Radio is the transmission of signals by
modulation of
electromagnetic waves with
frequencies below those of
visible light. Electromagnetic radiation
travels by means of oscillating
electromagnetic fields that
pass through the air and the
vacuum of space.
Information is carried by systematically changing (
modulating) some property of the radiated waves,
such as
amplitude,
frequency, or
phase.
When radio waves pass an electrical conductor, the oscillating
fields induce an alternating current in the conductor. This can be
detected and transformed into sound or
other signals that carry information.
Etymology
Originally, radio or radiotelegraphy was called "
wireless telegraphy", which was
shortened to "wireless" by the British. The prefix
radio-
in the sense of wireless transmission, was first recorded in the
word
radioconductor, coined by the French physicist
Édouard Branly in 1897 and based
on the verb
to radiate (in Latin "radius" means "spoke of
a wheel, beam of light, ray"). "Radio" as a noun is said to have
been coined by the advertising expert Waldo Warren (White 1944).
This word also appears in a 1907 article by
Lee De Forest, was adopted by the
United States Navy in 1912 and became
common by the time of the first commercial broadcasts in the United
States in the 1920s. (The noun "broadcasting" itself came from an
agricultural term, meaning "scattering seeds widely".) The term was
then adopted by other languages in Europe and Asia. British
Commonwealth countries continued to mainly use the term "wireless"
until the mid-20th century, though the magazine of the
BBC in the UK has been called
Radio Times ever since it was first published in
the early 1920s.
In recent years the term "wireless" has gained renewed popularity
through the rapid growth of short-range computer networking, e.g.,
Wireless Local Area Network ,
WiFi, and
Bluetooth, as well
as mobile telephony, e.g.,
GSM and
UMTS. Today, the term "radio" often refers to the
actual transceiver device or chip, whereas "wireless" refers to the
system and/or method used for radio communication, hence one talks
about
radio transceivers and
Radio Frequency Identification , but about
wireless devices and
wireless sensor networks.
Processes
Radio systems used for
communications will have the following
elements. With more than 100 years of development, each process is
implemented by a wide range of methods, specialized for different
communications purposes.
Each system contains a
transmitter. This
consists of a source of electrical energy, producing
alternating current of a desired
frequency of oscillation. The transmitter
contains a system to
modulate some
property of the energy produced to impress a signal on it. This
modulation might be as simple as turning the energy on and off, or
altering more subtle properties such as amplitude, frequency,
phase, or combinations of these properties. The transmitter sends
the modulated electrical energy to a tuned
resonant antenna;
this structure converts the rapidly-changing alternating current
into an
electromagnetic
wave that can move through free space (sometimes with a
particular
polarisation).
Electromagnetic waves
travel through
space either directly, or have their path altered by
reflection, refraction or diffraction. The intensity of the waves
diminishes due to geometric dispersion (the
inverse-square law); some energy may also
be absorbed by the intervening medium in some cases.
Noise will generally alter the desired signal;
this
electromagnetic
interference comes from natural sources, as well as from
artificial sources such as other transmitters and accidental
radiators. Noise is also produced at every step due to the inherent
properties of the devices used. If the magnitude of the noise is
large enough, the desired signal will no longer be discernible;
this is the fundamental limit to the range of radio
communications.
The electromagnetic wave is intercepted by a tuned receiving
antenna; this structure captures
some of the energy of the wave and returns it to the form of
oscillating electrical currents. At the receiver, these currents
are
demodulated, which is conversion to
a usable signal form by a
detector
sub-system. The receiver is "
tuned" to respond preferentially to the
desired signals, and reject undesired signals.
Early radio systems relied entirely on the energy collected by an
antenna to produce signals for the operator. Radio became more
useful after the invention of
electronic
devices such as the
vacuum tube and
later the
transistor, which made it
possible to amplify weak signals. Today radio systems are used for
applications from
walkie-talkie
children's toys to the control of
space
vehicles, as well as for
broadcasting, and many other
applications.
Electromagnetic spectrum
Radio frequencies occupy the range from a few tens of
hertz to three hundred gigahertz, although
commercially important uses of radio use only a small part of this
spectrum. Other types of electromagnetic radiation, with
frequencies above the RF range, are
microwave,
infrared,
visible
light,
ultraviolet,
X-rays and
gamma rays. Since the energy of an
individual
photon of radio frequency is too
low to remove an
electron from an
atom, radio waves are classified as
non-ionizing radiation.
History
Invention
The meaning and usage of the word "radio" has developed in parallel
with developments within the field and can be seen to have three
distinct phases: electromagnetic waves and experimentation;
wireless communication and technical development; and radio
broadcasting and commercialization. Many individuals -- inventors,
engineers, developers, businessmen - contributed to produce the
modern idea of radio and thus the origins and 'invention' are
multiple and controversial.Early radio could not transmit sound or
speech and was called the "
wireless
telegraph".
Development from a laboratory demonstration to a commercial entity
spanned several decades and required the efforts of many
practitioners.
Experiments, later patented, were undertaken
by Thomas Edison and his employees of
Menlo
Park
. Edison applied in 1885 to the U.S. Patent
Office for
his patent on an
electrostatic coupling system
between elevated terminals. The patent was granted as on December
29, 1891. The
Marconi Company would
later purchase rights to the Edison patent to protect them legally
from lawsuits.
In 1893, in St. Louis, Missouri,
Nikola
Tesla made devices for his experiments with electricity.
Addressing
the Franklin
Institute
in Philadelphia and the National Electric Light
Association, he described and demonstrated the principles
of his wireless work. The descriptions contained all the
elements that were later incorporated into
radio systems before the development of the
vacuum tube. He initially experimented with
magnetic receivers, unlike the
coherers
(detecting devices consisting of tubes filled with iron filings
which had been invented by
Temistocle Calzecchi-Onesti at
Fermo in Italy in 1884) used by
Guglielmo Marconi and other early
experimenters.
A demonstration of wireless telegraphy took place in the lecture
theater of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History on
August 14, 1894, carried out by Professor
Oliver Lodge and
Alexander Muirhead. During the
demonstration a radio signal was sent from the neighboring
Clarendon laboratory building, and received by apparatus in the
lecture theater.
In 1895
Alexander
Stepanovich Popov built his first radio receiver, which
contained a
coherer. Further refined as a
lightning detector, it was
presented to the Russian Physical and Chemical Society on May 7,
1895. A depiction of Popov's lightning detector was printed in the
Journal of the Russian Physical and Chemical Society the same year.
Popov's receiver was created on the improved basis of Lodge's
receiver, and originally intended for reproduction of its
experiments.
Commercialization
In 1896, Marconi was awarded the British patent 12039,
Improvements in transmitting electrical impulses and signals
and in apparatus there-for, for radio.
In 1897 he established
a radio station on the Isle of Wight
, England. Marconi opened his "wireless" factory in
Hall Street, Chelmsford
, England in 1898, employing around 50
people.
The next advancement was the vacuum tube detector, invented by
Westinghouse
engineers. On Christmas Eve, 1906,
Reginald Fessenden used a synchronous
rotary-spark transmitter for the first radio program broadcast,
from Ocean Bluff-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. This was, for all intents and purposes, the
first transmission of what is now known as amplitude modulation or
AM radio.
The first radio news program was broadcast
August 31, 1920 by station 8MK in Detroit, Michigan, which survives
today as all-news format station WWJ
under
ownership of the CBS network. The first college radio
station began broadcasting on October 14, 1920, from Union College,
Schenectady, New York under the personal call letters of Wendell
King, an African-American student at the school. That month 2ADD,
later renamed
WRUC in 1940, aired what is
believed to be the first public entertainment broadcast in the
United States, a series of Thursday night concerts initially heard
within a radius and later for a radius. In November 1920, it aired
the first broadcast of a sporting event.
At 9 pm on August 27,
1920, Sociedad Radio Argentina aired a live performance of Richard
Wagner's Parsifal opera from the Coliseo Theater in downtown
Buenos
Aires
. Only about twenty homes in the city had
receivers to tune in this radio program.
Meanwhile, regular
entertainment broadcasts commenced in 1922 from the Marconi
Research Centre at Writtle
, England
.
One of the first developments in the early 20th century (1900-1959)
was that aircraft used commercial AM radio stations for navigation.
This continued until the early 1960s when
VOR systems finally became
widespread (though AM stations are still marked on U.S. aviation
charts). In the early 1930s,
single
sideband and
frequency
modulation were invented by amateur radio operators. By the end
of the decade, they were established commercial modes. Radio was
used to transmit pictures visible as
television as early as the 1920s. Commercial
television transmissions started in
North
America and
Europe in the 1940s. In 1954,
the Regency company introduced a pocket
transistor radio, the
TR-1, powered by a "standard 22.5 V
Battery".
In 1960, the
Sony company introduced its first
transistorized radio. It was small enough to fit in a
vest pocket, and able to be powered by a small
battery. It was durable, because it had no vacuum tubes to burn
out. Over the next 20 years, transistors replaced tubes almost
completely except for very high-power
transmitter uses. By 1963, color television was
being regularly broadcast commercially (though not all broadcasts
or programs were in color), and the first (radio)
communication satellite,
Telstar, was launched. In the late
1960s, the U.S. long-distance telephone network began to convert to
a digital network, employing
digital
radios for many of its links. In the 1970s,
LORAN became the premier radio navigation system.
Soon, the U.S. Navy experimented with
satellite navigation, culminating in
the invention and launch of the
GPS constellation in 1987. In the
early 1990s,
amateur radio
experimenters began to use personal computers with audio cards to
process radio signals. In 1994, the U.S. Army and
DARPA launched an aggressive, successful project to
construct a
software-defined
radio that can be programmed to be virtually any radio by
changing its software program. Digital transmissions began to be
applied to broadcasting in the late 1990s.
Uses of radio
Early uses were maritime, for sending telegraphic messages using
Morse code between ships and land.
The
earliest users included the Japanese Navy scouting the Russian
fleet during the Battle of Tsushima
in 1905. One of the most memorable uses of marine
telegraphy was during the sinking of the RMS Titanic
in 1912, including communications between operators
on the sinking ship and nearby vessels, and communications to shore
stations listing the survivors.
Radio was used to pass on orders and communications between armies
and navies on both sides in
World War I;
Germany used radio communications for diplomatic messages once it
discovered that its submarine cables had been tapped by the
British.
The United States passed on President
Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points to Germany
via radio during the war. Broadcasting began
from San Jose,
California
in 1909, and became feasible in the 1920s, with the
widespread introduction of radio receivers, particularly in Europe
and the United States. Besides broadcasting, point-to-point
broadcasting, including telephone messages and relays of radio
programs, became widespread in the 1920s and 1930s. Another use of
radio in the pre-war years was the development of detection and
locating of aircraft and ships by the use of
radar (
RAdio
Detection
And
Ranging).
Today, radio takes many forms, including
wireless networks and
mobile communications of all types, as
well as radio
broadcasting. Before the
advent of
television, commercial radio
broadcasts included not only news and music, but dramas, comedies,
variety shows, and many other forms of entertainment. Radio was
unique among methods of dramatic presentation in that it used only
sound. For more, see
radio
programming.
Audio
AM radio uses
amplitude
modulation, in which the amplitude of the transmitted signal is
made proportional to the sound amplitude captured (transduced) by
the microphone, while the transmitted frequency remains unchanged.
Transmissions are affected by static and interference because
lightning and other sources of radio emissions on the same
frequency add their amplitudes to the original transmitted
amplitude. In the early part of the 20th century, American AM radio
stations broadcast with powers as high as 500 kW, and some could be
heard worldwide; these stations' transmitters were commandeered for
military use by the US Government during World War II.
Currently, the
maximum broadcast power for a civilian AM radio station in the
United
States
and Canada is 50 kW, and the majority of stations
that emit signals this powerful were grandfathered in (see List of 50kw AM radio
stations in the USA). In 1986
KTNN
received the last granted 50,000 watt license. These 50 kW stations
are generally called "
clear
channel" stations (not to be confused with
Clear Channel Communications),
because within
North America each of
these stations has exclusive use of its broadcast frequency
throughout part or all of the broadcast day.
FM broadcast radio sends music and
voice with higher fidelity than AM radio. In
frequency modulation, amplitude
variation at the
microphone causes the
transmitter frequency to fluctuate. Because the audio signal
modulates the frequency and not the amplitude, an FM signal is not
subject to static and interference in the same way as AM signals.
Due to its need for a wider bandwidth, FM is transmitted in the
Very High Frequency (VHF, 30 MHz to 300 MHz) radio spectrum. VHF
radio waves act more like light, traveling in straight lines; hence
the reception range is generally limited to about 50-100 miles.
During unusual upper atmospheric conditions, FM signals are
occasionally reflected back towards the Earth by the
ionosphere, resulting in
long
distance FM reception. FM receivers are subject to the
capture effect, which causes the radio to
only receive the strongest signal when multiple signals appear on
the same frequency. FM receivers are relatively immune to lightning
and spark interference.
High power is useful in penetrating buildings, diffracting around
hills, and refracting in the dense atmosphere near the
horizon for some distance beyond the horizon.
Consequently, 100,000 watt FM stations can regularly be heard up to
100 miles (160 km) away, and farther (e.g., 150 miles, 240 km) if
there are no competing signals. A few old, "grandfathered" stations
do not conform to these power rules.
WBCT-FM (93.7) in Grand Rapids
, Michigan
, USA, runs 320,000 watts ERP, and can increase to
500,000 watts ERP by the terms of its original license. Such
a huge power level does not usually help to increase range as much
as one might expect, because
VHF frequencies
travel in nearly straight lines over the horizon and off into
space. Nevertheless, when there were fewer FM stations competing,
this station could be heard near Bloomington, Illinois, USA, almost
300 miles (500 km) away.
FM subcarrier services are secondary
signals transmitted in a "piggyback" fashion along with the main
program. Special receivers are required to utilize these services.
Analog channels may contain alternative programming, such as
reading services for the blind, background music or stereo sound
signals. In some extremely crowded metropolitan areas, the
sub-channel program might be an alternate foreign language radio
program for various ethnic groups. Sub-carriers can also transmit
digital data, such as station identification, the current song's
name, web addresses, or stock quotes. In some countries, FM radios
automatically re-tune themselves to the same channel in a different
district by using sub-bands.
Aviation voice radios use
VHF AM. AM is used
so that multiple stations on the same channel can be received. (Use
of FM would result in stronger stations blocking out reception of
weaker stations due to FM's
capture
effect). Aircraft fly high enough that their transmitters can
be received hundreds of miles (or kilometres) away, even though
they are using VHF.
Marine voice radios can use
single
sideband voice (SSB) in the shortwave High Frequency (HF—3 MHz
to 30 MHz) radio spectrum for very long ranges or
narrowband FM in the VHF spectrum for much
shorter ranges. Narrowband FM sacrifices fidelity to make more
channels available within the radio spectrum, by using a smaller
range of radio frequencies, usually with five
kHz of deviation, versus the 75 kHz used by commercial
FM broadcasts, and 25 kHz used for TV sound.
Government, police, fire and commercial voice services also use
narrowband FM on special frequencies. Early police radios used AM
receivers to receive one-way dispatches.
Civil and military HF (high frequency) voice services use
shortwave radio to contact ships at sea, aircraft
and isolated settlements. Most use
single sideband voice (SSB), which uses less
bandwidth than AM. On an AM radio SSB sounds like ducks quacking,
or the adults in a
Charlie Brown
cartoon. Viewed as a graph of frequency versus power, an AM signal
shows power where the frequencies of the voice add and subtract
with the main radio frequency. SSB cuts the bandwidth in half by
suppressing the carrier and (usually) lower sideband. This also
makes the transmitter about three times more powerful, because it
doesn't need to transmit the unused carrier and sideband.
TETRA,
Terrestrial Trunked
Radio is a digital cell phone system for military, police and
ambulances. Commercial services such as
XM,
WorldSpace and
Sirius offer encrypted digital
Satellite radio.
Telephony
Mobile phones transmit to a local
cell site (transmitter/receiver) that
ultimately connects to the public switched telephone network
(
PSTN) through an
optic fiber or microwave radio and other network elements. When the
mobile phone nears the edge of the cell site's radio coverage area,
the central computer switches the phone to a new cell. Cell phones
originally used FM, but now most use various digital modulation
schemes. Recent developments in Sweden (such as DROPme) allow for
the instant downloading of digital material from a radio broadcast
(such as a song) to a mobile phone.
Satellite phones use satellites
rather than cell towers to communicate.
Video
Television sends the picture as AM and
the sound as AM or FM, with the sound carrier a fixed frequency
(4.5 MHz in the
NTSC system) away from the
video carrier. Analog television also uses a
vestigial sideband on the video carrier
to reduce the bandwidth required.
Digital television uses
8VSB modulation in
North America (under the
ATSC digital
television standard), and
COFDM modulation
elsewhere in the world (using the
DVB-T
standard). A
Reed–Solomon error
correction code adds redundant correction codes and allows
reliable reception during moderate data loss. Although many current
and future codecs can be sent in the
MPEG transport stream container format, as of 2006 most
systems use a standard-definition format almost identical to
DVD:
MPEG-2 video in
Anamorphic widescreen and
MPEG layer 2 (
MP2)
audio.
High-definition
television is possible simply by using a higher-resolution
picture, but
H.264/AVC is being
considered as a replacement video codec in some regions for its
improved compression. With the compression and improved modulation
involved, a single "channel" can contain a high-definition program
and several standard-definition programs.
Navigation
All
satellite navigation
systems use satellites with precision clocks. The satellite
transmits its position, and the time of the transmission. The
receiver listens to four satellites, and can figure its position as
being on a line that is tangent to a spherical shell around each
satellite, determined by the time-of-flight of the radio signals
from the satellite. A
computer in the
receiver does the math.
Radio direction-finding is the oldest form of radio navigation.
Before 1960 navigators used movable loop antennas to locate
commercial AM stations near cities. In some cases they used marine
radiolocation beacons, which share a range of frequencies just
above AM radio with amateur radio operators.
LORAN systems also used time-of-flight radio signals,
but from radio stations on the ground.
VOR (Very High Frequency
Omnidirectional Range), systems (used by aircraft), have an antenna
array that transmits two signals simultaneously. A directional
signal rotates like a lighthouse at a fixed rate. When the
directional signal is facing north, an omnidirectional signal
pulses. By measuring the difference in phase of these two signals,
an aircraft can determine its bearing or radial from the station,
thus establishing a line of position. An aircraft can get readings
from two VORs and locate its position at the intersection of the
two radials, known as a "fix." When the VOR station is collocated
with DME (
Distance
Measuring Equipment), the aircraft can determine its bearing
and range from the station, thus providing a fix from only one
ground station. Such stations are called VOR/DMEs. The military
operates a similar system of navaids, called TACANs, which are
often built into VOR stations. Such stations are called VORTACs.
Because TACANs include distance measuring equipment, VOR/DME and
VORTAC stations are identical in navigation potential to civil
aircraft.
Radar
Radar (Radio Detection And Ranging) detects
objects at a distance by bouncing radio waves off them. The delay
caused by the echo measures the distance. The direction of the beam
determines the direction of the reflection. The polarization and
frequency of the return can sense the type of surface. Navigational
radars scan a wide area two to four times per minute. They use very
short waves that reflect from earth and stone. They are common on
commercial ships and long-distance commercial aircraft.
General purpose radars generally use navigational radar
frequencies, but modulate and polarize the pulse so the receiver
can determine the type of surface of the reflector. The best
general-purpose radars distinguish the rain of heavy storms, as
well as land and vehicles. Some can superimpose sonar data and map
data from
GPS
position.
Search radars scan a wide area with pulses of short radio waves.
They usually scan the area two to four times a minute. Sometimes
search radars use the
Doppler effect
to separate moving vehicles from clutter. Targeting radars use the
same principle as search radar but scan a much smaller area far
more often, usually several times a second or more. Weather radars
resemble search radars, but use radio waves with circular
polarization and a wavelength to reflect from water droplets. Some
weather radar use the Doppler effect to measure wind speeds.
Data (digital radio)

2008 Pure One Classic digital
radio
Most new radio systems are digital, see also:
Digital TV,
Satellite Radio,
Digital Audio Broadcasting. The
oldest form of digital broadcast was spark gap
telegraphy, used by pioneers such as Marconi. By
pressing the key, the operator could send messages in
Morse code by energizing a rotating commutating
spark gap. The rotating commutator produced a tone in the receiver,
where a simple spark gap would produce a hiss, indistinguishable
from static. Spark gap transmitters are now illegal, because their
transmissions span several hundred megahertz. This is very wasteful
of both radio frequencies and power.
The next advance was continuous wave
telegraphy, or CW (
Continuous Wave), in which a pure radio
frequency, produced by a
vacuum tube
electronic oscillator was
switched on and off by a key. A receiver with a local oscillator
would "
heterodyne" with the pure radio
frequency, creating a whistle-like audio tone. CW uses less than
100 Hz of bandwidth. CW is still used, these days primarily by
amateur radio operators (hams).
Strictly, on-off keying of a carrier should be known as
"Interrupted Continuous Wave" or ICW or
on-off keying (OOK).
Radio teletypes usually operate on
short-wave (HF) and are much loved by the military because they
create written information without a skilled operator. They send a
bit as one of two tones. Groups of five or seven bits become a
character printed by a teletype. From about 1925 to 1975, radio
teletype was how most commercial messages were sent to less
developed countries. These are still used by the military and
weather services.
Aircraft use a 1200 Baud radioteletype service over VHF to send
their ID, altitude and position, and get gate and connecting-flight
data. Microwave dishes on satellites, telephone exchanges and TV
stations usually use
quadrature amplitude
modulation (QAM). QAM sends data by changing both the phase and
the amplitude of the radio signal. Engineers like QAM because it
packs the most bits into a radio signal when given an exclusive
(non-shared) fixed narrowband frequency range. Usually the bits are
sent in "frames" that repeat. A special bit pattern is used to
locate the beginning of a frame.
Communication systems that limit themselves to a fixed narrowband
frequency range are vulnerable to
jamming. A variety of jamming-resistant
spread spectrum techniques were
initially developed for military use, most famously for
Global Positioning System
satellite transmissions. Commercial use of spread spectrum began in
the 1980s.
Bluetooth, most cell phones,
and the 802.11b version of
Wi-Fi each use
various forms of spread spectrum.
Systems that need reliability, or that share their frequency with
other services, may use "coded orthogonal frequency-division
multiplexing" or
COFDM. COFDM
breaks a digital signal into as many as several hundred slower
subchannels. The digital signal is often sent as QAM on the
subchannels. Modern COFDM systems use a small computer to make and
decode the signal with
digital
signal processing, which is more flexible and far less
expensive than older systems that implemented separate electronic
channels. COFDM resists fading and ghosting because the
narrow-channel QAM signals can be sent slowly. An adaptive system,
or one that sends error-correction codes can also resist
interference, because most interference can affect only a few of
the QAM channels. COFDM is used for
Wi-Fi,
some
cell phones,
Digital Radio Mondiale,
Eureka 147, and many other local area network,
digital TV and radio standards.
Heating
Radio-frequency energy generated for heating of objects is
generally not intended to radiate outside of the generating
equipment, to prevent interference with other radio signals.
Microwave ovens use intense radio
waves to heat food.
Diathermy
equipment is used in surgery for sealing of blood vessels.
Induction
furnaces are used for melting
metal for
casting.
Amateur radio service
Amateur radio, also known as "ham
radio", is a hobby in which enthusiasts are licensed to communicate
on a number of bands in the
radio frequency spectrum
non-commercially and for their own enjoyment. They may also provide
emergency and public service assistance. This has been very
beneficial in emergencies, saving lives in many instances. Radio
amateurs use a variety of modes, including nostalgic ones like
Morse code and experimental ones like
Low-Frequency Experimental Radio. Several
forms of radio were pioneered by radio amateurs and later became
commercially important including
FM,
single-sideband (SSB),
AM, digital packet radio and satellite
repeaters. Some amateur frequencies may be disrupted by
power-line internet service.
Unlicensed radio services
Unlicensed, government-authorized personal
radio services such as Citizens'
band radio in Australia, the USA
, and
Europe, and Family Radio Service and Multi-Use Radio Service in North
America exist to provide simple, (usually) short range
communication for individuals and small groups, without the
overhead of licensing. Similar services exist in other parts
of the world. These radio services involve the use of handheld
units.
Free radio stations, sometimes called
pirate radio or "clandestine" stations, are
unauthorized, unlicensed, illegal broadcasting stations. These are
often low power transmitters operated on sporadic schedules by
hobbyists, community activists, or political and cultural
dissidents.
Some pirate stations operating offshore in
parts of Europe and the United
Kingdom
more closely resembled legal stations, maintaining
regular schedules, using high power, and selling commercial
advertising time.
Radio control (R C)
Radio remote controls use radio waves
to transmit control data to a remote object as in some early forms
of
guided missile, some early TV
remotes and a range of model boats,
cars and airplanes. Large industrial
remote-controlled equipment such as
cranes and switching
locomotives now usually use digital radio
techniques to ensure safety and reliability.
In
Madison
Square Garden
, at the Electrical Exhibition of 1898, Nikola Tesla
successfully demonstrated a radio-controlled boat. He was
awarded U.S. patent No. 613,809 for a "Method of and Apparatus for
Controlling Mechanism of Moving Vessels or Vehicles."
See also
References
- General information
- A História da Rádio em Datas (1819-1997) (in
Portuguese) - notes on etymology
- Leigh White, Buck Fuller and the Dymaxion World
(refers to Waldo Warren as the inventor of the word
radio), in: The Saturday Evening Post, 14 October 1944,
cited in: Joachim Krausse and Claude Lichtenstein (eds.), Your
Private Sky, Lars Müller Publishers, Baden/Switzerland, 1999,
page 132. ISBN 3-907044-88-6
- L. de Forest, article in Electrical World 22 June 1270/1
(1907), early use of word "radio".
- http://web.mit.edu/varun_ag/www/bose.html - It contains a proof
that Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose invented the Mercury Coherer which
was later used by Guglielmo Marconi and along with other
patents.
- Footnotes
- Dictionary of Electronics By Rudolf F. Graf (1974). Page
467.
- The Electromagnetic Spectrum, University of Tennessee,
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
- Many of Edison's patents were actually made by his
employees - Edison patented their work and did not share the credit
of the innovation. During the timeframe that the patentable work
was undertaken, Nikola Tesla worked for Edison in America
(beginning in 1884).
- Edison, his life and inventions By Frank Lewis Dyer,
Thomas Commerford Martin. Page 830.
- IEEEVM: Nikola Tesla
- Free radio: electronic civil disobedience by Lawrence
C. Soley. Published by Westview Press, 1998. ISBN 0813390648,
9780813390642
- Rebel Radio: The Full Story of British Pirate Radio by
John Hind, Stephen Mosco. Published by Pluto Press, 1985. ISBN
0745300553, 9780745300559
Further reading
- Aitkin Hugh G. J. The Continuous Wave: Technology and the
American Radio, 1900-1932 (Princeton University Press,
1985).
- Briggs Asa. The History of Broadcasting in the United
Kingdom (Oxford University Press, 1961).
- De Forest, Lee. Father of Radio: The Autobiography of Lee
de Forest (1950).
- Ewbank Henry and Lawton Sherman P. Broadcasting: Radio and
Television (Harper & Brothers, 1952).
- Fisher, Marc Something In The Air: Radio, Rock, and the
Revolution That Shaped A Generation (Random House, 2007).
- Leland I. Anderson (ed.), " John Stone Stone, Nikola Tesla's Priority in Radio and
Continuous-Wave Radiofrequency Apparatus". The Antique Wireless
Review, Vol. 1. 1986. 24 pages, illustrated.
- Maclaurin W. Rupert. Invention and Innovation in the Radio
Industry (The Macmillan Company, 1949).
- Ray William B. FCC: The Ups and Downs of Radio-TV
Regulation (Iowa State University Press, 1990).
- Scannell, Paddy, and Cardiff, David. A Social History of
British Broadcasting, Volume One, 1922-1939 (Basil Blackwell,
1991).
- Schwoch James. The American Radio Industry and Its Latin
American Activities, 1900-1939 (University of Illinois Press,
1990).
- Sterling Christopher H. Electronic Media, A Guide to Trends
in Broadcasting and Newer Technologies 1920-1983 (Praeger,
1984).
- White Llewellyn. The American Radio (University of
Chicago Press, 1947).
- Ulrich L. Rohde, Jerry Whitaker "Communications Receivers,
Third Edition ", McGraw Hill, New York, NY, 2001, ISBN
0-07-136121-9.
External links
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