subject: Why Radio Does Well With Crime [print this page] Before radio there was the telegraphBefore radio there was the telegraph. One of the very first telegraphs helped arrest a murderer. The great Western Railway in England pioneered the use of the telegraph to keep track of train movements. Of course, it used wires.
A man murdered his mistress and boarded a train to make his escape believing that by the time they caught up to the train he would be long gone. The authorities used the telegraph to send a message ahead and when the train arrived, the police were waiting for him.
He was arrested, tried, convicted and hanged for the crime. The use of the telegraph by law enforcement was now begun. This happened in 1839. But, all the crooks needed to do was cut the telegraph wires.
Alexander Graham Bell, designed a wireless system to send voice messages through a beam of light in 1880. To work, bright daylight was needed, since lasers were a long way in the future. The significance was not seen, and applications were extremely limited. That is why you likely have never heard of it.
Similarly, David Hughes, who invented the telegraph, sent and received radio waves, but what was happening was not clearly understood and his work was not looked at far almost 10 more years. Faraday and Maxwell predicted electromagnetic radiation, but it was 1888 before Hertz conducted experiments and sent and received electromagnetic radiation. He didn't follow it up, not seeing the significance at the time.
Radio waves and sunlight are both in the electromagnetic radiation spectrum. But Hugh's and Bell's work needed to wait for someone else make it work in a practical manner. Radio seemed to be developed by several people at the same time, among them were Tesla, Bose, Braun, and Popov. The one we have all heard of is Marconi.
Near the end of the 19th century, Marconi built equipment guided by the experiments and descriptions of Tesla. He got patents. He was the first to put a radio apparatus on a ship, and communicated across the Atlantic Ocean. Marconi was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics along with Braun who was also honored for his work in radio.
Another crime, in 1910, saw a murderer and his mistress fleeing by ship across the ocean. The Captain of the ship was suspicious, because the woman seemed to be disguised as a boy. He used the wireless to contact Scotland Yard and learned of the murder. A police officer boarded a faster ship and beat the fugitives to their destination. The murderer was arrested without setting foot on shore.
The arrest of another murderer with the help of a telegraph, this time wireless fixed radio in the imagination of the public. By this time, people were able to buy and assemble crystal radios that would receive radio signals and it became popular.
After the Second World War The US FCC designated frequencies for the use of the public, while others were reserved for the use of the government, emergency services, commercial broadcasting, and the military. A band for short range use was created. This band became the CB radio band.
