Earliest Possible Radio

Deleted member 67076

I've recently found out that crystal radios are actually pretty easy to make in terms of what is necessary, but the challenge is of course discovering the theory of radio, and putting that into practice.

So then how do we get to speeding up the development of this theory and having radios being a thing as early as possible?
 
Well Hughes demonstrated radio in 1880, though it wasn't understood. If Stokes hadn't convinced him it was merely induction it might have been pursued a few years before Hertz. The theoretical foundations had been laid by Maxwell in 1864.
 
There are several options (most of them are wireless telegraphs and not yet radios):

Isaac Newton's invention in the apptly named timeline Newton's Radio

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/newtons-radio.90721/

Mahlon Loomis - The First Wireless Telegraphe
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He did invent the wireless telegraph in our timeline and demonstrated it 1868. He got some recognition for it but failed to figure things out quiet right. Give him the help of some expierenced scientist and thing could work out.
http://www.smecc.org/mhlon_loomis.htm

Joseph Henry's Radio
This is a scenario from the google alternate history group:

“In 1842. Joseph Henry made major breakthroughs in the theory of electromagnets and magnetic induction. It turns out that some of his experimental apparatus was a tuned circuit
and he did make the sparks jump. He duly noted the effect (being a good scientist) in his journal but he did not have a theory with which to make sense out of it. That task was left to James Clerk Maxwell. “
Robert J. Kolker

“You need to know what a tuned circuit is. If Joseph Henry, who was as brilliant as Faraday could not exploit his accidental spark generator as a communication device in 1842, then who? Unless you have some notion that a wave is propagating through space there is no way to come up with a communicator. And in order to concluded there is a propagating electro-magnet wave front moving eternally through space you have to know what a displacement current is. It is not just a matter of generating sparks. You have to have some idea of how to build an antenna so you can send a signal a significant distance.”
Robert J. Kolker

“We might put a slightly earlier date on things here, and a firmer theoretical limit. Maxwell used Hamilton's theories of Quaternions to analyze the equations describing electrical activity, and produced his first voluminous work. Vector equation forms subsequently pared down the number and complications of these equations. However, the mathematical breakthrough to Quaternions wasn't made by Hamilton until 1843. The short bio blurb on him I have available says that he still was poor and his marriage to an invalid unhappy, and from 1845 to 1860, he drank himself to death. WI, in 1844, Hamilton had been invited to tour the US on a sabbatical, and he had met Henry, and been told of his results? Hamilton had already done significant work that helped better define the properties of light. He and Henry might have developed a working partnership,with Henry's experiments verifying Hamilton's work. Perhaps this would have meant a working theory by 1855 or so, and a transmitter in place at the Smithsonian.”
Tom Billings
 
Ah, Joseph Henry, a brilliant mind that's been mostly forgotten. He beat Faraday to the electrical generator/transformer, was screwed by Morse and helped Bell with his telephone. In fact he 'pollinated' several other inventors; his magnetic ore separator (used at Ironville from 1831) inspired Davenport's motor in 1834.
If he'd been of a more practical bent...
 
This really involves two separate answers:

Technically possible:
with a few small things going better than IOTL, I'd guess perhaps the 1890s. The Maine, for example, might have been able to send wireless signals keeping Washington abreast of developments in Havana (now there's a possible POD...)
Economically possible: You'd need a number of sizable population centers with reasonably reliable electric generation, so that probably puts this in the first decade of the 20th century. Given that in many locations, the streetcar company was also the local power supplier, I could see somehow an alliance between traction and the pioneer broadcasters--which could possibly expand to include newspapers, vying to get their products in front of more people any way they could.
 
Well, carbon microphone was already invented during this time, like this:
carbon-microphone.jpg
 
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