Radio was originally a method of transmitting sounds through radio waves, which are electromagnetic waves by nature. Also “radio” is also called the corresponding receiving device. Today, a wide range of different signals are transmitted by radio (radio waves), including moving images (television) and enormous streams of data. Who invented radio and how did it come about?
The story of the first radio
Radio waves travel through air and can pass through most non-metallic bodies, including the human body. For a very long time, man has had to transmit information over long distances. In ancient times, fire signals were the only means of long-distance communication.
The information revolution, although less known and recognized, was very important. The most important consequence of the electronic revolution was the appearance of the radio. In the first years of development, radio communications were called telegraphy or wireless telephony, expressions that did not last over time, and were replaced by the generic term radio.
The beginnings of radio crystallized following the physical phenomena, especially electrical, researched by the pioneers of this fascinating branch, such as Ampère, Gilbert, Volta, Faraday, Maxwell, Kelvin, or Cavendish.
It is generally accepted that the first to be able to make a radio wave emission and reception was the German physicist Heinrich Hertz in 1887, who based his own studies in theoretical physics, to which were added those of his predecessors, especially Maxwell. Another pioneer who contributed to the development of radio was the Russian physicist Aleksandr Stepanovich Popov, with his storm recorder in 1895, who made the first systematic receptions, and is also credited with inventing the antenna.
Guglielmo Marconi, systematizing the data from that time, offered the world in 1896, the first practical system of emission and reception based on electromagnetic waves, being based on Tesla’s device. Later, in 1943, the priority of the scientist Nicolae Tesla over this invention (1893) was recognized .
Americans invented the first radio
In 1843, the first wire telegraph service was established between Washington and Baltimore, following the idea of the American painter Samuel Morse, and from that moment, there was nothing left to do, except to suppress the electric cable, which happened a few years later.
In 1870, JC Maxwell mathematically demonstrated the existence of electromagnetic waves and their possibility to propagate at the speed of light (300,000 km/s), thus strengthening the hypothesis that light is also an electromagnetic oscillation. Finally, Guglielmo Marconi succeeds for the first time in sending a 26-word telegram between Glacebay Canada and Poldhor England (3122 km), thus laying the foundations of a reality, radio communications.
Radiotelegraphy involves the transmission of messages in Morse code , by means of electromagnetic waves. The devices used, at that time, for such transmissions, were those developed for sea-dry, sea-sea communication. The transmission of wireless signals has proven effective for rescue expeditions, following shipwrecks or devastating storms.
Implementation of the first radiotelegraphy service
In 1901, the first radio telegraph service between five Hawaiian islands is implemented. By 1903, a Marconi station located in Wellfleet, Massachusetts was transmitting the message from US President Theodore Roosevelt to King Edward VII of the United Kingdom.
In 1905, the Battle of Port Arthur, the most dramatic of the Russo-Japanese War, was reported over the airwaves, and in 1906, America’s weather bureau used radio telegraphy to transmit weather conditions in various areas. In 1909, the American explorer Robert E. Peary, in his expedition to the North Pole, managed to transmit the message “I found the Pole” by means of electromagnetic waves.
