Radio Day

One of my radios. 1/11/2014 dwm

I've been fascinated by radio for years. On trips and especially at night, Dad and I would listen to stations quite a ways from south Wisconsin, finding stations thanks to signals skipping off the atmosphere.

At night, I loved tinkering with the clock radio in my bedroom, pulling in signals from stations in Cleveland, Boston, and San Antonio.

The first station I worked for, WCLO, used to have a promo declaring they were, "Marconi's dream come true."

Gugliemo Marconi is credited with inventing the radio, but Tesla's earlier research indicated the technology was feasible even after earlier discoveries of radio waves and electromagnetism.

Broadcasts in the United States date back to 1910. An experimental station was established at the University of Wisconsin Madison in 1915. Commercial radio was born in Pittsburgh when KDKA took to the air November 2, 1920.

The hey-day of radio was before my time, but I still enjoyed the powerhouse stations out of Chicago, like WLS that played top-40 rock music. FM radio was just beginning to gain traction. WCLO's FM sister station played elevator music when I started working there; they became a country station before I left for college in 1981.

My early days driving was usually in my dad's 1968 AMC Rebel. It had an AM radio providing the sound track. One song that springs to mind was hearing "I Love a Rainy Night," on the radio as the wipers kept time with the drummer in Eddie Rabbitt's band.

Radio today is more than AM and FM, it's satellite, internet, and podcasts available through nearly every form of media. More than 2/3rds of the people driving today listen to the radio while two out of three listen every day.

It's an immediate form of communication, it's free over-the-air, and remains an essential part of a go-bag in the case of emergency when it would be a lot more difficult to carry a TV or being able to see a signal in an app.