When did the first radio for the public come out?

Answer 1

, it was 8XK of KDKA Radio on November 2, 1920 out of East Pittsburgh. If you mean the first radio station as in first to be used to send and receive radio waves, this was created in 1864 by James Clerk Maxwell. Maxwell showed how radio waves could be reflected, absorbed and focused like the beam from a torch. Hardly anybody believed Maxwell in 1864. However, the theories were later quantified by Oliver Heaviside into two equations, and in 1879, Prof. David Hughes walked up Portland Place with a device that caught the sound of radio waves. In 1887, German scientist Heinrich Hertz carried out a famous set of experiments that proved Maxwell had been right all along, and in 1894, the British scientist Oliver Lodge succeeded in transmitting wireless signals over 150 yards.

Answer 2

The year was 1920, but while many sources say it was KDKA in Pittsburgh, that is not entirely accurate. The first American station to keep a regular schedule and be heard by a local audience was probably 8MK (today WWJ) in Detroit, which went on the air in August 1920. KDKA has spread the story that it was the first "licensed commercial station" but there was no such thing as a commercial license until mid-September 1921, and WBZ (then in Springfield MA) got the first of those. Bottom line-- both 8MK and KDKA were pioneering stations in 1920, but 8MK took to the air more than three months before KDKA did.