Jerry,
Can't live with them, can't live without them!!
I've had the good fortune to live with the same one for over thirty years!!
Pat, K9JAUAt 05:39 AM 11/9/2012, you wrote:
>Those darn girls anyway.
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "John J. Jacques" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2012 6:51 PM
>Subject: Fw: [MSB-Alumni] OT: History of the Car Radio
>
>
> > Hi all, I just got this from another list and thought you would enjoy it!
> >
> > 73:
> > John
> >
> > John Jacques
> > Amateur Radio Station: KD8PC
> > "Where Cat Is,  Is Civilization!"
> >
> > --------- Forwarded message ----------
> > HISTORY OF THE CAR RADIO
> >
> > Seems like cars have always had radios, not true. 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 carradio -- 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 manufacturers 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!