100 Fun Facts About Radio

Which physicist shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Marconi for wireless telegraphy?

Braun invented the cathode-ray tube oscilloscope and a crystal detector; the two laureates never worked together.

Where did Marconi report hearing the letter S sent across the Atlantic from Cornwall on 12 December 1901?

Storms had wrecked his planned Cape Cod receiving site, and the letter 'S' he heard was never automatically recorded, so historians still debate it.

Roughly how long was the kite-supported receiving antenna Marconi used for his 1901 transatlantic test?

The transmitting station at Poldhu in Cornwall did the heavy lifting; the kite simply hoisted a wire into the Newfoundland sky.

Marconi's mother Annie was the granddaughter of the founder of which famous drinks company?

That Irish connection later helped Marconi find backers in Britain when Italy showed little interest in his experiments.

Marconi was born in 1874 in which Italian city?

He never received formal schooling; private tutors taught him at home, and a professor at the local university let him use its lab.

At the hour of Marconi's funeral in 1937, radio transmitters around the world fell silent for how long?

Shops on his Rome street closed 'for national mourning', and the British Post Office asked every broadcasting ship to join the hush.

Marconi was offered free passage on the Titanic but sailed three days earlier on which liner instead?

His daughter said he had paperwork to finish and preferred the public stenographer on the other ship.

Reginald Fessenden's reported Christmas Eve 1906 audio broadcast came from a station in which place?

Fessenden had already sent speech about a mile by radio in 1900, and used an alternator that spun out a 50,000 Hz carrier.

The SI unit of frequency, used to tune every radio dial, is named after which physicist?

He proved in the 1880s that Maxwell's predicted electromagnetic waves could actually be sent through the air.

Whose 1864 presentation first proposed that light and radio waves were both electromagnetic radiation?

The theory sat unproven for two decades until Hertz's laboratory experiments confirmed it.

In which year did the US Supreme Court restore the priority of Tesla, Lodge and Stone's radio patents over Marconi's?

The court stressed it was not ruling on who first transmitted by radio, only that Marconi's company could not sue over improvements it had not originated.

What name did Lee de Forest give the three-element vacuum tube he developed around 1906-1908?

It was the first device that could amplify an electrical signal, which made broadcasting and long-distance telephone lines practical.

What was the inaugural program of Pittsburgh station KDKA on 2 November 1920?

The station went on air under the temporary 'special amateur' call sign 8ZZ and did not broadcast daily until 1921.

Engineer Frank Conrad's experimental station 8XK inspired which company to launch KDKA?

Conrad got into radio in 1913 after a bet over whose watch was more accurate, and built a receiver to check the time signals.

Titanic's wireless operators Jack Phillips and Harold Bride were on whose payroll?

Their day job was mostly sending passengers' 'marconigrams', with weather and ice warnings squeezed in between.

Which distress call were Marconi's ship operators instructed to use from 1904, before SOS took hold?

The 1909 rescue of the liner Republic, whose operator repeated that call, saved more than 1,500 people and proved the value of shipboard wireless.

Which country was the first to adopt the SOS distress signal, in 1905?

It became a worldwide standard after the 1906 Berlin radiotelegraph convention, taking effect in 1908.

What did the letters SOS originally stand for?

The signal was just a memorable Morse pattern of three dots, three dashes, three dots; the backronyms came later.

Interference that hampered Titanic's distress calls prompted which piece of US legislation?

The law separated ordinary chatter from maritime emergency traffic and spelled out the government's role in a crisis.

WEAF's first sponsored program in August 1922, often called the first radio commercial, promoted what?

It ran about ten minutes and pitched homes in Jackson Heights near a new elevated subway line, closer to an infomercial than a jingle.

Who was appointed the first general manager of the British Broadcasting Company in December 1922?

A Scottish Calvinist, he set the 'inform, educate and entertain' directive the BBC still cites today.

On what date did the BBC become a public corporation under royal charter?

The newly knighted Reith became its first director general, and the corporation adopted the motto 'Nation shall speak peace unto Nation'.

During the 1926 General Strike, supporters of the strikers nicknamed the BBC what?

With newspapers halted, the BBC suddenly became the nation's main news source, and Reith himself announced the strike's end by reciting Blake's 'Jerusalem'.

The 1988 Christmas Radio Times sold roughly how many copies, a British magazine record?

The exact tally was 11,220,666, certified by Guinness as the biggest-selling edition of any British magazine ever.

Which opera star sang two arias in Marconi's pioneering broadcast from Chelmsford on 15 June 1920?

The Daily Mail sponsored the concert, and reports claimed her trill was picked up as far away as New York.

Which American engineer developed FM radio and the superheterodyne receiver?

He held 42 patents and gave the US military free use of them during both world wars.

Armstrong developed wide-band FM in secret in the basement of a building at which university?

He was granted five US patents covering the system on 26 December 1933 and later took a professorship there.

In 1948 Armstrong sued which corporation and its network NBC for infringing his FM patents?

The litigation dragged on for years and drained his fortune; the suits were only settled after his death in 1954.

In which country was Armstrong serving in WWI when he developed the superheterodyne?

The circuit mixes the incoming signal with a locally generated one, and it still sits inside almost every receiver made today.

What does the 'AM' in AM radio stand for?

It was the first method developed for sending audio by radio and is still used on the medium-wave, longwave and shortwave bands.

AM signals can travel long distances at night by bouncing off which layer of the atmosphere?

That is why a distant AM station can suddenly appear on your dial after dark, then vanish at sunrise.

FM broadcast stations are usually assigned to which part of the radio spectrum?

Those frequencies generally limit coverage to line-of-sight distances, which is why FM fades behind hills.

Hans Idzerda's station PCGG began regular FM entertainment broadcasts in November 1919 from which city?

The program aired four nights a week until 1924, when the company behind it ran into money trouble.

In August 1920, an early radio entertainment broadcast aired which composer's opera live from Buenos Aires?

The opera was Parsifal, and only about twenty homes in the city had receivers to hear it.

Welles's 1938 'The War of the Worlds' broadcast aired on the eve of which holiday?

It was the 17th episode of The Mercury Theatre on the Air, an unsponsored CBS program that finally attracted a sponsor after the uproar.

In the 1938 broadcast, where do the first Martians land?

The adaptation moved the story from 19th-century England to contemporary America and dressed it as a series of news bulletins.

Who wrote the radio adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel for the 1938 broadcast?

He later shared an Oscar for the screenplay of Casablanca.

How old was Welles when the Martian-invasion broadcast made him famous?

He apologised at a hastily called news conference the next morning, and no punitive action was taken.

Which future filmmaker voiced Lamont Cranston when The Shadow returned to the airwaves in 1937?

The show's chilling opening line, 'Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?', was actually delivered by Frank Readick.

The term 'fireside chat' was coined by an executive at which network before Roosevelt's May 1933 address?

Harry Butcher wrote it into a press release; announcer Robert Trout said he was simply the first to say it on the air.

Roosevelt's first fireside chat, on 12 March 1933, addressed which crisis?

More than 60 million people tuned in, and within two weeks Americans returned over half the cash they had hoarded to the reopened banks.

Roosevelt had a removable dental bridge made for his broadcasts to eliminate what?

He also chose everyday words on purpose; about 80 percent of his vocabulary came from the thousand most common English words.

A 1947 Hooper survey found what share of Americans were radio listeners?

Families gathered around the set in the evening for comedies, mystery serials, quiz shows and soap operas.

How did 1930s daytime radio serials earn the nickname that stuck to the whole genre?

The last four network radio soaps, including Ma Perkins, all ended on the same day: 25 November 1960.

The Lone Ranger premiered on 31 January 1933 on which Detroit radio station?

The show ran for 2,956 radio episodes and spawned books, comics and a TV series.

The Lone Ranger's galloping theme was lifted from the William Tell Overture by which composer?

The quieter passages were borrowed from Smetana's Die Moldau.

Amos 'n' Andy, one of radio's first hit comedies, originated in 1928 at which Chicago station?

The two white creators voiced the show's Black characters themselves for its entire 1928-1960 radio run.

Airing Herbert Morrison's 1937 airship-disaster report broke which NBC rule?

Morrison later said he cried 'Oh, the humanity' believing everyone aboard had died; in fact most survived.

The words 'Oh, the humanity' were uttered by a radio reporter watching which airship burn?

The recording is sometimes described as the first piece of viral audio.

What was Edward R. Murrow's signature opening line in his CBS reports during the Blitz?

His old speech teacher suggested it as a snappier version of the 'Hello, America. This is London calling' he had inherited.

The Nazi propaganda broadcasts of 'Lord Haw-Haw' opened with which phrase?

William Joyce, the best-known voice behind the nickname, was hanged for treason in January 1946.

Which US president fully pardoned Iva Toguri, the DJ branded 'Tokyo Rose'?

She was only the seventh person in US history convicted of treason, and the pardon came on his last full day in office.

Which broadcaster, established in 1942, is the oldest US government-funded international radio service?

It began as an anti-propaganda tool against the Axis and now produces content in 48 languages.

Radio Free Europe was funded covertly until 1972 by which US agency?

Soviet authorities jammed its signals for decades; the jamming stopped abruptly in November 1988.

In 1995 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty moved its headquarters from Munich to which city?

It took over the former Czechoslovak Federal Assembly building, empty since the country split in 1992.

Which two companies jointly produced the Regency TR-1, the first commercial transistor radio, in 1954?

Big radio makers such as RCA, GE and Philco had all passed on the project.

What did the Regency TR-1 pocket radio cost when it went on sale in 1954?

About 150,000 were sold; only one in five transistors coming off the line actually worked, which kept the price high.

Sony's TR-63 pocket radio of 1957 popularised which power cell?

It was the first transistor radio to sell in the millions, and it came in lemon, green, red and black.

Paul Galvin coined 'Motorola' by combining 'motor' with the suffix from which product?

The first Motorola-branded set was sold in June 1930 to a customer in Fort Wayne, Indiana, for $30.

Ronan O'Rahilly launched Radio Caroline in 1964 after failing to get airplay for which artist?

Radio Luxembourg then only pushed records from major labels, and the BBC held a broadcasting monopoly.

Radio Caroline's first broadcasting vessel, the MV Caroline, was formerly a Danish what?

The ship was refitted at an Irish port owned by O'Rahilly's father and re-registered in Panama.

In which year did the UK's Marine Broadcasting Offences Act outlaw supplying offshore pirate stations?

The government argued the ships interfered with emergency shipping channels and paid no royalties.

Todd Storz is credited with inventing the Top 40 format at station KOWH in which city?

Storz and his father then bought other stations to spread the format nationwide.

What data did Storz use to compile his weekly Top 40 playlist in the early 1950s?

Critics predicted television would kill radio; the tight hit-driven format is often credited with saving it.

Which disc jockey popularised the phrase 'rock and roll' on mainstream radio in the early 1950s?

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted him in 1986 for leading white and Black kids to listen to the same music.

Which host testified in the 1960 payola hearings but escaped punishment, partly by divesting his music holdings?

The uncooperative Alan Freed was fired; Neil Young later dedicated his song 'Payola Blues' to him.

Wolfman Jack found fame on border blaster XERF, located across the Rio Grande from which Texas town?

Mexican border stations ran 150,000 watts, three times the US limit, and could be heard as far away as Europe at night.

Wolfman Jack played himself in which 1973 George Lucas film?

Lucas gave him a fraction of a point of the profits, which provided a regular income for the rest of his life.

Casey Kasem's American Top 40 first aired on which US holiday in 1970?

Kasem hosted until 1988, when Shadoe Stevens took over the countdown.

NPR's very first broadcast, on 20 April 1971, covered what?

All Things Considered launched two weeks later, on 3 May 1971.

Who was the first host of NPR's Morning Edition when it premiered in 1979?

The show now draws around 14.9 million listeners a week, edging out All Things Considered.

The FCC approved the Sirius-XM merger in July 2008, how many months after it was proposed?

The combined company started with 18.5 million subscribers and a deal valued at $3.3 billion.

In which year did Howard Stern leave terrestrial radio for Sirius satellite radio?

On his first day he and his agent collected 34.3 million shares of Sirius stock, worth $218 million, for beating subscriber targets.

Where does the word 'ham' for an amateur radio operator come from?

Professional wire operators used it for 'ham-fisted' Morse senders, and the amateurs eventually wore it with pride.

Under ITU rules, at least how often must a ham operator give their call sign in a contact?

The call sign must also be given at the end of every conversation.

What is unusual about how a crystal radio set produces sound?

It runs entirely on the energy of the incoming radio wave, which is why it can only drive an earphone, not a loudspeaker.

The Grand Ole Opry has been broadcast since 1925 on which Nashville station?

It started as a 'Barn Dance' in the fifth-floor studio of an insurance company and took its current name in 1927.

The FCC was created in 1934, absorbing the licensing duties of which earlier body?

The 1927 Radio Act had given that predecessor the power to assign frequencies and power levels, and some stations lost their licences.

In what year did the FCC abolish the fairness doctrine?

The doctrine dated from 1949; its repeal is often linked to the boom in political talk radio that followed.

Rush Limbaugh's show went into national syndication in which year?

ABC Radio's Ed McLaughlin also got him a separate WABC show so he could satisfy a contract clause requiring a top-five market.

Which BBC Radio 4 serial, on air since 1951, is the world's longest-running drama by episode count?

Billed as 'an everyday story of country folk', it has passed 20,000 episodes.

Russia marks Radio Day on 7 May because of whose 1895 demonstration of a coherer-based lightning detector?

He adapted techniques from Lodge's published lectures and presented the device to the Russian Physical and Chemical Society.

In which English town did Marconi open his 'wireless' factory in a former silk-works in 1898?

The Hall Street works employed around 60 people, a year after he set up a radio station on the Isle of Wight.

Marconi's first regular transatlantic radio-telegraph service in 1907 linked Clifden in Ireland with which station?

Even after that October 1907 opening the company struggled for years to provide reliable communication.

Regular entertainment broadcasts began in the UK in 1922 from Marconi station 2MT in which village?

The station was part of the Marconi Research Centre near Chelmsford.

Telefunken was founded in Berlin in 1903 as a joint venture between AEG and which company?

In 1911 Kaiser Wilhelm II sent its engineers to build three 600-foot radio towers at West Sayville, New York.

What 1926 product let radios draw power from the grid instead of batteries?

Sets still needed batteries to heat tube filaments until indirectly heated tubes made fully battery-free radios possible in 1927.

Richard H. Ranger of RCA invented which method of sending maps and photographs by radio in 1924?

Also called the wireless photoradiogram, it prospered in the mid-20th century before fading late in the century.

The 1910 Wireless Ship Act required radio on ships travelling more than how far offshore?

It was the first US regulation of radio, but it set no priority for distress calls and assigned no frequencies.

In which year did Edwin Armstrong patent FM radio?

His experimental station W2XMN in Alpine, New Jersey, was followed in 1937 by W1XOJ, the first FM station granted an FCC construction permit.

World Radio Day, proclaimed by UNESCO in 2011, is celebrated each year on which date?

The date marks the day in 1946 when the United Nations established United Nations Radio.

In 1933 Bell Labs engineer Karl Jansky announced radio waves coming from which constellation?

Jansky was hunting sources of static on transatlantic phone links; his rotating antenna on Model-T wheels was nicknamed his merry-go-round.

What was the first complete record played on BBC Radio 1 when it launched in 1967?

It was that week's number 2; the number 1, Engelbert Humperdinck's ballad, was judged wrong for the new station's sound.

Garrison Keillor's best-known radio segment brought 'News from' which fictional Minnesota town?

A Prairie Home Companion aired live on Saturdays from the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul from 1974 to 2016.

Car Talk began in 1977 when only one invited mechanic showed up at which Boston station?

Tom Magliozzi did so well alone that he was invited back and brought his brother Ray; NPR took the show national in 1986.

How many short tones make up the BBC's Greenwich Time Signal, the 'pips', each hour?

The pips have aired daily since 1924 and were generated by the Royal Observatory until the BBC took over in 1990.

Desert Island Discs castaways are automatically given the Bible and which other book?

Roy Plomley devised the show in 1942; castaways pick eight recordings, a third book and one luxury item.

Charles 'Doc' Herrold made scheduled entertainment broadcasts from 1912 in which city?

His station was licensed as KQW in 1921 and later became KCBS, still signing on as the 'pioneer broadcasting station of the world'.

On 1 January 1997 the US EAS took over from which earlier nationwide alerting scheme?

The new system's screeching digital header tones encode the alert type and the area meant to receive it.

OSCAR 1, the first amateur radio satellite, launched in 1961, beamed which two-letter Morse message?

It rode into orbit as ballast on a spy-satellite launch and transmitted for three weeks; HI also signals laughter in amateur telegraphy.