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| Edwin Howard Armstrong |
As mentioned above, Hertz was responsible for discovering the existence of radio waves in 1884-85. Woods invented the "railway telegraphy" in 1887, which allowed messages to be sent between trains while moving. Marconi invented radio telegraphy which allowed real-time transmission of audio using Morse Code in 1899. Forest developed a transmitter for radio broadcast of the human voice in the early 1900's. After a 1921 boxing match between Jack Dempsey and Georges Carpentier that was transmitted over radio, the United States saw a huge popularity growth in radio. This led to AT&T creating a national network in 1922.
In 1934 Edwin Howard Armstrong invented FM radio.
This was a major breakthrough for the radio industry. On June 9, 1934 Armstrong sent an organ recital from the top of the Empire State building to a friend in Long Island, New York. He did this using both AM and FM radio. The FM transmission came through with much less static than the AM transmission. As we read in the book, David Sarnoff, head of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), saw his empire on AM radio sets being threatened and attempted to stop FM radio. We also learned that Armstrong committed suicide in 1954 without ever reaping the benefits of his invention.
While AM radio was still more popular than FM for a majority of the 1900's, FM turned the tables in the 1970's.
Today FM radio is much more popular than AM radio.
Prior to World War II Armstrong made a deal with the FCC (Federal Radio Commission) to create an FM broadcast spectrum. This spectrum existed between 42 and 50 MHz. Armstrong built a station and radio tower in Alpine, New Jersey. He created a network of FM stations in New England. This network was named the Yankee Network. FM receivers were then manufactured so that the public could listen to these new FM broadcasts. As popularity of FM radio was growing Sarnoff did all he could to slow its growth. He was successful in lobbying the FCC to change the frequencies of FM radio which basically destroyed the Yankee Network.
RCA and NBC starting using FM technology without paying royalties on Armstrong's patent. Armstrong began to run into financial problems and began to change Armstrong. His wife left him after 32 years of marriage. Armstrong lost all of his legal battles with RCA and was left with nothing. He killed himself in 1954, thinking FM radio was not successful. His widow was later able to win legal battles with RCA and earn over $10 million. As television became popular, AM radio lost its stronghold on communication mediums. When this happened people realized that FM radio was better for music quality and began the switch from AM to FM radio. Today there are over 9,000 FM broadcasters, easily exceeding the 5,000 AM broadcasters.
Obviously Edwin Howard Armstrong and his invention of FM radio was a major contribution to one of the biggest mass mediums of communication that we have today.
To be honest, I never knew anything about the history of FM radio until I read your extensive history on its founding father, Edwin Armstrong. Its nice to learn a little bit of background on the struggles of promoting FM radio and its use as a medium of mass communication. Armstrong probably wouldn’t believe how FM radio has expanded into the medium it is today, which continues to communicate music, news, weather, traffic, and even talk shows. Your post was very insightful on showing how radio was established and how it got started. I would like to add, although television has become very popular, I still find myself listening to the FM radio in the car, every time I drive to and from school. Even when I am not in the car and on the computer, I stream live FM radio through various online radio sites such as iHeartradio. Radio is still very much in our lives, even though newer technologies have been introduced. It is a great place to be introduced to new music, to hear the news, or to hear discussions on various topics throughout the day without having to watch something. As technology improves people still have to resort to FM radio when they are not in a place in which they can watch or stream anything else. I hope radio can continue to expand, and continue to be a means of communication for many.
ReplyDeleteKevin Curran did a great job elaborating on the radio, which included the history of the radio and some other additional information that seemed relevant to the subject. There was information that came from our textbook, which was a great way to add supplemental information.
ReplyDeleteThe incorporation of the hyperlink was interesting because it supported the fact that FM radio is more popular today than it was in the late 1990’s. It was clever to include a graph as the hyperlink because it is way to include an additional visual aspect to Kevin’s ePortfolio. Also, it is a great way to appeal to readers who are visual learners.
One criticism I have of Kevin’s ePortfolio is that the title is too specific. The title should have been more general because when reading the ePortfolio, it did not seem that Edwin Armstrong was the only focus to the ePortfolio. While Armstrong had a large part at the end of the ePortfolio, I would have created a different title that relates to the entire ePortfolio.
Overall, this ePortfolio had a thorough history of the radio and included a lot of statistics, which I find engages the reader. I would like to add that there are about 44,000 radio stations worldwide. This added statistic complements Kevin conclusion of “Edwin Howard Armstrong and his invention of FM radio was a major contribution to one of the biggest mass mediums of communication that we have today.”
Also, below is a link that shows all the Radio broadcast stations worldwide, organized by country.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/med_rad_bro_sta-media-radio-broadcast-stations