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The history of the car radio - and how the transistor made the breakthrough

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Created on September 1, 1988

Text:

Jan P. Norbye

Photos:

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Auch in der DDR wurden Luxusfahrzeuge, wie der Horch-VEB-Sachsenring, mit einem Radio ausgestattet

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Studebaker des Jahrgangs 1935 - sorgsam eingebautes Bedienteil

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Auch der 1937-Philips, Typ 249B, war mit Abstandsbedienung versehen

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Blaupunkt Autosuper 7A78, Baujahr 1938, in einem Opel des gleichen Jahrgangs

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Körting inserierte 1937 dieses Radio für RM420

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Studebaker des Jahrgangs 1935 - zwischen den Sonnenblenden eingebettet, der ovale Lautsprecher

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1937 war dieses — speziell für Buick konzipierte — Radio bei Delco Radio Division entstanden

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1946 konnte der Packard mit Radio ab Werk bestellt werden. Es wurde im Armaturenbrett integriert

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Beim Porsche 356 war der Platz für den Einbau eines Radios vorbestimmt

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Die Radioskala wurde den übrigen Instrumenten dieses Mercedes 170 S angepasst

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Ideal, später Blaupunkt genannt, bot 1932 als erster deutscher Hersteller ein Autoradio an

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Kurz nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg brachte Philips das Gerät NX 570V auf den Markt

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Summary

This article contains the following chapters

Tricky installation
Only via headphones
Complex interference suppression
Ban demanded
An expensive accessory
The radio comes of age
Old and new brands

Estimated reading time: 9min

Preview (beginning of the article)

The first car radios were created entirely in hobby workshops. It was not until around 1920 that manufacturers, sensing big business, gradually entered this sector. The path from the voluminous and correspondingly weighty devices of the time to the compact and almost perfect car radios of today was a long one and full of problems to be solved. This report shows the most important stages in the development of this now practically indispensable device. Every Saturday at 2 p.m., the well-known jazz expert Willis Conover sat in his studio in Bound Brook, New Jersey, and presented his popular program "Music USA". The program was broadcast via an intermediate station of the Voice of America in Tangier, Algeria, on shortwave (31 and 49 me band) to Europe, where it was now evening. Per Heier and I were among the enthusiastic listeners at the time.

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