Listen! Listen! 100 Years of Radio

Press release

12.06.2024

Image Credits

Duration

14.06.2024 - 06.01.2025

Opening

13.06.2024 7pm

Press event

12.06.2024 11:30am - 12:30pm

Place of the press event

History Museum

Show all

A remarkable experiment at Graz University of Technology marks the beginning of radio history in Styria: in 1904, Austrian physicist Otto Nußbaumer succeeded in first transmitting the human voice wirelessly over short distances. However, the time was not yet ripe for his experimental set-up to be employed. It needed further inventions and developments by numerous scientists, engineers and committed amateurs from all over the world. Not until after the First World War did radio begin to emerge as a dominant medium. The founding of Radioverkehrs AG constituted the first official radio station in Austria. Regular broadcasting operations started up in October 1924, with the first transmitter outside Vienna set up on the Schloßberg in Graz in 1925. After their initial amazement at what was technically feasible, people quickly accepted radio in their everyday lives, turning it into a product for the masses. ‘120 years of Styrian radio history’ and ‘100 years of radio in Austria’ have provided the inspiration for this exhibition.

Images

Styrian radio

Photographer unknown, undated, Kubinzky Collection (Multimedia Collections/UMJ)