicly

demonstrated the principles of radio, and transmitted long distant signals.

There are varying disputed claims about who invented radio, which in the beginning
was called "wireless telegraphy". The key invention for the beginning of "wireless
transmission of data using the entire frequency spectrum", known as the spark-gap
transmitter, has been attributed to various men. Marconi equipped ships with lifesaving
wireless communications and established the first transatlantic radio service. Tesla
developed means to reliably produce radio frequency electrical currents, publicly
demonstrated the principles of radio, and transmitted long distance signals.

Nikola Tesla

In 1891 Tesla began his research into radio. He later published an article, "The True
Wireless", concerning this research.[4] In 1892 he gave a lecture called "Experiments
with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High Frequency", in London (Available
at Project Gutenberg).[5] In 1893, at St. Louis, Missouri, Tesla gave a public
demonstration of "wireless" radio communication. Addressing the Franklin Institute in
Philadelphia and the National Electric Light Association, he described in detail the
principles of radio communication.[6]

The apparatus that Tesla used contained all the elements that were incorporated into
radio systems before the development of the "oscillation valve", the early vacuum tube.
Tesla initially used sensitive electromagnetic receivers,[7] that were unlike the less
responsive coherers later used by Marconi and other early experimenters.

Afterward, the principle of radio communication (sending signals through space to

receivers) was publicized widely from Tesla's experiments and demonstrations. Various
scientists, inventors, and experimenters began to investigate wireless methods. For more
information see Tesla's wireless work.

Oliver Lodge

Oliver Lodge transmitted radio signals on August 14, 1894 (one year after Tesla, five
years after Heinrich Hertz and one year before Marconi) at a meeting of the British
Association for the Advancement of Science at Oxford University.[8] (In 1995, the Royal
Society recognized this scientific breakthrough at a special ceremony at Oxford
University. For more information, see Past Years: An Autobiography, New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, p231.)

On 19 August 1894 Lodge demonstrated the reception of Morse code signalling via
radio waves using a "coherer". He improved Edouard Branly's coherer radio wave
detector by adding a "trembler" which dislodged clumped filings, thus restoring the
device's sensitivity. [9] In August 1898 he got U.S. Patent 609,154, "Electric
Telegraphy", that made wireless signals using Ruhmkorff coils or Tesla coils for the
transmitter and a Branly coherer for the detector. This was key to the "syntonic" tuning
concept. In 1912 Lodge sold the patent to Marconi.

Jagdish Chandra Bose

In November 1894, the Indian physicist, Jagdish Chandra Bose, demonstrated publicly
the use of radio waves in Calcutta, but he was not interested in patenting his work.[10]
Bose ignited gunpowder and rang a bell at a distance using electromagnetic waves,
proving that communication signals can be sent without using wires. He was thus the
first to send and receive radio waves over a significant distance but did not
commercially exploit this achievement.

The 1895 public demonstration by Bose in Calcutta was before Marconi's wireless
signalling experiment on Salisbury Plain in England in May 1897.[11][12] In 1896, the
Daily Chronicle of England reported on his UHF experiments: "The inventor (J.C.
Bose) has transmitted signals to a distance of nearly a mile and herein lies the first and
obvious and exceedingly valuable application of this new theoretical marvel."

Alexander Popov
Popov was the first man to demonstrate the practical applications of radio waves.

In 1895, the Russian physicist Alexander Popov built a coherer. On May 7, 1895, Popov
performed a public demonstration of transmission and reception of radio waves used for
communication at the Russian Physical and Chemical Society, using his coherer:[13] this
day has since been celebrated in Russia as "Radio Day". He did not apply for a patent
for this invention. Popov's early experiments were transmissions of only 600 yards
(550 m). Popov was the first to develop a practical communication system based on the
coherer, and is usually considered by the Russians to have been the inventor of radio.[14]
[15]

Around March 1896 Popov demonstrated in public the transmission of radio waves,
between different campus buildings, to the Saint Petersburg Physical Society. (This was
before the public demonstration of the Marconi system around September 1896.) Per
other accounts, however, Popov achieved these results only in December 1897—that is,
after publication of Marconi's patent.[16] In 1898 his signal was received 6 miles
(9.7 km) away, and in 1899 30 miles away. In 1900, Popov stated at the Congress of
Russian Electrical Engineers that,

"the emission and reception of signals by Marconi by means of electric

oscillations was nothing new, as in America Nikola Tesla did the same
experiments in 1893."[17][18]

Later Popov experimented with ship-to-shore communication. Popov died in 1905 and
his claim was not pressed by the Russian government until 1945.

Ernest Rutherford

The New Zealander Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson was
instrumental in the development of radio. In 1895 he was awarded an Exhibition of
1851 Science Research Scholarship to Cambridge. He arrived in England with a
reputation as an innovator and inventor, and distinguished himself in several fields,
initially by working out the electrical properties of solids and then using wireless waves
as a method of signalling. Rutherford was encouraged in his work by Sir Robert Ball,
who had been scientific adviser to the body maintaining lighthouses on the Irish coast;
he wished to solve the difficult problem of a ship's inability to detect a lighthouse in fog.
Sensing fame and fortune, Rutherford increased the sensitivity of his apparatus until he
could detect electromagnetic waves over a distance of several hundred meters. The
commercial development, though, of wireless technology was left for others, as
Rutherford continued purely scientific research. Thomson quickly realised that
Rutherford was a researcher of exceptional ability and invited him to join in a study of
the electrical conduction of gases.

Guglielmo Marconi

Guglielmo Marconi was an electrical engineer and Nobel laureate known for the
development of a practical wireless telegraphy system.

In 1896, Guglielmo Marconi was awarded a patent for radio with British Patent 12039,
Improvements in Transmitting Electrical Impulses and Signals and in Apparatus There-
for. This was the initial patent for the radio, though it used various earlier techniques of
various other experimenters (primarily Tesla) and resembled the instrument
demonstrated by others (including Popov). During this time spark-gap wireless
telegraphy was widely researched.

In 1896, Bose went to London on a lecture tour and met Marconi, who was conducting
wireless experiments for the British post office. In 1897, Marconi established the radio
station at Niton, Isle of Wight, England. In 1897, Tesla applied for two key radio
patents in the USA. Those two patents were issued in early 1900. In 1898, Marconi
opened a radio factory in Hall Street, Chelmsford, England, employing around 50
people. In 1899, Bose announced his invention of the "iron-mercury-iron coherer with
telephone detector" in a paper presented at Royal Society, London.

Julio Cervera Baviera

Julio Cervera Baviera

Recent studies in Spain credit Julio Cervera Baviera as the inventor of the radio (in
1902).[19] [20] Cervera Baviera obtained patents in England, Germany, Belgium, and
Spain. In May-June 1899, Cervera had, with the blessing of the Spanish Army, visited
Marconi's radiotelegraphic installations on the English Channel, and worked to develop
his own system. He began collaborating with Marconi on resolving the problem of a
wireless communication system, obtaining some patents by the end of 1899. Cervera,
who had worked with Marconi and his assistant George Kemp in 1899, resolved the
difficulties of wireless telegraph and obtained his first patents prior to the end of that
year. On March 22, 1902, Cervera founded the Spanish Wireless Telegraph and
Telephone Corporation and brought to his corporation the patents he had obtained in
Spain, Belgium, Germany and England.[21] He established the second and third regular
radiotelegraph service in the history of the world in 1901 and 1902 by maintaining
regular transmissions between Tarifa and Ceuta for three consecutive months, and
between Javea (Cabo de la Nao) and Ibiza (Cabo Pelado). This is after Marconi
established the radiotelegraphic service between the Isle of Wight and Bournemouth in
1898. In 1906, Domenico Mazzotto wrote: "In Spain the Minister of War has applied
the system perfected by the commander of military engineering, Julio Cervera Baviera
(English patent No. 20084 (1899))."[22] Cervera thus achieved some success in this field,
but his radiotelegraphic activities ceased suddenly, the reasons for which are unclear to
this day.[23]

Turn of the century

Around the turn of the century, the Slaby-Arco wireless system was developed by Adolf
Slaby and Georg von Arco. In 1900, Reginald Fessenden made a weak transmission of
voice over the airwaves. Around 1900, Tesla opened the Wardenclyffe Tower facility
and advertised services. In 1901, Marconi conducted the first successful transatlantic
experimental radio communications. In 1903, Wardenclyffe Tower neared completion.
Various theories exist on how Tesla intended to achieve the goals of this wireless
system (reportedly, a 200 kW system). Tesla claimed that Wardenclyffe, as part of a
World System of transmitters, would have allowed secure multichannel transceiving of
information, universal navigation, time synchronization, and a global location system.

In 1904, The U.S. Patent Office reversed its decision, awarding Marconi a patent for the
invention of radio, possibly influenced by Marconi's financial backers in the States, who
included Thomas Edison and Andrew Carnegie. This also allowed the U.S. government
(among others) to avoid having to pay the royalties that were being claimed by Tesla for
use of his patents. For more information see Marconi's radio work. In 1907, Marconi
established the first commercial transatlantic radio communications service, between
Clifden, Ireland and Glace Bay, Newfoundland.

Early radio telegraphy and telephony

Donald Manson working as an employee of the Marconi Company (England, 1906)

British Marconi

Using various patents, the company called British Marconi was established in 1897 and
began communication between coast radio stations and ships at sea. This company
along with its subsidiary American Marconi, had a stranglehold on ship to shore
communication. It operated much the way American Telephone and Telegraph operated
until 1983, owning all of its equipment and refusing to communicate with non-Marconi
equipped ships. Many inventions improved the quality of radio, and amateurs
experimented with uses of radio, thus the first seeds of broadcasting were planted.

Telefunken

The company Telefunken was founded on May 27, 1903 as "Telefunken society for
wireless telefon" of Siemens & Halske (S & H) and the Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-
Gesellschaft (General Electricity Company) as joint undertakings for radio engineering
in Berlin. It continued as a joint venture of AEG and Siemens AG, until Siemens left in
1941. In 1911, Kaiser Wilhelm II sent Telefunken engineers to West Sayville, New
York to erect three 600-foot (180-m) radio towers there. Nikola Tesla assisted in the
construction. A similar station was erected in Nauen, creating the only wireless
communication between North America and Europe.

Reginald Fessenden

The invention of amplitude-modulated (AM) radio, so that more than one station can
send signals (as opposed to spark-gap radio, where one transmitter covers the entire
bandwidth of the spectrum) is attributed to Reginald Fessenden and Lee de Forest. On
Christmas Eve 1906, Reginald Fessenden used an Alexanderson alternator and rotary
spark-gap transmitter to make the first radio audio broadcast, from Brant Rock,
Massachusetts. Ships at sea heard a broadcast that included Fessenden playing O Holy
Night on the violin and reading a passage from the Bible.

Ferdinand Braun

In 1909, Marconi and Karl Ferdinand Braun were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics
for "contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy".

Charles David Herrold

In April 1909 Charles David Herrold, an electronics instructor in San Jose, California
constructed a broadcasting station. It used spark gap technology, but modulated the
carrier frequency with the human voice, and later music. The station "San Jose Calling"
(there were no call letters), continued to eventually become today's KCBS in San
Francisco. Herrold, the son of a Santa Clara Valley farmer, coined the terms
"narrowcasting" and "broadcasting", respectively to identify transmissions destined for
a single receiver such as that on board a ship, and those transmissions destined for a
general audience. (The term "broadcasting" had been used in farming to define the
tossing of seed in all directions.) Charles Herrold did not claim to be the first to transmit
the human voice, but he claimed to be the first to conduct "broadcasting". To help the
radio signal to spread in all directions, he designed some omnidirectional antennas,
which he mounted on the rooftops of various buildings in San Jose. Herrold also claims
to be the first broadcaster to accept advertising (he exchanged publicity for a local
record store for records to play on his station), though this dubious honour usually is
foisted on WEAF (1922).

RMS Titanic (April 2, 1912).

In 1912, the RMS Titanic sank in the northern Atlantic Ocean. After this, wireless
telegraphy using spark-gap transmitters quickly became universal on large ships. In
1913, the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea was convened and
produced a treaty requiring shipboard radio stations to be manned 24 hours a day. A
typical high-power spark gap was a rotating commutator with six to twelve contacts per
wheel, nine inches (229 mm) to a foot wide, driven by about 2000 volts DC. As the
gaps made and broke contact, the radio wave was audible as a tone in a crystal set. The
telegraph key often directly made and broke the 2000 volt supply. One side of the spark
gap was directly connected to the antenna. Receivers with thermionic valves became
commonplace before spark-gap transmitters were replaced by continuous wave
transmitters.

Harold J. Power

On March 8, 1916, Harold Power with his radio company American Radio and
Research Company (AMRAD), broadcast the first continuous broadcast in the world
from Tufts University under the call sign 1XE (it lasted 3 hours). The company later
became the first to broadcast on a daily schedule, and the first to broadcast radio dance
programs, university professor lectures, the weather, and bedtime stories [24].

Edwin Armstrong
Inventor Edwin Howard Armstrong is credited with developing many of the features of
radio as it is known today. Armstrong patented three important inventions that made
today's radio possible. Regeneration, the superheterodyne circuit and wide-band
frequency modulation or FM. Regeneration or the use of positive feedback greatly
increased the amplitude of received radio signals to the point where they could be heard
without headphones. The superhet simplified radio receivers by doing away with the
need for several tuning controls. It made radios more sensitive and selective as well. FM
gave listeners a static-free experience with better sound quality and fidelity than AM.

Other innovators
Many scientists and inventors contributed to the invention of wireless telegraphy and
telephony. Individuals that helped to further the science include, among others:

 Georg von Arco: European pioneer.

 Edouard Branly: invention of the Branly coherer around 1890.
 Temistocle Calzecchi-Onesti: constructed a tuning "tube".
 Archie Frederick Collins: Arc transmitter for voice broadcasts, 1899.
 Amos Dolbear: Earth transmission, U.S. Patent 350,299.
 Thomas Alva Edison: "Etheric Force" experiments 1875; U.S. Patent 465,971,
1891.
 Michael Faraday: discovered electromagnetic induction.
 Reginald Fessenden: advanced "continuous" wave transmission.
 Benjamin Franklin: First to experiment with an elevated conductor.
 Hans Christian Ørsted: discovered that a magnetic field surrounds a wire
carrying current.
 Joseph Henry: transmitted radiant energy from a capacitor through a coil and
detected it 100 feet (30 m) away, December 1840.
 Charles Herrold: advanced radio broadcasting.
 David E. Hughes: early experiments with transmission and reception.
 Mahlon Loomis: first to use the combination of an aerial wire and ground
connection.
 Guglielmo Marconi: commercialized radio.
 James Clerk Maxwell: developed a set of equations expressing the basic laws of
electricity and magnetism.
 Jozef Murgaš: extensive work in the late 1890s.
 G. W. Pierce: circuits for crystal oscillators for fixed-frequency operation.
 William Henry Preece: early experiments in electromagnetism and wireless
telephony.
 Augusto Righi: continued Hertz's experiments.
 Harry Shoemaker: 1901 to 1905; 40 patents.
 Adolphus Slaby: European pioneer.
 John Stone Stone: 1901 to 1904; 70 patents.
 Nathan Stubblefield: wireless telephony demonstrations around 1902; U.S.
Patent 887,357, 1908.
 Nikola Tesla: 1891 to 1914; 27+ patents related to the transmission of electrical
energy without wires.
Audio broadcasting (1919 to 1950s)
See also: Old-time radio

Crystal sets

In the 1920s, the United States government publication, "Construction and Operation of
a Simple Homemade Radio Receiving Outfit", showed how almost any person handy
with simple tools could a build an effective crystal radio receiver.

The most common type of receiver before vacuum tubes was the crystal set, although
some early radios used some type of amplification through electric current or battery.
Inventions of the triode amplifier, motor-generator, and detector enabled audio radio.
The use of amplitude modulation (AM), with which more than one station can
simultaneously send signals (as opposed to spark-gap radio, where one transmitter
covers the entire bandwidth of spectra) was pioneered by Fessenden and Lee de Forest.

To this day there is a small but avid base of fans of this technology who study and
practice the art and science of designing and making crystal sets as a hobby; the Boy
Scouts of America have often undertaken such craft projects to introduce boys to
electronics and radio, and quite a number of them having grown up remain staunch fans
of a radio that 'runs on nothing, forever'. As the only energy available is that gathered by
the antenna system, there are inherent limitations on how much sound even an ideal set
could produce, but with only moderately decent antenna systems remarkable
performance is possible with a superior set.

The first vacuum tubes

During the mid 1920s, amplifying vacuum tubes (or thermionic valves in the UK)
revolutionized radio receivers and transmitters. John Ambrose Fleming developed an
earlier tube known as an "oscillation valve" (it was a diode). Lee De Forest placed a
screen, the "grid" electrode, between the filament and plate electrode, creating the
triode. The Dutch engineer Hanso Schotanus à Steringa Idzerda made the first regular
wireless broadcast for entertainment from his home in The Hague on 6 November 1919.
He broadcast his popular program four nights per week until 1924 when he ran into
financial troubles.

On 27 August 1920, regular wireless broadcasts for entertainment began in Argentina,

pioneered by the group around Enrique Telémaco Susini, and spark gap telegraphy
stopped. On 31 August 1920 the first known radio news program was broadcast by
station 8MK, the unlicensed predecessor of WWJ (AM) in Detroit, Michigan. In 1922
regular wireless broadcasts for entertainment began in the UK from the Marconi
Research Centre 2MT at Writtle near Chelmsford, England. Early radios ran the entire
power of the transmitter through a carbon microphone. In the 1920s, the Westinghouse
company bought Lee De Forest's and Edwin Armstrong's patent. During the mid 1920s,
Amplifying vacuum tubes (US)/thermionic valves (UK) revolutionized radio receivers
and transmitters. Westinghouse engineers developed a more modern vacuum tube.

Licensed commercial public radio stations

The question of the 'first' publicly-targeted licensed radio station in the U.S. has more
than one answer and depends on semantics. Settlement of this 'first' question may hang
largely upon what constitutes 'regular' programming.

 It is commonly attributed to KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which in

October 1920 received its license and went on the air as the first US licensed
commercial broadcasting station. (Their engineer Frank Conrad had been
broadcasting from his own station since 1916.) Technically, KDKA was the first
of several already-extant stations to receive a 'limited commercial' license.
 On February 17, 1919, station 9XM at the University of Wisconsin in Madison
broadcast human speech to the public at large. 9XM was first experimentally
licensed in 1914, began regular Morse code transmissions in 1916, and its first
music broadcast in 1917. Regularly scheduled broadcasts of voice and music
began in January 1921. That station is still on the air today as WHA.
 On August 20, 1920, at least two months before KDKA, E.W. Scripps's WBL
(now WWJ) in Detroit started broadcasting. It has carried a regular schedule of
programming to the present.
 There is the history noted above of Charles David Herrold's radio services
(eventually KCBS) going back to 1909.

Broadcasting was not yet supported by advertising or listener sponsorship. The stations
owned by manufacturers and department stores were established to sell radios and those
owned by newspapers to sell newspapers and express the opinions of the owners. In the
1920s, radio was first used to transmit pictures visible as television. During the early
1930s, single sideband (SSB) and frequency modulation (FM) were invented by
amateur radio operators. By 1940, they were established commercial modes.

Westinghouse was brought into the patent allies group, General Electric, American
Telephone and Telegraph, and Radio Corporation of America, and became a part owner
of RCA. All radios made by GE and Westinghouse were sold under the RCA label 60%
GE and 40% Westinghouse. ATT's Western Electric would build radio transmitters. The
patent allies attempted to set up a monopoly, but they failed due to successful
competition. Much to the dismay of the patent allies, several of the contracts for
inventor's patents held clauses protecting "amateurs" and allowing them to use the
patents. Whether the competing manufacturers were really amateurs was ignored by
these competitors.

These features arose:

  Commercial (United States) or governmental (Europe) station networks
 Federal Radio Commission
 Federal Communications Commission
 CCIR
 Birth of the soap opera
 Race towards shorter waves and FM

Dates of first radio stations

This is a listing of radio stations in broadcast networks. The earliest radio stations were
simply radio telegraph systems which did not carry audio are not listed. The included
first radio station encompass AM and FM stations; these include both commercial,
public and nonprofit varieties found throughout the world.

Note
The first claimed audio transmission that could be termed to be from a broadcast station occurred
on Christmas Eve in 1906, and was made by Reginald Fessenden.
Charles Herrold started broadcasting from a station in California in 1909 and was carrying audio
by 1910.
Note
Some of the dates listed here may not be accurate. Feel free to make corrections
to either of the lists.