One hundred years of radio: a technology-orientated look back
13.9.2018
Translation: machine translated
The switch from FM to DAB+ is a piece of cake in the history of radio. It is just another type of transmission, of which there have already been many and which have always been modified. An overview of one hundred years of Swiss radio history.
Switzerland is switching from FM to digital radio. For 20 years. But now for real. Large-scale information campaigns are underway. After all, how bad would it be if someone switched on their transistor radio completely unprepared after 20 years of preparation for this drastic result and realised to their horror that they could not receive anything? Unthinkable, a catastrophe of epic proportions.
But let's come back down to earth. A sober look at the history of radio shows that there have been changes in the past that were no less significant than today's switch to digital.
The beginnings of radio in Switzerland
Regularly operated radio stations have existed for around 100 years. The first regular stations in Switzerland began broadcasting in the 1920s. Seven regional radio organisations joined forces in 1931 - the SRG was founded. The two medium-wave country transmitters Beromünster and Sottens also date from this year; the transmitter on Monte Ceneri was added for Italian-speaking Switzerland in 1933.
Radio quickly became a very important medium, not least because television did not yet exist. It was initially broadcast on medium wave and received on tube radios.
Source: wikimedia.org/Vitavia
It was also a time when radio was a powerful propaganda tool. Nazi supremo Goebbels was one of the first to recognise its potential. The Nazis therefore brought cheap devices ("people's receivers") to the people. What made radio interesting for propaganda was also the fact that it could be broadcast to other countries. Shortwave was particularly suitable for this. Although higher frequencies have a shorter range on the ground, the short waves reflect off the ionosphere and can therefore cover very long distances under favourable conditions.
Radio was faster than the press, which feared the new competition. They lobbied against frequent news programmes. The music industry was also afraid and banned SRG from playing records. None of this harmed radio. In 1931, 150,000 people in Switzerland paid radio licence fees, in 1937 over 500,000 and in 1950 over a million.
60s: switch to FM and transistors
From the 1950s, VHF (ultra-short wave) was increasingly used. The lower frequency ranges (long wave, medium wave and short wave) continued to exist, but became less important.
Of course, the introduction of FM also made new receivers necessary. In addition, the frequency range was initially limited to 100 MHz and was only later gradually extended to 108 MHz, although there are still regional differences today.
Around the same time, the first transistor radios came onto the market. This made it easy for people to buy new devices, as transistor radios offered a number of advantages. They were smaller and lighter and required less power - so it was no longer a problem to build mobile devices. Transistor radios were also relatively cheap and even more durable - tubes wear out over time and produce an increasingly muffled sound.
Source: wikimedia.org/Joe Haupt
UKW offers better sound quality than medium wave and can be transmitted and received in stereo. However, this was not the case from the very beginning, only from the 1960s onwards. Medium wave was never broadcast in stereo in Switzerland, although this would have been technically possible.
People were always keen on stereo, here in 1892 with the help of two telephones, a so-called theatrophone:
80s: private radios and RDS
Technically, it is not too difficult to set up a radio station yourself. If you use something like this, you are basically operating your own FM station.
From the very beginning, however, a state licence was required for this. The only exceptions are these tiny transmitters, which only transmit a few centimetres to your own car radio. Until the 1980s, only the SRG had a licence. Private radios were not permitted.
Despite this, the "pirate station" Radio 24 managed to broadcast in German-speaking Switzerland in 1979 - from Italy. There was no law in Italy prohibiting such stations. Pizzo Groppera was also close and high enough to reach German-speaking Switzerland. However, this required a monster of an antenna, as FM does not actually have a long range.
From 1983, the first licences for private radio stations were finally granted. At around the same time, the SRG introduced a third programme that was intended to appeal to the same young target group as the private radio stations.
UKW and local radio - they go together. The lower reach compared to the other frequencies does not only have disadvantages: A station in Switzerland can use the same frequency as another in France without the two getting in each other's way.
The 1980s also saw the birth of RDS (Radio Data System). This allows additional information such as the name of the station or the currently playing track to be transmitted. Of course, new devices were needed to utilise this.
From the 90s: DAB, DAB+, podcasts, internet radio, etc.
In the 90s, a standard for digital radio was being developed. In fact, several standards. As soon as DAB was finally introduced in the new millennium, it was replaced by DAB+. And people are still listening to FM.
In practice, switching to digital is not a problem at all - not even for older people - and there is nothing wrong with DAB+. The main difference compared to when people switched from medium wave to FM is that radio as a medium has become less important overall.
There are simply too many other things that satisfy your need for acoustic entertainment
satisfy it. We have internet radio, podcasts, Spotify, live streams and the like. But traditional radio has survived the triumph of television and will continue to exist. Just on a smaller scale.
The design of some of today's radios (three examples above) shows that the medium is associated with a lot of nostalgia. No wonder, given the long history and the once great importance of radio. But the 1950s are not coming back, regardless of what our radio looks like and whether it is analogue or digital.
Bonus material: Useless tech knowledge on the topic of radio
- Medium wave reception is better at night than during the day.
- The quality of shortwave reception is influenced by sunspots.
- The abbreviations AM and FM are in practice the same as medium wave (MW) and ultra-short wave (FM), but mean something completely different: amplitude modulation and frequency modulation.
- Long-wave and medium-wave reception is better when it rains.
- Cable radio existed according to Wikipedia in Switzerland as early as the 1930s.
- Digital radio is in a frequency range above FM (around 230 MHz).
- The strange noise that you could hear on the lowest FM frequency in the 80s and 90s is called Eurosignal and was intended for pagers.
David Lee
Senior Editor
David.Lee@digitecgalaxus.chMy interest in IT and writing landed me in tech journalism early on (2000). I want to know how we can use technology without being used. Outside of the office, I’m a keen musician who makes up for lacking talent with excessive enthusiasm.
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