Etymology & Invention

Etymology

Originally, radio or radiotelegraphy was called "wireless telegraphy", which was shortened to "wireless". The prefix radio- in the sense of wireless transmission, was first recorded in the word radioconductor, coined by the French physicist Edouard Branly in 1897 and based on the verb to radiate (in Latin "radius" means "spoke of a wheel, beam of light, ray"). "Radio" as a noun is said to have been coined by advertising expert Waldo Warren (White 1944). The word appears in a 1907 article by Lee de Forest, was adopted by the United States Navy in 1912 and became common by the time of the first commercial broadcasts in the United States in the 1920s. (The noun "broadcasting" itself came from an agricultural term, meaning "scattering seeds".) The term was then adopted by other languages in Europe and Asia, although British Commonwealth countries continued to use the term "wireless" until the mid-20th century.

In recent years the term "wireless" has gained renewed popularity through the rapid growth of short-range computer networking, e.g., Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), WiFi and Bluetooth, as well as mobile telephony, e.g., GSM and UMTS. Today, the term "radio" often refers to the actual transceiver device or chip, whereas "wireless" refers to the system and/or method used for radio communication, hence one talks about radio transceivers and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), but about wireless devices and wireless sensor networks.

Invention

Although the invention of radio was long attributed to Guglielmo Marconi, the identity of the original inventor of radio (at the time called wireless telegraphy) is contentious.[12] Development from a laboratory demonstration to commercial utility spanned several decades and required the efforts of many practitioners. In 1943 Tesla was granted the patent for the invention of radio when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned many of Marconi's radio patents.

Other significant contributions include:
•In 1887, David E. Hughes transmitted signals by radio using a clockwork-keyed Spark Transmitter, achieving a range of approximately 500 metres.
•In 1888, Heinrich Hertz produced and measured the Ultra High Frequency range (via a sparkgap transmitter).
•In 1891, Nikola Tesla began wireless research. He developed means to reliably produce radio frequencies, publicly demonstrated the principles of radio, and transmitted long-distance signals.
•Between 1893 and 1894, Roberto Landell de Moura, a Brazilian priest and scientist, conducted experiments. He did not publicise his achievement (publicly broadcasting human voice) until 1900 but later obtained a Brazilian patent.
•In 1894 in Kolkata (Calcutta), Sir Jagdish Chandra Bose (J. C. Bose) invented the mercury coherer, together with the telephone receiver.
•Alexander Stepanovich Popov, in 1894, built his first radio receiver, which contained a coherer, although in actuality the coherer was first invented by Edouard Branly. Popov demonstrated the coherer, further refined as a lightning detector, to the Russian Physical and Chemical Society on May 7, 1895.
•In 1894, Guglielmo Marconi read about Hertz's and Tesla's work on wireless telegraphy, and began his own experiments.
•In August 1894, Oliver Lodge, an English physicist and writer, transmitted radio signals at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at the University of Oxford.[13]
•Late 1896 to early 1897, Tesla received wireless signals transmitted from the Houston Street lab in New York City to West Point, "a distance of about 30 miles."[14]
•In March 1897 Marconi transmitted wireless telegraphy signals over a distance of two miles on Salisbury Plains, followed in May 1897 by a test over water between Lavernock and Flat Holm in the Bristol Channel, a distance of just over three miles. He then moved the receiving equipment to Brean Down Fort and extended the range to just under ten miles.
•In December of 1901 Guglielmo Marconi received the first transatlantic radio communication over a distance of 2,000 miles (3,200 km) from Poldhu, UK, to St. Johns, Newfoundland. Marconi was celebrated worldwide for this achievement. Soon after the patent was given to Marconi. He later received the Nobel Prize.
•In early 1900s Canadian engineer-inventor Reginald Fessenden [1] and American engineer Lee de Forest invented amplitude-modulated (AM) radio, allowing an audio signal to be sent over the air.
•In 1935 Edwin H. Armstrong invented frequency-modulated (FM) radio, so that an audio signal can avoid "static," that is, interference from electrical equipment and atmospherics.
•In 1943, the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged that Marconi's work wasn't original because he had used 17 of Tesla's patents to accomplish his broadcasts, and the patent ownership is given back to Nikola Tesla. However, Tesla died shortly before the decision was announced.[15]