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About RCA - Wireless Becomes Radio
Prior to 1920, most Americans couldn't even fathom the idea of voices and music coming into their homes over the air. The industry would grow rapidly from 5,000 in-home radio sets in 1920 to more than 2.5 million in 1924. The "wireless" had become radio.
Guglielmo Marconi, an Italian electrical engineer, transmitted the first wireless signal in 1895. By the turn of the century he had formed telegraph companies in England and opened the first wireless office in New York City. In 1901, Marconi telegraphed the letter "S" across the Atlantic Ocean. The U.S. Navy was so impressed that it replaced a flock of carrier pigeons with the "wireless" for ship-to-shore communications.
By this time, radio pioneer Lee de Forest was lauding his new, three-element electron "audion" tube as a "new receiver for wireless telegraphy." Edwin Armstrong's development of practical regenerative and super-heterodyne circuits led to modern radio reception and transmission as we know them today. On Good Friday, 1917, the U.S. declared war on Germany after German U-boats torpedoed and sank four American ships without warning. President Wilson directed the Navy to take over all wireless stations during the emergency, including Marconi's ship-to-shore operations. |
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