When the radio came to Norway

By Dag Andreassen

Radio was originally invented as a way of sending telegraphic messages wirelessly. It struck well, especially for communication with offshore ships, and also got military use during the First World War. But radio could more: It opened to send sound from one transmitter to many recipients at the same time. For the first time you could reach the masses directly - without wires.

In the first years after 1920, many people acquired and experimented with the new medium. Radio amateurs were out early, but professional players also threw themselves on the radio waves. The first radio station in the world started in Pittsburgh, the United States, in 1920, and was followed by many. There was a wave of radio enthusiasm and a variety of broadcasts. People started buying radios to get news and dance music.

In Norway, many also tried early. Radioamators gathered in radio clubs. Sound began to swirl in the air - sent out from both simple private radio transmitters and more powerful that reached far out. Everyone with simple radios - like the first crystal apparatus - could listen if they managed to set the right frequency. The broadcasts followed no fixed times and could be anything from private clothes and nonsense to serious attempts to create local radio with information, news and advertising.

In this amateur and trial period, Aftenposten also seized the new radio interest. They announced a naming competition to find a Norwegian name for the medium. In the US and England it was called "radio" or "Broadcast". The proposals in Norway included "RadioFon", "Runding", "Wurthing" and "Kringljoming". Aftenposten even chose to use "Roundphone" - but it never struck. Finally, telegraph director Nickelsen intervened and decided that the Norwegian name should be "broadcast".

The many different frequencies of the radio waves allowed many broadcasts at the same time - but not at the same wavelength! If two broadcasts came on the same frequency, there was chaos. To prevent noise and collision, the state had to intervene. The telegraph board was assigned the assignment and started test broadcasts in Oslo in 1924.

The best studio microphones came from the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Co. in London. The so-called Marconi-Sykes microphone was developed in 1923 and was the standard of the BBC-and thus also a safe choice for Norway. The microphone consisted of a heavy magnetized iron cylinder with moving cylinders, which captured sound waves via a coil and sent electrical signals. The components were muted with cotton or wool, and greased with petroleum jelly, beeswax - or butter! During long broadcasts, this could melt, and then the microphone stopped working.

In November 1924, the government granted a license to the private broadcasting company, which started regular broadcasts on April 29, 1925. The broadcasts were financed by advertising and a listening fee - a license - of NOK 20 a year, as well as a one -time fee when purchasing radio. It was sent directly from the studio in the Stortingsgaten in Oslo. The programs contained news, music, entertainment and children's time. The broadcasts could be heard right up to Tromsø, if the conditions were good. That same year, its own broadcasting company started in Bergen. Ålesund and Tromsø followed in the years, while places such as Stavanger and Trondheim were still run by radio amateur associations until 1933.

The quality of the radio broadcasts - both content and technique - was uneven and dependent on local conditions. Therefore, the state decided to revoke the private licenses and introduce a national broadcast monopoly. The Norwegian National Broadcasting (NRK) was established in 1933. It built on the broadcasting company, with the same studio and many of the same employees. Now they received support from the Telegraph Agency to develop good transmitters across the country. Radio became a state tool for news, enlightenment, teaching, culture, Christian content - and some entertainment and dance music.

NRK's ​​broadcast monopoly lasted until the local radios appeared in 1981. In 1993, P4 came as the first nationwide advertising -financed radio channel. Thus, a new radio adventure was underway - now with competition and diversity in a media landscape that had started with a microphone, a dream and sound waves in the air.