WI Radio Invented a Decade Earlier?

To be absolutely clear -- I'm only talking about the effects of moving the up the key breakthroughs, not the "how". Specifically, say the OTL breakthroughs of transmitting a voice by radio (circa 1900) were moved up to circa 1890.

What would be the effects of having this technology sooner? What would the impact of the technology be on the culture at large?
 

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By the 1910's propaganda and entertainment have moved up to the mainstream. The military has further uses for it of course and we could see more radios at the regimental level with radio trucks being used to control the fighting. The population would perhaps be able to have more direct reporting on the fighting, which might make them more a part of the national struggle.
 
Well, since I helped start his mess...


It's a real good question. Much depends on how fast it develops and under what circumstances.

Diplomatically, hard to say. Wired communications already exist between world leaders and generals, so I don't imagine anything altering the onset of WWI or mobilization schedules much.

A big question is how far does broadcast radio advance? How quickly will it economically diseminate into your average household? OTL you had radio in most households in the 30s or so, so twenty years' from the POD you might have broadcast news reports of Franz Ferdinand, or whatever ATL spark hits (assuming relevant infastructure and supporting tech are there). If the people have instant acess to such info I could see this sparking outrage earlier. Plus I doubt the states of Europe are going to allow uncensored broadcasts at this point. Could the horrific and pointless death tolls for negledgable gain be known to the public more clearly, even if via "pirate" radio?

With radio communications rather than wired telegraphy you're a lot safer from losing communications with a random shell hit, but conversely unless you have a way to encode your transmissions you're broadcasting your plans to anyone with a receiver.

Of course for unit and vehicle communications a radio transmitter could have major effect. Even if a transmitter is still too big receivers can be really small allowing orders to get sent out directly. A spy or reconnaisance troop with a small enough transmitter could be far more effective in delivering information sooner.

Planes will still be without radio for a while, except maybe simple passive receivers to get orders or direction.

For naval warfare, this is revolutionary, as now ships don't need visual line-of-sight to flash orders. Ships and subs can communicate with shore from over-the-horizon. And transmitter size is far less of an object.

And another big big possible butterfly is Radar. The reflection of radio waves was known since the 1880's OTL, and Tesla OTL came up with an idea for primitive radar in 1914. You could logically boost radar in time for appearance/fielding by WWI, which is, again, a monumental effect on navy affairs. Ships capable of engaging beyond line of sight, unhampered by smoke or fog...major butterflies possible, particularly if one side adopts it and another doesn't (see US vs. Japan WWII for OTL example there).

Radar will help in detecting air raids, though we'll be talking really primitive radar and smaller cross-sections (reduced detection range) with wood-and-fabric planes.
 
Well, if you can get radios small and light enough to be used on the front line for 1914, you are going to completely change the WW1.
 
... you might have broadcast news reports of Franz Ferdinand, or whatever ATL spark hits (assuming relevant infastructure and supporting tech are there).


I wonder if a radio technology which outpaces electrical transmission technology and/or infrastructure might see more crystal sets come into use? If so, commercial radio might be rather weird.

They're extremely cheap, you can scrounge up the materials you need. They need no battery or other power sources either. Earlier versions did require relatively long antennas but that requirement was worked around so portable sets receiving signals over relatively short distance became a reality quickly on.

The biggest handicap with crystal sets is that they can't "drive" a large speaker. You listen to them with headphones instead. This could mean that families wouldn't sit down to listen to their radio together, instead everyone would listen to their own personal receiver - a receiver that is very cheap and a receiver which is powered by the signal it is picking up.

You add all sorts of other wrinkles like frequency constrained receivers which can only pick up certain stations, stations and/or other businesses giving away cheap receivers which only pick up their signal, and everyone in 1910 walking around wearing and listening to what looks like an iPod.

Should I even bring up the "hackers" who would immediately begin fiddling with these cheap, giveaway radios in order to add to the devices' abilities?

Re-purposing technology as we know it began with radio. There will be hundreds of thousands of people tinkering with these simple devices.
 

Cook

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Diplomatically, hard to say. Wired communications already exist between world leaders and generals, so I don't imagine anything altering the onset of WWI or mobilization schedules much.

I’d dispute that.

In 1914 the Diplomatic Corps of each of the great powers were entirely reliant on telegrams. Messages were often taking up to a day to be formatted, encoded, dispatched, received, decoded and delivered. In several incidences diplomatic messages were being sent that had already been made obsolete by the rapid rate of events.
In short, Governments were flailing around in the dark with insufficient information about events in distant capitals, this bred a climate of acute and increasing paranoia as events proceeded.

Had radio been in common usage in 1914 the governments would have had more information to work with and that information would have been timely in its arrival. Under those circumstances events could and probably would have proceeded very differently; the war may have been restricted the Balkans or avoided entirely.
 
Crystal sets aren't very sensitive, so broadcasting will be effectively localcasting.:)

You won't be able to shrink any other kind of radio to Ipod size without transistors. All radios are valve based until then.

Early adoption of superhet will help shrink a receiver to a table-top device, and FM will allow clearer reception.

...and regarding encryption, IIRC Russian radio signals were intercepted by the Germans in WWI as they were transmitted in the clear, until they learnt better.

R
 
Crystal sets aren't very sensitive, so broadcasting will be effectively localcasting.:)


Which could have it's uses. The pick up range was surprisingly long.

You won't be able to shrink any other kind of radio to Ipod size without transistors. All radios are valve based until then.

Valves? Check out this link are prepare to be amazed. Check out the size of some of the historical sets too.

There was a minor kerfluffle reported a few months ago about someone screening an old Chaplin movie and noticing what he thought was a woman in the background using a cell phone. The story was reported on the BBC with the usual "time traveler" headlines until someone identified the device as an electric "ear trumpet" sold during the period. Smaller electrical devices were made during the period.
 
Commercial broadcasts

If radio was invented earlier, maybe they would have had commercial broadcasts earlier, like the World Series. If the WS was broadcast on radio earlier than it was, the Black Sox scandal might not have happened since they would have been playing for bigger stakes.
 
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I wonder if a radio technology which outpaces electrical transmission technology and/or infrastructure might see more crystal sets come into use? If so, commercial radio might be rather weird.

Interesting thought there. Always a possibility given high enough power outputs and frequencies. I'd think that fade-out would be a huge, possibly insurmountable problem in such a "walkman" though. Portable radios even with advanced active tuning and signal filtering still work best when they stay in one place. Automobile radios with their large antennas and great ground planes (the car chassis) are about the only reliable-in-motion radio receivers I know of.


In 1914 the Diplomatic Corps of each of the great powers were entirely reliant on telegrams. Messages were often taking up to a day to be formatted, encoded, dispatched, received, decoded and delivered. In several incidences diplomatic messages were being sent that had already been made obsolete by the rapid rate of events.
In short, Governments were flailing around in the dark with insufficient information about events in distant capitals, this bred a climate of acute and increasing paranoia as events proceeded.

Had radio been in common usage in 1914 the governments would have had more information to work with and that information would have been timely in its arrival. Under those circumstances events could and probably would have proceeded very differently; the war may have been restricted the Balkans or avoided entirely.

Hadn't realized telegraphy was still that slow and unreliable that late.

In that case the avoidance of OTL's WW1 seems a possble major (yes, snowy) Butterfly. I'm having a hard time believeing you'll avoid such a war entirely, though, given the huge international and internal factors. I think it'd take more to avoid some sort of apocalyptic showdown given the alliances, revanchism, German fears of a growing Russia, etc.


Seems like overlap with early transistors as well (though that idea had some more contention)...

Always a possibility. I'd love to (time permitting) merge the ideas into a "electro-tech wank" TL. See how close to Electropunk I could get before the plausibility walls were to high to jump. :D
 
If radio was invented earlier, maybe they would have had commercial broadcasts earlier, like the World Series. If the WS was broadcast on radio earlier than it was, the Black Sox scandal might not have happened since they would have been playing for bigger stakes.

Trufax. :D
 
The Russian civil war would be more interesting if both sides could use radios and if radios were more widespread. After all, of all the news medium at the time, it is the one who requires the least education (you don't have to read or write) or the smallest thought process (they said it on the radio, must be true).
 
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