Transmit This

The view from the Empire State Building

(Courtesy of Wikipedia/Wikipedia Commons)

A lot of us learned that Guglielmo Marconi invented radio, but Nikola Tesla transmitted electromagnetic waves before Marconi — the Supreme Court decided the case in 1943. Jim Stagnitto, the Director of Engineering for WNYC, gives Kurt a tour at the top of the Empire State Building to check out a radio transmitter in action.

In the FM combiner room, Kurt notices the transmitters have copper tubes that look like stovepipes. "It looks very low tech," Stagnitto says, but "that's the transmission line, that's actually carrying the signal."

(Originally aired: January 25, 2008)

Video: Kurt Andersen tours the WNYC radio transmitter