First here’s a brief history of the

First here’s a brief history of the development of radio and the need for alignment. In the early days of radio, just over 100 years ago, there were very few radio stations in operation and these were commercial point to point systems primarily for communication with shipping. The transmitters were fairly crude by todays standards using a spark system or high frequency alternators. There was no real broadcasting to the general public. The receivers were usually a simple tuned circuit and a detector, what we’d call a crystal set, which were adequate for the time. Although there were many early experiments aimed at transmitting speech, virtually all transmissions were using morse code. As the century progressed and better technology, in the form of valves, became available it was possible to build a transmitter that could produce a cleaner carrier wave at higher frequencies. The spark transmitters were similar to arcing contacts and produced a broad band of signals even though tuned circuits were used in the transmitters. High frequency alternators were limited to 10s of kilohertz (or should that be kilocycles). After World War 1 there was rapid progress in the development of transmitters and receivers and it became possible to transmit speech and music. In the UK this culminated in the formation in 1922 of the British Broadcasting Company, where a group of manufacturers came together effectively to promote their receivers by providing a broadcasting service to the general public. This became the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1927.