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Marconi
He was the first Italian inventor and he sent and received the first radio signals. He is credited with being the first to do this, but others argue he wasn't and the only reason he was credited was because of good public relations. There is still controversy with this. -
AM Waves
AM is the modulation of a wave by varying its amplitude which is mostly used for radio broadcasting. It's an audio signal and is combined with a carrier wave. AM waves aew 535 KHz - 1605 KHz. -
Audion Tube
Lee De Forest is most likely the person who created (or may have evn borrowed) the idea of the audion tube. It's a vacuum tube that amplifies the signals. Some people believe, however, that Reginald Fessenden was the first to come up with the idea. -
Musical Transmission
Reginald Fessenden was the first to transmit a program of speech and music. -
Radio Stations
It took Marconi at least 25 years to get a radio station to broadcast. In the 1920s the first radio station went on the air and was called 8XK. It was later renamed KDKA and is still on the air in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. It was created by Frank Conrad. -
Uncle Charlie
Term used for personal radio stations. In present day, you cannot own your own station unless you have the money to do so. Everyone wanted their own personal station. -
The Dawn of Advertising
WEAF aired a 10 minute commercial, or "toll broadcast". They did it from an apartment and charged $50. Radios broadcast commercials to get money and sell advertisements to make a profit. Airing an avertisement is very expensive. -
Federal Radio Commission
Uncle Charlie was beginning to get too popular, and people were beginning to get angry because the advertisements they paid for were from Uncle Charlies. So, the FRC was put into place. They also assigned radio station frequencies, call letters, and powerlines. -
Call Letters
Used to identify each station. They need call letters because other radio stations can't use the same frequencies. For example, WFAA is a call station for channel 8. -
Golden Era of Radio
Everyone was listening to the rdio around this time. It was very popular during the 30's and 40's. People during the war and the Great Depression used radio to escape and relax from the troubles of the world around them. -
FM Waves
FM, or Frequency Modulation, is 88MHz - 108MHz. They change the frequency of the waves and is primarily used in radio broadcasting. When turning the radio dial, you can hear different frequencies. -
Family Medium
A family medium was used so a whole family could gather around the radio and listen together. They would listen to music, stories, comedy, and drama. -
Famous Shows of the Golden Era
"The Shadow" was a very famous show broadcasted over the radio. Other shows began coming out, and it became very popular to broadcast them over radio. -
Compacted Disc
When the compacted disc was created, it replaced radio because now people could just download and burn music onto it. It didn't necessarily replace the radio because many people still enjoyed listening to it. Even today, people listen to the radio very often. -
Compressed Audio MP3
MP3 (The Moving Picture Experts Group MPEG-1 Audio Layer III) becomes a very popular audio format. Eventually became the most popular format for audio format over the Internet.
