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Radio was not developed by any one single person. Here are a look at a few pioneers who developed radio.
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Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian pioneer who invented the first “wireless”. This was a very significant invention for it was the technological start of radio. Marconi’s wireless got installed in many ships and he made a fortune.
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Lee DeForest is also known as the “Father of Radio”. He developed the audion tube which was used to transmit voices from one place to another.
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Edwin Armstrong’s first innovation was regeneration, which made radio signals more clear. He was always looking to improve sound quality and therefore also developed frequency modulation (FM).
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Reginald Fessenden gave a pioneer broadcast of radio telephone which surprised wireless operators in the North Atlantic. He also came up with the theory of the “continuous wave” which was a new way to superimpose sound onto a radio wave and transmit this signal to a receiver where the radio wave would be removed and it would leave the listener with the original sound. This continuous wave is the electronic basis for radio and television.
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Heinrich Hertz, a German physicist, demonstrated the theory of electromagnetic energy which was used in Marconi’s invention of the wireless as well as in radio.
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In addition to these pioneers, four large companies pooled together their patents after World War I and in effect became partners in the development of the broadcasting industry. Three of them became known as the “radio group” and they were RCA, General Electric, and Westinghouse.
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