Radio

During the 1860's, Scottish Physicist James Clerk Maxwell predicted the existence of radio waves. And in 1886 the German Physicist Heinrich Rudolph Hertz demonstrated that rapid variations of electric current could be projected into space in the form of radio waves similar to those of light and heat. In 1866, Mahlon Loomis, an American dentist, successfully demonstrated "wireless telegraphy." Loomis was able to make a meter connected to one kite cause another one to move, marking the first known instance of wireless aerial communication. Guglielmo Marconi, an Italian inventor, proved the feasibility of radio communication. He sent and received his first radio signal in Italy in 1895. By 1899 he flashed the first wireless signal across the English Channel and two years later received the letter "S", telegraphed from England to Newfoundland. This was the first successful transatlantic radiotelegraph message in 1902.

Radio operators fall into three broad categories: publicly-funded radio, commercial radio and the community and voluntary radio sector - from well-established student and hospital radio to the most recently licensed community radio stations. The industry has been growing steadily in recent years and now employs over 22,000 people (more than terrestrial TV) in a wide range of occupations. Employers range in size from the BBC and larger commercial radio groups to not-for-profit community radio stations run mainly by volunteers.