What is the future of radio in cars? It’s now being written.
[This was my weekly column for GlobalNews.ca. – AC]
Listening to the radio in the car is almost as old as the automobile itself. The very first time anyone demonstrated the operation of the new-fangled wireless devices was at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis when American inventor Lee DeForest demonstrated his cutting-edge technology. It worked just fine, but since proper radio stations would not exist for at least another dozen years, this was really just a proof-of-concept thing that was over most people’s heads.
By 1922, commercial radio was starting to catch on, and several inventors were keen to install receivers in cars. An amateur named George Frost showed off a radio that he MacGyvered in a Ford Model T. Others followed: the Airtone 3D in 1925 and the Philco Transitone of 1927. Nice, but impractical. They were very bulky, ran on very fragile vacuum tubes and were very expensive. A Transitone cost $150 (about $2,300 in today’s money) when you could buy a whole car for under $700. Electrical interference from the car’s ignition system was also a major problem.
The big breakthrough came in 1930 when the owner of a radio supply business, William R. Lear (yes, the Learjet guy and the first promoter of the 8-track player) worked with Elmer Wavering (one of his employees and the inventor of the car alternator) met up with Paul and Joseph Galvin, owners of an electronics manufacturer.
