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KF5JRV > TODAY 25.09.25 11:00l 20 Lines 2506 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 13215_KF5JRV
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - Sep 25
Path: IZ3LSV<ED1ZAC<LU4ECL<K1AJD<VE3CGR<VE7ASS<VA7RBP<KF5JRV
Sent: 250925/0852Z 13215@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA BPQ6.0.24
On September 25, 1928, Chicagoâ€Ös new Galvin Manufacturing Corporation is officially incorporated. In 1930, Galvin would introduce the Motorola radio, the first mass-produced commercial car radio. (The name had two parts: “motor” evoked cars and motion, while “ola” derived from “Victrola” and was supposed to make people think of music.)
In 1921, engineer Paul Galvin and his friend Edward Stewart started a storage-battery factory in Marshfield, Wisconsin; it went out of business two years later. In 1926, Galvin and Stewart re-started their battery-manufacturing company, this time in Chicago. That one went out of business too, but not before the partners figured out a way for home radios to draw power from an electrical wall outlet; they called it the dry-battery eliminator. Galvin bought back the eliminator part of his bankrupt company at auction for $750 and went right back into business, building and repairing eliminators and AC radio sets for customers like Sears, Roebuck.
Soon, however, Galvinâ€Ös attention turned to the car-radio business. The first car radios–portable “travel radios” powered by batteries, followed by custom-installed built-in radios that cost $250 apiece (about $2,800 in todayâ€Ös dollars)–had appeared in 1926, but they were way too expensive for the average driver. If he could find a way to mass-produce affordable car radios, Galvin thought, heâ€Öd be rich. In June 1930, he enlisted inventors Elmer Wavering and William Lear to retrofit his old Studebaker with a radio and drove 800 miles to the Radio Manufacturers Associationâ€Ös annual meeting in Atlantic City. He parked outside the convention, turned up the music (for this purpose, Wavering had installed a special speaker under the Studebakerâ€Ös hood), and waited for the RMAersâ€Ö orders to come rolling in.
A few did, and Galvin sold enough of his $110 5T71 car radios to come close to breaking even for the year. He changed his companyâ€Ös name to Motorola and changed the way we drive–and ride in cars forever.
For his part, William Lear went on to invent the eight-track cartridge-tape system, which came standard in every Ford car starting in 1966. Meanwhile, carmakers developed their own radio-manufacturing divisions, gradually squeezing Motorola out of the market it had built. The company stopped making car radios in 1984. Today, itâ€Ös best known for making cellular phones.
73 de Scott KF5JRV
Pmail: KF5JRV@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA
Email KF5JRV@gmail.com
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