Live radio

According to Encyclopædia Britannica, the first transmission sent over radio waves were voice and music signals transmitted in December 1906 from Brant Rock, Massachusetts. Canadian experimenter Reginald Fessenden produced approximately an hour of talk and music that was heard by radio amateurs before radio's popularity exploded. Other experiments in radio before it became part of widespread culture were transmitted including those by Charles Herrold in San Jose, California in 1908.^[1]

Radio hobbyists continued to experiment, and popularity grew during the decade before World War I, a time before loudspeakers, where listeners would “listen in” with headphones. The first instrument used to access radio signals were crystal sets which used a tiny piece of galena (lead sulfide) called a “cat's whisker” to detect signals. The challenge with these sets were tuning into specific stations, though they were inexpensive and easy to make. These devices would likely have become more widespread, but in 1917 federal government placed restrictions on radio transmissions.^[1]

After the war, in the years 1920 to 1945 radio became the first electronic mass medium by using radio waves to broadcast to a vast audience. In its early years radio introduced the masses to immediate news and entertainment. In 1920–1921 about 30 radio stations took to the air, mostly developed from amateur operations. In 1921, the first live sporting event aired; it was a boxing match with play-by-play by reporter Florent Gibson. In 1922, over 550 new stations began to fill the available frequencies, although many disappeared because they couldn't afford the costs of operation. Radio stations had simplistic studios composed of walls covered in burlap for soundproofing, a microphone, and occasionally a piano to fill interludes. Everything on air was live, because in these early years recordings were such poor quality.^[1]

According to the United States House of Representatives archives, the United States Congress was slow to embrace radio technology. Up until the 1930s, radio reporters were denied recording access during congressional proceedings. The first attempt to transmit radio from the Capitol was in January 1921 during the inaugural address of President Warren G. Harding, though the attempt was unsuccessful. In 1922, President Harding successfully delivered an Annual Address that was broadcast via radio on the public address system and a house debate about tax-exempt securities became the first ever congressional proceeding to be broadcast. The resistance between Congress and radio broadcasting companies continued over the next couple of years. Broadcasters were banned, secretly planting microphones to listen in on proceedings, until March 1939, when more than 400 radio stations broadcast the 150th anniversary of the first session of Congress using microphones in the House Chamber. Finally, in September 1944, Representative John Coffee introduced H.J. Res. 311 which called for live radio broadcasts of all House proceedings.^[2] In this way, radio kept the nation informed and connected in the goings on in politics.