BY DR MICHELINA ANDREUCCI
Replica of Antonio Meucci’s telettrofono Compelled by the necessity for a communication device for sailing vessels, several inventors during the 19th Century pioneered experimental work on “voice transmission over a wire” and improved on each other’s ideas.
Antonio Meucci invented the ‘telettrofono’, which is credited by several sources as the first telephone. In December 1871 he files a patent caveat with the US Patent Office, titled “Sound Telegraph” describing communication of voice between two people by wire.
However, after having renewed the caveat for two years Meucci, did not renew it again, and the caveat lapsed in 1874.
Following on, although many people have been involved in the invention of Radio, Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937), the Italian electrical engineer-inventor, is credited with devising the first step towards its invention in 1895 by “Signalling through Space without Wires”. Marconi sent the first radio signal by using several different electrical, magnetic (electromagnetic) physical phenomena to transmit signals over a distance as a means of transmitting information using “wireless” radio waves as was foreseen by scientists as early as 1860. By 1866 the possibility was demonstrated of rapid variations of electric current could be projected into space in the form of radio waves similar to those of light and heat.
In December 1901, Guglielmo Marconi successfully sent the first radio signal across the Atlantic Ocean from England to Newfoundland without the connection of wires. In fact, when the radio was first introduced in this part of the world, it was commonly known as the Wireless or “kawairesi” in Shona! Marconi’s invention was however, not taken seriously by the Italian government and authorities who were reluctant to finance its development.
By 1903, Marconi’s invention enabled the exchange of greetings between President Theodore Roosevelt of the US and King Edward VII of Britain. Marconi’s radio did not transmit or receive voice or music; rather, it received “buzzing” sounds created by a spark gap transmitter which sent signals using dot-dash Morse code message system which proved effective for rescue work.
This means of communicating between two points developed into radio-telegraphy, mainly for ship-to-shore and ship-to-ship communication, but not for public radio broadcasting as we know it today.
A number of ocean liners were later installed with wireless equipment. When the ocean liner Titanic sank on its maiden voyage in April 1912, 700 passengers were reported saved as a result of Marconi’s invention.
For most of the 19th Century many people, amongst them scientists, mathematicians and theoreticians contributed to various theories and inventions to what eventually became the Radio we know and love today.
Whilst many Scientists had for long speculated that there was a connection with electricity and magnetism, it was proven in early 1800 by Italian scientist-inventor Alessandro Volta, who developed an electric current by means of a galvanic battery. This was the first step in the development of electro-magnetic waves, a combination of overlapping electrical and magnetic fields, a requisite for radio.
Radios receive electro-magnetic waves from the air that are sent by a radio transmitter, converting these electro-magnetic waves, called a “signal”, into sounds that become audible to the human ear.
This was made possible from the early groundwork of Gian Domenico Romagnosi, began in 1902; James Clerk Maxwell and his associate Heinrich Hertz around 1820; Hans Christian Ørsted, André-Marie Ampère and Michael Faraday who discovered electro-magnetism in 1831; Joseph Henry’s magnetic experiments between 1842 and 1850 that were effective over a distance of about 61m.
Felix Savary produced the first high frequency AC electrical oscillations, Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, David Edward Hughes, Nikola Tesla, scientist John Perry, Frederick Thomas Trouton, Alexander Trotter, Amos Dolbear, Sir Oliver Lodge, Reginald Fessenden, William Crookes and Alexander Popov, amongst others, who were all involved in the development of radio.
In 1878, David E. Hughes heard sparks from a telephone receiver during experiments with his carbon microphone.
Realising its significance, he developed a carbon-based detector until he could detect signals over a few hundred meters.
In 1894 Marconi built the first commercially successful wireless telegraphy system based on radio transmission. He went on to demonstrate its important application in military and marine
communications, and opened a company to further develop and extend radio communication services and equipment; the first of many of Marconi’s enterprises.
The “Marconiphone”; department formed by the Marconi Company in 1922 to design, manufacture and sell domestic receiving equipment, was revived in the late 1980's as a brand and used by a division of GEC-Marconi for mobile phones. In the United Kingdom GEC-Marconi acted as a service provider for Cellnet and Vodafone prior to selling their client base to Mercury in 1991.
The early history of radio is irrefutably synonymous with the history of other technologies that produce and use radio instruments that apply radio waves: the transistor, telephone, Internet, broadband, satellites, iPod, blogs and SNS, etc.
Whilst today we have “wireless Internet”, the development of radio began as “wireless telegraphy”. By 1910 various wireless systems came to be referred to by the common name “radio”, which subsequently became increasingly connected to issues of broadcasting and part of our everyday lives.
Today radios have become indispensable devices, not only for domestic use, but for the police, fire brigade, airports, navy, military, education, commerce and industry. The world over people use radio primarily as a source of news and music, African listeners and Zimbabweans are no exception.
Dr. Michelina Andreucci is a Zimbabwean-Italian researcher. She is a published author in her field. For comments E-mail:linamanucci@gmail.com
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