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RCA (Radio Corporation of America) is an iconic brand that has endured from generation-to-generation. Its timeless logo and technological advances have permeated worldwide culture as a symbol of quality and reliability. Let us take you on the journey from RCA's beginning through its technological advancements over the past 100 years.
- The Technological Development of Radio: from Thales to Marconi
- The Structure of The Radio Industry Before 1920: Inventor-Entrepreneurs
- After 1920: Large Corporations Come to Dominate The Industry
- Government Regulation
- FM Radio: Technology and Patent Suits
- Bibliography
All electrically-based industries trace their ancestry back to at least 600 B.C. when the Greek philosopher Thales observed that after it is rubbed, amber (electron in Greek) attracts small objects. In 1600, William Gilbert, an Englishman, distinguished between magnetism, such as that displayed by a lodestone, and what we now call the static electr...
As had been true of earlier high-tech industries such as the telegraph and electric lighting in their formative years, what was accomplished in the early years of the radio industry was primarily brought about by inventor/entrepreneurs. None of the major electrical and telephone companies played a role in the formative years of the radio industry. ...
In 1919, Frank Conrad, a Westinghouse engineer, began broadcasting music in Pittsburgh. These broadcasts stimulated the sales of crystal sets. A crystal set, which could be made at home, was composed of a tuning coil, a crystal detector, and a pair of earphones. The use of a crystal eliminated the need for a battery or other electric source. The po...
Radio’s Property Rights Problem
Because the radio spectrum is quite different from say, a piece of real estate, radio produced a property rights problem. Originally, it was viewed as being like a navigable waterway, that is, public property. However, it wasn’t long before so many people wanted to use it that there wasn’t enough room for everyone. The only ways to deal with an excess of demand over supply are either to raise price until some potential users leave the market or to turn to rationing. The selling of the radio s...
The Free-Speech Issue
Navigable waterways present no free speech problem, but radio does. Was radio to be treated like newspapers and magazines, or were broadcasters to be denied free speech? Were radio stations to be treated, like telephone companies, as common carriers, that is, anyone desiring to make use of them would have to be allowed to use them, or would they be treated like newspapers, which are under no obligation to allow all comers access to their pages? It was also established that radio stations, lik...
Regulation and Legislation
Government regulation of radio began in 1904 when President Theodore Roosevelt organized the Interdepartmental Board of Wireless Telegraphy. In 1910 the Wireless Ship Act was passed. That radio was to be a regulated industry was decided in 1912, when Congress passed a Radio Act that required people to obtain a license from the government in order to operate a radio transmitter. In 1924, Herbert Hoover, who was secretary of the Commerce Department, said that the radio industry was probably the...
One method of imposing speech and music on a continuous wave requires increasing or reducing the amplitude (modulating) the distance between a radio waves peaks and troughs. This type of transmission is called amplitude modulation (AM). It appears to have first been thought of by John Stone Stone in 1892. Many years after Armstrong’s invention of t...
Aitken, Hugh G. J. The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900-1932. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985. Archer, Gleason Leonard. Big Business and Radio. New York, Arno Press, 1971. Benjamin, Louise Margaret. Freedom of the Air and the Public Interest: First Amendment Rights in Broadcasting to 1935. Carbondale: Southern ...
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Radio Corporation of America (RCA) was born in Camden, New Jersey in 1919 and for over six decades endeavored to advance the Electronic industry technology to reach the apex of the technically possible at the time. In the relentless process of pursuing new vistas for its costumers RCA acquired the appellative: “RCA; The most Trusted Name in ...
Jan 8, 2022 · Glassdoor has 2 Radio Corporation of America reviews submitted anonymously by Radio Corporation of America employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Radio Corporation of America is right for you.
June 2001. Volume. 52. Issue. 4. In 1915, before commercial broadcasting existed, David Sarnoff, an assistant traffic manager at the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America, proposed to build and sell a “radio music box,” and wrote, “I have in mind a plan of development that would make radio a household utility.…”.
Nov 13, 2023 · RCA and the Roaring Twenties. Bryan Taylor, Chief Economist, Global Financial Data. When you think about the Roaring Twenties and the bull market that surged until 1929, the one stock that comes first in everyone’s mind is Radio Corporation of America.
Abstract. The Radio Corporation of America (renamed RCA Corporation in 1969) was best known for its pioneering radio and television development and manufacturing. In addition to consumer electronics, RCA was a major player in the development of electronics for industrial and military applications.
