Al Dykes ) writes:
I'm looking for some reading material about radio from the earliest
days up to the end of WWI and how it was used during the war.

I've just reading a history of the Russian-Japanese war (1904). It was
entirely a naval war, Russia sent it's entire fleet from the Baltic
Sea to the Pacific Russian coast. Radio played a roll but the book
didn't give me an idea of range or any of the equipment. Radio was
always described as unreliable.

It got me to wondering about WWI. Can anyone recommend a book
or a web site?



My impression is that it wasn't very developed. The Titanic went
down in 1912, and only that brought rules requiring radio be part of
ships. Armstrong patented the regenerative receiver in 1914. I remember
seeing a photo of a WWI surplus receiver, and it was a "crystal radio".

So the technology was barely there, and I'm not sure how much ramping
up there was when the war came along. Plus, the decision makers had
to be convinced that radio was valuable, and there may not have
been a chance. Certainly airplanes had limited use in WWI, and only
between the wars was a fair strategy developed.

There are lots of books about radio or technology in WWII, but I can't
think of anything that deals with the first war.

You might get a feel for the era by getting the first volume of QST
on CDROM. I have no idea if there'd be anything about military radio
at that point, but it would at least give an indication of the general
level of radio technology at the time.

Michael