Radio Man tells the story of C.O. Stanley, the unconventional Irishman who acquired Pye Radio at the beginning of the broadcasting age. Although he started with little experience and even less money, he was to make Pye a major player in the British electronics industry - only to crash it spectacularly forty years later. From the romance of early radio to the birth of the mobile, Stanley and Pye were players in some of the key moments of twentieth century Britain. His obsession with the infant medium of television allowed Pye to provide the equipment that put radar into planes in time for the Battle of Britain. His energy also drove Pye's pioneering work on the proximity fuse - work that would revolutionise antiaircraft warfare - and the company's manufacture of the war's most successful army radios. In the 1950s Stanley led the offensive against the BBC's monopoly of television in a battle that split the British establishment. When his son, John, took Pye into mobile radio Stanley fought and defeated the bureaucrats who then controlled Britain's airwaves. Stanley's loss of Pye in 1966 illustrated British industry's inability to withstand foreign competition. It also brought tragedy. Stanley himself escaped with honour more or less intact, but left his son to face public humiliation on his own. This revealing and meticulously researched text is written within the broad context of the political, technological and business changes of the time, and shows how a very ambitious businessman was brought down by the qualities that made him so successful.

The crucial decade for the development of the domestic wireless was 1924-34. At the beginning of the period most receivers in Britain were crystal sets, but by the end nearly all sets were on the mains, using valves and mostly with superhet circuits-broadly the same as those in use today. This book describes the broadcasting trends and receiver developments in Europe and America, and includes a detailed account of wireless development in Britain. The vital changes in radio valves are described, and the book concludes with a fascinating account of the rise and fall of home construction of wireless receivers from kits of parts. In the early years it was a nationwide activity. By the end of the decade it had virtually died out. Sets had become too complex for the amateur and commercially produced sets were almost as cheap as construction kits. The author has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the subject. Much of the information comes from his private collection of papers and early magazines, complete with their advertisements - material that is not generally available in public collections. The crucial decade is likely to prove the definitive work on the subject. It is essential reading for those interested in the history of wireless and the development of its technology.