The Roaring Twenties - Temporary exhibition

The Roaring Twenties The centenary of the “crazy twenties”, of previous century, are under the spotlights in this exhibition presented by RTP Museological Collection. It’s a physical and virtual, playful and pedagogical exhibition, with some of the most iconic pieces of the featured decade stored in the RTP Museum Reserve. We invite you to visit the exhibition and have fun with the fascinating world of ancient objects.

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The Roaring Twenties The potential of radio as a mean of mass communication became evident after World War I, largely as a result of the innovation processes arising from the conflict and the subsequent industrial development. Out of the traumatic World War I, Europeans and North Americans plunged, in the 1920s, into euphoria and development that affected all sectors of society: architecture, cinema and music, dance, customs, literature, aviation, sport and of course radio, among many others.

In Portugal, the enthusiasm for broadcasting led to the proliferation of private broadcasters, some of which were very small and practically only broadcast recorded music and lectures. These small pioneer radios stations, which emerged and disappeared in the 1920s, made a decisive contribution to the broadcasters that settled and consolidated in the following decades, and as such, to the future of broadcasting in our country.

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The Roaring Twenties

Brief chronology:
1920
In November, takes place the world's first scheduled time and schedule broadcast by a commercial organization. The KDKA station broadcasts the presidential election of Warren Harding, from Pennsylvania.
First short-wave transmission tests, between North America and England.

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The Roaring Twenties

1921

The first licenses to establish broadcasting stations in North America are granted.

In July, RCA makes the first broadcast of a sporting event, the Dempsey-Carpentier boxing fight.

1922

The Portuguese government grants the English company Marconi the operation of radio communication stations (the company gets the monopoly on international radio but, in return, is charged with the task of creating a Portuguese company to operate wireless telegraphy in the national territory).

On 2 June, Madeira Island TSF post is inaugurated, installed in the building of the Funchal telegraph station.

On 6 October, the French Radioelectric Society's “Radiola” station is inaugurated in France, the first to include music programs in addition to information.

Creation of the BBC (October 18), the British Broadcasting Company, renamed British Broadcasting Corporation in 1927.

1923

Creation of ORSEC (by António and Francisco Borges / Porto).

In September is founded in Lisbon, by José Celestino Soares, the first Portuguese scientific association of T.S.F amateurs, the "Radio Academy of Portugal".

On November 27, amateur radio enthusiasts from Hartford, Connecticut, and Nice, France, transmit the first two-way transatlantic messages at a wavelength of 100 meters.

1924

Abílio Nunes dos Santos Júnior, considered the father of broadcasting in Portugal, begins the experimental transmission of music and word, from his radio station installed in the building of the “Great Warehouses of Chiado”, property of his father and uncle and which, under The designation of P1AA - Rádio Lisboa, is heard throughout the city and surroundings.

The first issue of the magazine “TSF em Portugal” is published. Creation of the Portuguese T.S.F Amateur Society (extinct in 1925).

1925

Abilio Nunes dos Santos begins regular broadcasting, already with the appointment of CT1AA - Radio Portugal, this time with installations on “António Augusto de Aguiar” avenue.

Creation of Rádio Condes (by Arnaldo Abreu / Lisboa); Ideal Radio (by Júlio Silva / Porto); Radio Porto (by António Rodrigues / Porto); CT1DH (from Raul Sales / Lisbon).

1926

Creation of the Network of Portuguese Radio Broadcasters, preside by Eugénio de Avilez.

1927

Creation of CT1CZ- Radio Coimbra.

First World Broadcasting Conference, which reviews and defines the frequencies to be allocated to the existing radio services , at the time (fixed, maritime and aeronautical mobile, broadcasting, amateur and experimental).

1928

Creation of CT1DY (that gave rise to Radio Clube Português in 1931 / Botelho Moniz / Parede), Radio Hertziana CT1BO (by Abílio Cunha / Lisbon).

1929

Creation of Radio Sonora in Lisbon (by Francisco Lacombe Neves), and Radio Motorola (by Amadeu and Fernando Laranjeira / Lisbon).

1930

Creation of Radio Sonora in Porto (by Agostinho Antero and José Alberto Calheiros Lobo).

The government creates the Board of Radioelectric Services (Edict Nº 17.899, of 29 January 1930), under the supervision of CTT, authorizes the acquisition of a Medium Wave and Shortwave transmitter, and launches the idea of a public broadcasting station with a service tax. The diploma declares "state monopoly of all radiotelephony, broadcasting and other services that may be discovered and related to radioelectricity".

First worldwide radio broadcast from Schenectady, New York.