----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2012 3:31
AM
Subject: Re: [FWDLK] HISTORY OF THE CAR
RADIO---FANTASTIC READ.!!!!!
The oldest factory installed car radio I ever saw was in a
1917 Oldsmobile, at an Olds National Convention. Yes, Motorola was there at
the dawn of car radios, but they were not the first.
The "Town & Country" signal seeking radio in my 56 Dodge
was made by Motorola.
Dave Homstad
56 Dodge D500
On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 1:09 PM, Ron Swartley
wrote:
You will find this story
very interesting and very educational---only in America.!!
Ron
Subj: HISTORY OF THE
CAR RADIO
HISTORY OF THE CAR RADIO 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
handheld 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 handheld
cellular phone. Today Motorola is
> one of the largest cell phone
manufacturer 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!
and It all started with a
woman's suggestion!
=
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