The History of The Car Radio
1922
A successful attempt to fit battery radios in a car as fixed devices was considered to be the one by the president of the Lane High School Radio Club in Chicago, George Frost. He was able to effectively listen to the radio in his Model Ford T.
There were further developments between 1925 and 1926, two of which claim to have manufactured car radios in series. This cannot be verified. It is, however, certain that in
1927
the first car radio to be manufactured on an industrial scale was Transitone TH1 by the Automobile Radio Corp. (ARC), which was later bought by the Philadelphia Storage Battery Company, more widely known as Philco. Many reports state that PHILCO built the Transitone TH but this does not make chronological sense. Whatever the details may be, 1927 marks the birth of the car radio even if it had only 2 display and operating parts.
1929
Delco Radio Corp. (Appliance) in the USA launches its first radio called Automotive 3002 on the market.
1931
Delco Radio Corp. introduces the first models with inserted valves for battery and mains operation at 6V.
1932
The first valve radio made in Europe is introduced by
Blaupunkt to a large public at the Berlin radio show. The AS5 operated on the radio wave frequencies AM (medium wave) and LW (long wave).
1934
The German
Telefunken, Hornyphon of Austria and
Philips of the Netherlands introduce their first car radios.
1936
Körting introduces the first 12V car radio.
1949
Blaupunkt relocates from Berlin to Hildesheim. The first model produced at the company's new site, the 5A649, was the first car radio which was fitted in the car dashboard.
1951
marks the birth of VSW (very short wave), better known today as FM. Also significant were the station buttons on the new radio sets by
Becker.
1953
Becker manufactures the first radio set with station finder.
In the following years VSW (mono) sets with station finders are being built.
During the 1960s, driven by new genres of music, music was everywhere. For the society of avid music enthusiasts the radio was becoming more important than most other information media. This fact contributed considerably to a real thrust of innovation, not least thanks to
Philips.
1961
Philips launched the first VSW radio that was fully equipped with transistors.
1968
The first car radio with integrated cassette deck by
Philips.
1969
Stereo reception in the Frankfurt by
Blaupunkt. In the same year
Becker presented its legendary Mexico, the first radio with compact cassette player in stereo.
1973
The
Blaupunkt -Berlin- with swan neck is the first full stereo radio set, i.e. cassette and radio in stereophony.
1974
The era of traffic announcements begins, starting with ARI (Autofahrer-Rundfunk-Information - travel news) which is integrated into
Blaupunkt radios as a traffic broadcast decoder.
The rising success of car radios can no longer be halted. The number of vehicles fitted with car radios varied greatly in different European countries. At that time over 40% of vehicles were already fitted with a radio in Germany. The saying "where there is light there is also shadow" is so true for no other electrical / electronic product: no other product has such a high theft rate as the car radio. The Japanese companies stated at that time that over 1% of worldwide turnover was due to theft.
1975
Pioneer introduces the first component radio (separate radio, equaliser, cassette deck).
1980
The first effective anti-theft system was known as "Quick-Out". The removable radio was seen lying on every restaurant table in Italy.
1981
VSW station identification and audio response.
1982
marks the birth of the MP3 format. For more information on this see 1995 below.
1983
marks the birth of a CD player integrated in the car radio; within only a few years the CD squeezes the cassette decks out of the market.
1983
also marks the introduction of Travel ARI which broadcasts travel news to the driver, independent of the tuned-in station.
1984
CARIN, an electronic co-pilot based on a CD, a predecessor to the first navigation device launched by
Philips in 1993.
1985
PCI enables automatic station changing to stations with the best reception of the same programme.
1987
The new car radio anti-theft system based on car registration identification is not catching on.
Pioneer introduces its 3 DIN component solution consisting of radio set, tape deck and CD player. Brilliant
, best quality, but no room in the vehicle to fit all components in a user-friendly way.
1988
Alongside the existing ARI the modern Radio Data System (RDS), designed by the European Broadcasting Union, is released by the radio broadcasting stations for official use. The ARI functions "station name" and "traffic announcement flag" have been integrated as "TP" and "TA" signal respectively.
1989
Improvement of unauthorised operation and anti-theft system
> Key card and radio code unfortunately only protect against unauthorised operation but not against theft.
> Detachable operating element; this anti-theft system became standard for all manufacturers of commercial car radios in the following years.
1991
EON (Enhanced Other Networks) considerably improved the RDS service range: The signals ensured that the driver would receive travel news even if he/she had selected a station without travel news.
1992
Pioneer is the first company to introduce a 4-speed CD-ROM changer.
1992
Blaupunkt Stockholm presents the TIM function (traffic memo). This function also records travel news if the driver is absent and the radio switched off, the maximum recording time was 4 minutes.
1993
This year marks the transformation of the simple car radio to an information tool. Combining navigation systems with the car radio, e.g. CARIN (a
Philipsdevelopment) has truly started.
Alpine introduces the world's first DIN stack CD changer in the same year.
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