History of the car radio.

[Skrambler]

Seems like cars have always had radios, but they didn't. Here's the true story:

One evening, in 1929, two young men named William Lear and Elmer Wavering drove their girlfriends to a lookout point high above the Mississippi River town of Quincy , Illinois , to watch the sunset. It was a romantic night to be sure, but one of the women observed that it would be even nicer if they could listen to music in the car.

Lear and Wavering liked the idea. Both men had tinkered with radios (Lear had served as a radio operator in the U.S. Navy during World War I) and it wasn't long before they were taking apart a home radio and trying to get it to work in a car.

But it wasn't as easy as it sounds: automobiles have ignition switches, generators, spark plugs, and other electrical equipment that generate noisy static interference, making it nearly impossible to listen to the radio when the engine was running.

One by one, Lear and Wavering identified and eliminated each source of electrical interference.

When they finally got their radio to work, they took it to a radio convention in Chicago . There they met Paul Galvin, owner of Galvin Manufacturing Corporation. He made a product called a "battery eliminator" a device that allowed battery-powered radios to run on household AC current. But as more homes were wired for electricity more radio manufacturers made AC-powered radios. Galvin needed a new product to manufacture.

When he met Lear and Wavering at the radio convention, he found it. He believed that mass-produced, affordable car radios had the potential to become a huge business.

Lear and Wavering set up shop in Galvin's factory, and when they perfected their first radio, they installed it in his Studebaker.

Then Galvin went to a local banker to apply for a loan. Thinking it might sweeten the deal, he had his men install a radio in the banker's Packard. Good idea, but it didn't work – Half an hour after the installation, the banker's Packard caught on fire. (They didn't get the loan.)

Galvin didn't give up. He drove his Studebaker nearly 800 miles to Atlantic City to show off the radio at the 1930 Radio Manufacturers Association convention. Too broke to afford a booth, he parked the car outside the convention hall and cranked up the radio so that passing conventioneers could hear it. That idea worked – He got enough orders to put the radio into production.

WHAT'S IN A NAME

That first production model was called the 5T71. Galvin decided he needed to come up with something a little catchier. In those days many companies in the phonograph and radio businesses used the suffix "ola" for their names - Radiola, Columbiola, and Victrola were three of the biggest. Galvin decided to do the same thing, and since his radio was intended for use in a motor vehicle, he decided to call it the Motorola.

But even with the name change, the radio still had problems:

When Motorola went on sale in 1930, it cost about $110 uninstalled, at a time when you could buy a brand-new car for $650, and the country was sliding into the Great Depression. (By that measure, a radio for a new car would cost about $3,000 today.)

In 1930 it took two men several days to put in a car radio – The dashboard had to be taken apart so that the receiver and a single speaker could be installed, and the ceiling had to be cut open to install the antenna. These early radios ran on their own batteries, not on the car battery, so holes had to be cut into the floorboard to accommodate them.

The installation manual had eight complete diagrams and 28 pages of instructions.

Selling complicated car radios that cost 20 percent of the price of a brand-new car wouldn't have been easy in the best of times, let alone during the Great Depression.

Galvin lost money in 1930 and struggled for a couple of years after that.

But things picked up in 1933 when Ford began offering Motorola's pre-installed at the factory.

In 1934 they got another boost when Galvin struck a deal with B.F. Goodrich tire company to sell and install them in its chain of tire stores. By then the price of the radio, installation included, had dropped to $55. The Motorola car radio was off and running. (The name of the company would be officially changed from Galvin Manufacturing to "Motorola" in 1947.)

In the meantime, Galvin continued to develop new uses for car radios. In 1936, the same year that it introduced push-button tuning, it also introduced the Motorola Police Cruiser, a standard car radio that was factory preset to a single frequency to pick up police broadcasts. In 1940 he developed with the first hand held two-way radio – The Handie-Talkie – for the U. S. Army.

A lot of the communications technologies that we take for granted today were born in Motorola labs in the years that followed World War II. In 1947 they came out with the first television to sell under $200. In 1956 the company introduced the world's first pager. In 1969 it supplied the radio and television equipment that was used to televise Neil Armstrong's first steps on the Moon. In 1973 it invented the world's first hand held cellular phone.

Today Motorola is one of the largest cell phone manufacturers in the world – and it all started with the car radio.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO:

The two men who installed the first radio in Paul Galvin's car, Elmer Wavering and William Lear, ended up taking very different paths in life. Wavering stayed with Motorola. In the 1950's he helped change the automobile experience again when he developed the first automotive alternator, replacing inefficient and unreliable generators. The invention lead to such luxuries as power windows, power seats, and eventually, air-conditioning.

Lear also continued inventing. He holds more than 150 patents. Remember eight-track tape players? Lear invented that. But what he's really famous for are his contributions to the field of aviation. He invented radio direction finders for planes, aided in the invention of the autopilot, designed the first fully automatic aircraft landing system, and in 1963 introduced his most famous invention of all, the Lear Jet, the world's first mass-produced, affordable business jet. (Not bad for a guy who dropped out of school after the eighth grade.)

Sometimes it is fun to find out how some of the many things that we take for granted actually came into being!

[Apittslife]

Thanks for sharing!

That was a nice read.

[Kudzuking]

Good article, makes you wonder what everyone else was doing, these two really came up with some great stuff.

[JIPJOBXX]

If anyone is interested in having there radio rebuilt or maybe securing one I have been dealing with a person who lives in Grant Pass Oregon and is as honest as the day is long. Contact me oft line and I will give you his e-mail address-Jon (Nothing in it for me just think highly of this person)

[mrwrstory]

The connections to people and sources and the history that many of us have viewed without realizing it, is what's so great about this gang of knuckleheads.

Happy New Year to All!

[Tim Keith]

I was born in Quincy Ill. There is still radio businesses in town. Elmer Wavering died about 20 years ago in his '90s. Wavering brought the 2nd Motorola plant to Quincy, closed almost 40 years ago soon after he retired. Bill Lear is known for the Lear Jet and the 8 track tape player, but he was the genius behind many early radio advancements. Lear was from Hannibal MO, just down the river. These young men got into the radio hobby as boys when the cost of entry was low, when major players weren't very interested in the commercial future radio. Radio was seen as a fad. Not many colleges offered engineering programs in the then new technology. The radio pioneers were largely self taught. Ham radio and its packet switching message forwarding is the basis of the Internet. Not many many young people are active in basic technology anymore, spending too much time playing video games.

Quincy Business Hall of Fame - Elmer Wavering

[Don Coatney]

Old news.

Follow this link posted 1-13, 2012.

http://www430.pair.com/p15d24/mopar_forum/showthread.php?t=30718&highlight=radio

[55 Fargo]

Old news.

Follow this link posted 1-13, 2012.

http://www430.pair.com/p15d24/mopar_forum/showthread.php?t=30718&highlight=radio

Whats Old Is New again. I belong to some other non-car forums, you should see the repetition on there, would drive you nuts...

[Skrambler]

Don.

Sorry for the posting. Did not mean to steal your fire from the prior posting about a year ago. I stumbled on this artical and found it to be very interesting and thought that others would be interested too.

I guess that this is the reason why I only have a hundred posts or so over the past 6 or so years. I watch, but keep my comments and replies to myself. This board ain't like the old board from years back!

Again, sorry all for the repost. I will do better research the next time I decide to share any information...

Happy New Year to all, just in the case I do not post again till 2014.

[BeBop138]

I don`t remember the first post---heck I don`t remember what I had for breakfast some days---still a good read...thanks

[T120]

..A bit of trivia -Reading through the article,about midway, "What's in a name",they came up with the name Motorola...Over in Austria in 1934 they produced a car radio -

called it a Hornyphon

[austinsailor]

I worked for Motorola for a lot of years, starting as a design lab technician, later as a self taught (non-degreed, they called it) engineer. 6 times, actually. 2 times as a regular employee, 3 times through contract houses and once as my own company. It used to be quite a company, very innovative. A very good employer. Through the '90s and 2000s it became a company directed by the wrong people (who the heck ever heard of "co-directors?) and started loosing it. They let small fiefdoms squabble, drag down sections of the company over personal power struggles, and ignorred customer requests for products.

For example, they invented the cellphone business and virtually owned it. Analog phones were becoming dated and customers were asking for digital phones. Moto managers told them, no, you really want this new improved analog phone we're working on. Customers went elsewhere and it's been downhill ever since.

They've sold most of their former profitable divisions and there is not much left. A real shame

[Thumbtack]

I personally, am glad it was re posted! Had it not been I most never would have learned that piece of history! I am a youngin, whipper snapper, whatever ya want to call me. So I say Thank you! Matthew

[55 Fargo]

I also enjoyed the read, so what it was posted before, big deal, thanks for posting,BTW Happy New Year......