Facts about radio. Interesting facts about radio Facts about radio
Radio has become a part of people's lives; its sound can be heard in shops, on minibuses and even in the office. Many people have favorite radio stations and recognizable radio presenters. However, few people know about the interesting facts that are associated with radio.
1. During the Second World War, the US military came up with one interesting trick - to use Indians so that their communications and radio signals would not be decrypted. The Indian language is so difficult to understand that even if the signal was intercepted, it would not be possible to understand it.
2. The first of April has long been famous for its jokes, which are also heard on the radio. However, the funniest episode occurred in 1976. In the studio of one of the radio stations in England, the astronomer informed all listeners that on this day the planet Pluto is approaching another planet Venus, which will affect the earth's gravity. Therefore, his recommendation for all residents was to jump and experience what the astronauts feel. It is interesting that many radio listeners reacted to such a statement, calling and telling how weightlessness affected them.
3. Radio is the reason why the Eiffel Tower still stands in its place in Paris. After all, initially it was installed temporarily and was supposed to be dismantled after 20 years. But in the early 1900s, thanks to the advent of radio, antennas began to be installed on it, so the decision to remove it was reversed.
4. Another story about the usefulness of radio happened in 1940. During a football game in England, thick fog descended on the field. The game was broadcast on , but the commentator who was near the microphone could not even see a piece of the field. According to operational information, the Germans were listening to this broadcast, and if they found out that there was fog in England, they could start bombing. Therefore, the radio presenter had no choice but to invent the entire course of the football game and confidently talk about it.
5. Statistics say that 73% of Americans listen to the radio while driving, 46% turn on the radio in the kitchen, and 23% of US residents even have a radio in the bathroom.
Despite the development of television and the Internet, radio does not lose its relevance. And new technologies allow you to listen to your favorite wave even without a receiver, for example through online broadcasts. With good Internet speed and a high-quality resource, the sound will be even better than through a regular receiver. And the selection and variety of radio stations on the Internet cannot be compared with any music player. For example, on the site
May 7th? the date on which Radio Day is celebrated. In 1896, on this day, the famous professor A.S. Popov invented the first radio receiver, which forever changed the life of mankind.
Until this time, many inventors had attempted wireless signal transmission. Have many even achieved certain results? The signal could be transmitted over a distance of over 20 kilometers. But it was A.S. Popov who was able to send the first radiogram. It consisted of several words: “Heinrich Hertz.”
At the beginning of the 90s of the 20th century, the first radio program was broadcast via the Internet.
Thanks to radio, the word “hacker” appeared - this was the name given to those who cracked secret passwords at radio stations. The most famous hacker is Neville Maskelyne, who lived in England. He was hired by a large telegraph organization to clearly demonstrate the vulnerability of the new type of communication. For these purposes, Maskelyne built a radio mast, the height of which exceeded 50 meters. During the presentation of the wireless telegraph, which took place at an English institute at the beginning of the 20th century, the radio turned on earlier than the promised time and information was transmitted that G. Marconi, who was directly related to the invention of radio, was deceiving people. In this way, the imperfection of the wireless telegraph was demonstrated to the assembled public.
The Eiffel Tower is directly related to radio. After all, it was built for the World Exhibition, which was planned to be held in 1889. After 20 years they were going to dismantle it. But it was the radio that saved the main symbol of Paris? the tower was ideal for installing radio communication antennas.
April 18, 1930? a date that went down in the history of radio broadcasting. Although nothing remarkable happened on this memorable day. The announcer simply said that the day did not bring news that deserved the attention of radio listeners, and instead of news broadcasts, classical music was played on the air.
In 1976, a joke was broadcast on BBC radio to mark April Fool's Day. It clearly showed the influence that radio has on a large number of people. Patrick Moore, who is passionate about astronomy, broadcast live information about an amazing phenomenon that is about to happen in the coming hours: due to the interaction of two planets, Pluto and Jupiter, the earth's gravity will be weakened. The “Humorist” suggested that people who want to experience this amazing effect for themselves should jump during this entire time. In the next few hours, the radio station received many calls. People talked about the amazing feeling of weightlessness experienced during this period, and one lady assured that she managed to take off.
During the wars, the Americans used Indians belonging to different tribes as radio operators. German and Japanese authorities were unable to decipher the intercepted messages. During World War II, languages that were little understood, such as the Basque language, were also used to encrypt secret messages.
1. Radio Day is celebrated annually in Russia on May 7, since on this day in 1895 the Russian physicist Alexander Popov carried out a communication session using a radio receiver he designed.
2. Since at the end of the 19th century many physicists were engaged in the study of radio communications, in addition to Alexander Popov, Italian is considered the father of radio engineer Guglielmo Marconi, American Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla, English physicist Oliver Joseph Lodge, French physicist and engineer Edouard Branly, Bengali scientist Jagadish Chandra Bose.
3. The first radio broadcasts in our country began to be transmitted from the Nizhny Novgorod Radio Laboratory in 1919. Before this, only Morse code was heard on the air, not the human voice.
4. In the 1920s, radio broadcasts began to be broadcast from experimental stations in different cities of the country, and in 1924 broadcasting became regular. Thus, radio became a mass media.
5. In the USSR, radio was at the peak of its popularity - radio circles operated at clubs, schools and universities, and enthusiasts assembled receivers using homemade methods.
6. The most famous announcer in the Soviet Union was Yuri Levitan, his voice was known to every resident of the country. Levitan has been an announcer at All-Union Radio since 1931. During the Great Patriotic War, he read Sovinformburo reports and orders Joseph Stalin, and it was he who was entrusted with informing the whole country about the capture of Berlin and the Victory.
7. It is interesting that it was the Soviet Union that first began broadcasting foreign countries to Western countries. Moscow Radio (later “Voice of Russia”) began broadcasting in foreign languages back in 1929. Western radio stations broadcasting in Russian, such as Radio Liberty and Voice of America, appeared much later, and during the Cold War they were jammed in every possible way.
8. In 1945, 50 years after the invention of radio, the “Radio Day” holiday appeared in the USSR, established “in order to popularize the achievements of domestic science and technology in the field of radio and encourage amateur radio among the general population.”
9. In the 1990s, the radio broadcasting system in Russia changed dramatically. Many commercial radio stations have appeared, especially music ones, but information and talk radio stations have remained, and moreover, they are popular, such as such a well-known station as “Echo of Moscow”.
10. Radio did not die even with the advent of the Internet, since it became possible to listen to it online without any receivers. In order to turn on the radio, now you just need to go to the website of your favorite radio station.
Still from the film "Attack Center", 1946
After the American Malon Loomis patented wireless communications in 1872, it became clear that further steps in the field of communicating people at a distance were inevitable. The race began, the finish line of which was the invention of “radio”. Many scientists and inventors around the world joined this impromptu competition. It is not surprising that many countries have their own “tube” radio inventor, who was certainly ahead of the rest of the world. In Europe it is Guglielmo Marconi, in Germany it is Heinrich Hertz, in the USA it is David Huich, in Russia it is Alexander Popov, in India it is Jagadish Bose.
The idea of radio was in the air, and it is not surprising that this bright thought immediately came to many people on the planet. So the rivalry “who invented the radio first” can be considered completely baseless. Each of them opened radio for his native country - and this is his merit.
On May 7, 1895, Alexander Popov first demonstrated the operation of perhaps the first working radio receiver in the world at a meeting of the Russian Physical and Chemical Society in St. Petersburg. This day in Russia became Radio Day, in honor of which we have collected some interesting facts and stories about radio that you might not know about:
- In the United States, until 2013, all major government radio stations did not have the right to broadcast within their own country. The whole point is in the decree that state radio is aimed at propaganda, and the government is obliged to protect its citizens from any propaganda, even its own.
- In the same USA, the famous film director and actor Orson Welles, during his work on the radio, managed to cause panic on a national scale. It's all because of his radio play based on a book by another Wells (this time Herbert), which was presented in the format of a report from the scene. Those listeners who tuned in to the radio station in the middle of the broadcast thought that they were listening to a real news report, and the White House had really been burned by Martians a couple of minutes ago. A whole wave of hysterical calls fell on the phones of various news services, people fled en masse in cars to the countryside, and the most notorious paranoids barricaded themselves in their own basements with a can of stew in one hand and a hard drive in the other.
- “What a gigantic radio antenna this will make!” - the Parisians thought and decided to leave the Eiffel Tower in its rightful place. Today's symbol of Paris and France in general (together with a baguette, frog legs, the Bastille and a layer cake in a cocked hat), created in honor of the opening of the World Exhibition, could be dismantled after some twenty years of use. Imagine Paris without the Eiffel Tower, be horrified and glad that such a useful use was found for it.
- On April 1, 1976, British radio host Patrick Moore told all interested listeners the following interesting facts - on this day Pluto will pass behind Venus, which is why gravity on Earth should decrease. If you jump high in the morning at 9:47, you can feel like a real astronaut. Despite the madness and absurdity of the news, many people decided to check it out. Their angry calls kept breaking up the radio station's phone for several more days. One can only be glad that the vast majority still failed to overcome gravity, because one woman from Sussex reported that she was able to fly over the sofa in this way.
- In 2009, virologist Luc Montagnier suggested that bacteria can communicate with each other through radio waves. After some time, it was proven that even the smallest viruses are quite capable of generating radio signals. This creates a huge space for paranoia, because bacteria communicating with each other is the worst nightmare of all those who are afraid of getting sick and take antibiotics for any reason.
