Still broadcasting today, the world's first radio station was invented by Charles Herrold in 1909 in San Jose, California. His accomplishment was first documented in a notarized statement written by him and published in the Electro-Importing Company's 1910 catalog: "We have given wireless phone concerts to amateur wireless men throughout the Santa Clara Valley." Being the first to "broadcast" radio entertainment and information to a mass audience puts him at the forefront of modern day mass communication. This biography of Charles Herrold focuses on how he used primitive technology to get on the air. Today it is a 50,000-watt station (KCBS, in San Francisco). The authors describe Herrold's story as one of early triumph and final failure, the story of an "everyman," an individual who was an innovator but never received recognition for his work and, as a result, died penniless. His most important work was done between 1912 and 1917, and following World War I, he received a license and operated station KQW for several years before running out of money. Herrold then worked as a radio time salesman, an audiovisual technician for a high school, and a janitor at a local naval facility, still telling anyone who would listen to him that he was the father of radio. The authors also consider some other early inventors, and the directions that their work took.

An in-depth look at a century of radio history—and its continuing relevance in a radically changed world. A century after Marconi’s experimental transmissions, this book examines the history of radio and traces its development from theories advanced by James Clerk Maxwell and Heinrich Hertz to the first practical demonstrations by Guglielmo Marconi. It looks back to the pioneering broadcasts of the BBC, examines the development of broadcast networks in North America and around the world, and spotlights radio’s role in the Second World War. The book also features the radio programs and radio personalities that made a considerable impact on listeners during the “Golden Era.” It examines how radio, faced by competition from television, adapted and survived. Indeed, radio has continued to thrive despite increased competition from mobile phones, computers, and other technological developments. Radio Broadcasting looks ahead and speculates on how radio will fare in a multi-platform future.

"It was not a matter of propaganda ... black and white ideological broadcasts ... What made [Radio Free Europe] important were its impartiality, independence, and objectivity."---Vaclav Havel "Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty were critically important weapons in the free world's competition with Soviet totalitarianism---and without them the Soviet bloc might even have not disintegrated ... The account in this book of their activities is therefore not only informative, but critical to understanding recent history."---Zbigniew Brzezinski "The studies and translated Soviet bloc documents published in this book demonstrate the enormous impact of Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and Voice of America during the Cold War. By promoting democratic values and undermining the monopoly of information on which Communist regimes relied, the Radios contributed greatly to the end of the Cold War."---George P. Shultz "I know of no other mass media organization that has done more than RFE/RL to help create the Europe in which we live today---a Europe not divided into two opposing camps."---Elena Bonner Examines the role of Western broadcasting to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe during the Cold War, with a focus on Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. It includes chapters by radio veterans and by scholars who have conducted research on the subject in once-secret Soviet bloc archives and in Western records. It also contains a selection of translated documents from formerly secret Soviet and East European archives, most of them published here for the first time.

Mexican Waves is the fascinating history of how borderlands radio stations shaped the identity of an entire region as they addressed the needs of the local population and fluidly reached across borders to the United States. In so doing, radio stations created a new market of borderlands consumers and worked both within and outside the constraints of Mexican and U.S. laws. Historian Sonia Robles examines the transnational business practices of Mexican radio entrepreneurs between the Golden Age of radio and the early years of television history. Intersecting Mexican history and diaspora studies with communications studies, this book explains how Mexican radio entrepreneurs targeted the Mexican population in the United States decades before U.S. advertising agencies realized the value of the Spanish-language market. Robles’s robust transnational research weaves together histories of technology, performance, entrepreneurship, and business into a single story. Examining the programming of northern Mexican commercial radio stations, the book shows how radio stations from Tijuana to Matamoros courted Spanish-language listeners in the U.S. Southwest and local Mexican audiences between 1930 and 1950. Robles deftly demonstrates Mexico’s role in creating the borderlands, adding texture and depth to the story. Scholars and students of radio, Spanish-language media in the United States, communication studies, Mexican history, and border studies will see how Mexican radio shaped the region’s development and how transnational listening communities used broadcast media’s unique programming to carve out a place for themselves as consumers and citizens of Mexico and the United States.

Tells how Blacks used radio

Looks at the history of radio broadcasting as an aspect of American culture, and discusses social tensions, radio formats, and the roles of African Americans and women

The Radio Station offers a concise and insightful guide to all aspects of radio broadcasting, streaming, and podcasting. This book’s tenth edition continues its long tradition of guiding readers to a solid understanding of who does what, when, and why in a professionally managed station. This new edition explains what "radio" in America has been, where it is today, and where it is going, covering the basics of how programming is produced, financed, delivered and promoted via terrestrial and satellite broadcasting, streaming and podcasting, John Allen Hendricks and Bruce Mims examine radio and its future within a framework of existing and emerging technologies. The companion website is new revised with content for instructors, including an instructors’ manual and test questions. Students will discover an expanded library of audio interviews with leading industry professionals in addition to practice quizzes and links to additional resources.

This essential text for any technician in broadcasting deals with all the most important digital television, sound radio and multimedia standards. The book provides an in-depth look at these subjects in terms of practical experience. In addition it contains chapters on the basics of technologies such as analog television, digital modulation, COFDM or mathematical transformations between time and frequency domains. The attention in each respective field under discussion is focused on aspects of measuring techniques and of measuring practice, in each case consolidating the knowledge imparted with numerous practical examples. Since the entire field of electrical communications technology is traversed in a wide arc, those who are students in this field are not excluded either.

Among America's most unusual and successful weapons during the Cold War were Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. RFE-RL had its origins in a post-war America brimming with confidence and secure in its power. Unlike the Voice of America, which conveyed a distinctly American perspective on global events, RFE-RL served as surrogate home radio services and a vital alternative to the controlled, party-dominated domestic press in Eastern Europe. Over twenty stations featured programming tailored to individual countries. They reached millions of listeners ranging from industrial workers to dissident leaders such as Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel. Broadcasting Freedom draws on rare archival material and offers a penetrating insider history of the radios that helped change the face of Europe. Arch Puddington reveals new information about the connections between RFE-RL and the CIA, which provided covert funding for the stations during the critical start-up years in the early 1950s. He relates in detail the efforts of Soviet and Eastern Bloc officials to thwart the stations; their tactics ranged from jamming attempts, assassinations of radio journalists, the infiltration of spies onto the radios' staffs, and the bombing of the radios' headquarters. Puddington addresses the controversies that engulfed the stations throughout the Cold War, most notably RFE broadcasts during the Hungarian Revolution that were described as inflammatory and irresponsible. He shows how RFE prevented the Communist authorities from establishing a monopoly on the dissemination of information in Poland and describes the crucial roles played by the stations as the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union broke apart. Broadcasting Freedom is also a portrait of the Cold War in America. Puddington offers insights into the strategic thinking of the RFE-RL leadership and those in the highest circles of American government, including CIA directors, secretaries of state, and even presidents.