 Museum of Radio and Technology in 2024. | |
 | |
| Established | 1991 |
|---|---|
| Location | 1640 Florence Ave, Huntington, West Virginia, 25701 |
| Type | Electronic Communication and Entertainment |
| President | Geoff Bourne |
| Employees | 8 |
| Website | Official Website |
The Museum of Radio and Technology is a museum in Huntington, West Virginia.
The museum covers the birth and growth of electronic communication and entertainment and includes hands-on exhibits. Admission is free. [1]
One major section of the Museum of Radio and Technology is dedicated to the West Virginia Broadcasting Hall of Fame. West Virginia boasts a large number of persons who were instrumental in the initial days of broadcasting history. Pictures, a story book, and a wall of names provide an interesting area of the West Virginia Radio and Technology Museum for visitors.
Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi, 1st Marquis of Marconi was an Italian inventor, electrical engineer, and politician, known for his creation of a practical radio wave–based wireless telegraph system. This led to Marconi being credited as the inventor of radio, and winning the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand Braun "in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy". His work laid the foundation for the development of radio, television, and all modern wireless communication systems.
The early history of radio is the history of technology that produces and uses radio instruments that use radio waves. Within the timeline of radio, many people contributed theory and inventions in what became radio. Radio development began as "wireless telegraphy". Later radio history increasingly involves matters of broadcasting.
In radio communication, a transceiver is an electronic device which is a combination of a radio transmitter and a receiver, hence the name. It can both transmit and receive radio waves using an antenna, for communication purposes. These two related functions are often combined in a single device to reduce manufacturing costs. The term is also used for other devices which can both transmit and receive through a communications channel, such as optical transceivers which transmit and receive light in optical fiber systems, and bus transceivers which transmit and receive digital data in computer data buses.
Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum, in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began with AM radio, which came into popular use around 1920 with the spread of vacuum tube radio transmitters and receivers. Before this, most implementations of electronic communication were one-to-one, with the message intended for a single recipient. The term broadcasting evolved from its use as the agricultural method of sowing seeds in a field by casting them broadly about. It was later adopted for describing the widespread distribution of information by printed materials or by telegraph. Examples applying it to "one-to-many" radio transmissions of an individual station to multiple listeners appeared as early as 1898.
Wireless communication is the transfer of information (telecommunication) between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided medium for the transfer. The most common wireless technologies use radio waves. With radio waves, intended distances can be short, such as a few meters for Bluetooth or as far as millions of kilometers for deep-space radio communications. It encompasses various types of fixed, mobile, and portable applications, including two-way radios, cellular telephones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and wireless networking. Other examples of applications of radio wireless technology include GPS units, garage door openers, wireless computer mouse, keyboards and headsets, headphones, radio receivers, satellite television, broadcast television and cordless telephones. Somewhat less common methods of achieving wireless communications involve other electromagnetic phenomena, such as light and magnetic or electric fields, or the use of sound.
Lee de Forest was an American inventor, electrical engineer and an early pioneer in electronics of fundamental importance. He invented the first practical electronic amplifier, the three-element "Audion" triode vacuum tube in 1906. This helped start the Electronic Age, and enabled the development of the electronic oscillator. These made radio broadcasting and long distance telephone lines possible, and led to the development of talking motion pictures, among countless other applications.
Valdemar Poulsen was a Danish engineer who developed a magnetic wire recorder called the telegraphone in 1898. He also made significant contributions to early radio technology, including the first continuous wave radio transmitter, the Poulsen arc, which was used for a majority of the earliest audio radio transmissions, before being supplanted by the development of vacuum-tube transmitters.
Telefunken was a German radio and television producer, founded in Berlin in 1903 as a joint venture between Siemens & Halske and the Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG) . Prior to World War I, the company set up the first world wide network of communications and was the first in the world to sell electronic televisions with cathode ray tubes, in Germany in 1934.
A spark-gap transmitter is an obsolete type of radio transmitter which generates radio waves by means of an electric spark. Spark-gap transmitters were the first type of radio transmitter, and were the main type used during the wireless telegraphy or "spark" era, the first three decades of radio, from 1887 to the end of World War I. German physicist Heinrich Hertz built the first experimental spark-gap transmitters in 1887, with which he proved the existence of radio waves and studied their properties.
The Voice of America's Bethany Relay Station was located in Butler County, Ohio's Union Township about 25 miles (40 km) north of Cincinnati, adjacent to the transmitter site of WLW. Starting in 1944 during World War II it transmitted American radio programming abroad on shortwave frequencies, using 200,000-watt transmitters built by Crosley engineers under the direction of R.J. Rockwell. The site was developed to provide 'fallback' transmission facilities inland and away from the East Coast, where transmitters were located in Massachusetts, on Long Island in New York, and in New Jersey, all close to the ocean, subject to attack from German submarines or other invading forces.
Charles Emory Apgar was an American business executive and amateur radio operator. He is known for making early recordings of radio transmissions at the start of World War I. The recordings that he made of a wireless telegraphy station owned by a German Empire-based company operating from the United States were used to expose an espionage ring. They provided evidence of clandestine messages being sent in violation of a prohibition intended to maintain United States neutrality. This proof of illicit operation led to the government seizing control of the facility to stop the activity. Apgar's efforts received extensive coverage in newspapers and technical science magazines at the time. His contributions were praised by government investigators. Publications continued to remark on his work many years later.
WDGG is a country music–formatted radio station licensed to Ashland, Kentucky, United States, serving Huntington, West Virginia, and the greater Huntington–Ashland metropolitan area. The station is owned by Kindred Communications as part of a conglomerate with Huntington–licensed ESPN Radio–affiliated sports station WRVC, Huntington–licensed ESPN Radio–affiliated sports station WCMI, Catlettsburg, Kentucky–licensed active rock station WCMI-FM, Kenova, West Virginia–licensed adult contemporary station WMGA, and Gallipolis, Ohio–licensed classic country station WXBW. All six stations share studios on Fifth Avenue in downtown Huntington, while its transmitter facilities off of Park Avenue near I-64 in southwestern Huntington.
WCMI is an ESPN Radio–affiliated station licensed to Ashland, Kentucky, United States, and serving Huntington, West Virginia and the greater Huntington–Ashland metropolitan area. The station is owned by Huntington–based Kindred Communications as part of a conglomerate with Huntington–licensed ESPN Radio–affiliated sports station WRVC, Catlettsburg, Kentucky–licensed active rock station WCMI-FM, Ashland–licensed country music station WDGG, Kenova, West Virginia–licensed adult contemporary station WMGA, and Gallipolis, Ohio–licensed classic country station WXBW. All six stations share studios on Fifth Avenue in downtown Huntington, while its transmitter facilities off of US 52 across the Ohio River from Ashland in Perry Township, Lawrence County, Ohio.
WRVC is an ESPN Radio–affiliated sports–formatted station licensed to Huntington, West Virginia, United States, and serving the greater Huntington–Ashland metropolitan area. The station is owned by Huntington–based Kindred Communications as part of a conglomerate with Ashland, Kentucky–licensed ESPN Radio–affiliated sports station WCMI, Catlettsburg, Kentucky–licensed active rock station WCMI-FM, Ashland–licensed country music station WDGG, Kenova, West Virginia–licensed adult contemporary station WMGA, and Gallipolis, Ohio–licensed classic country station WXBW. All six stations share studios on Fifth Avenue in downtown Huntington, while its transmitter facilities off of Park Avenue near I-64 in southwestern Huntington.
Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connected to an antenna which radiates oscillating electrical energy, often characterized as a wave. They can be received by other antennas connected to a radio receiver, this is the fundamental principle of radio communication. In addition to communication, radio is used for radar, radio navigation, remote control, remote sensing, and other applications.
WZWB is a radio station broadcasting a sports format, licensed to Kenova, West Virginia and serving the Huntington market as the area's affiliate of Fox Sports Radio.
The following timeline tables list the discoveries and inventions in the history of electrical and electronic engineering.
This article details the history of electronics engineering. Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary (1972) defines electronics as "The science and technology of the conduction of electricity in a vacuum, a gas, or a semiconductor, and devices based thereon".
Wireless Hill Park is a 40-hectare (99-acre) park in Ardross, Western Australia that is the location of the former Applecross Wireless Station, an early radio station in Western Australia. The station buildings have been preserved and now house the Wireless Hill Museum. The site is listed in the Register of the National Estate and the State Register of Heritage Places.
The California Historical Radio Society (CHRS) is a non-profit organization centered on the history of radio and radio broadcasting, including related technologies such as vintage TV, amateur radio and HiFi. The focus is on the history of early radio and early radio broadcasting in California, especially the San Francisco Bay Area and the western states. Its museum and headquarters, known as "Radio Central," are located in Alameda, California.