Blog Post #5

EOTO Reaction #1

    On our first EOTO presentation day, a classmate gave a very informative presentation on the radio and how it impacted different sects of society. I thought it was very well-done and made me think about the radio in a way I hadn't quite done so before. 

    The basic history he went over was that in 1899 Guglielmo Marconi created the first version of the radio. He began his research and experimentation in 1894, following the work of James Clerk Maxwell and Heinrich Hertz. His beginning transmissions had the range of about 1.5 miles, which was enough for Marconi to announce the potential of this new communication method.

    Then in 1906 Reginald Fessenden discovered the first long distance broadcast. He was a pioneer in the radio world when he achieved the first ever music and voice long distance broadcast on Christmas Eve in 1906. He was interested in transmitting continuous sound (specifically human voice) versus Marconi who just wanted to send messages out. His idea was to superimpose an electrical signal, which oscillates at the frequencies of sound waves, upon a radio wave of constant frequency, which modulates the amplitude of the radio wave into the shape of the sound wave. Today this is what we call AM radio or Amplitude Modulation. 

    This was all followed by what brought us to our version of the radio in 1933 with the first FM broadcast by Edwin Armstrong. After securing four different patents on advanced circuit systems, Armstrong was able to solve the last basic problems with the radio, bringing us from transmitters to receivers. His new system changed how radios work because instead of varying the amplitude, or power of radio his method varied the waves' frequency. This became known as Frequency Modulation, or how we call it today FM Radio. 

    I think what made this presentation especially interesting to me though was learning about how the invention of the radio impacted politics in the US. For example post World War II, Winston Churchill's famous speech being broadcasted across radio stations, or FDR's fireside chats. I was shocked to learn that the first presidential debate on radio was in 1948, and that it was the republican primary of all things. The impact the radio has had on not only communication is clear, as it's been able to grow the news, sporting events, music, and political communications to new levels.