Pallesens radio - 1915
ABOUT THE FILM : Pallesens radio
Det Danske FilminstitutPallesen Radio
Year: 1915
This animation by an unknown author praises the merits of a radio receiver. A small dislocated man places his radio by the side of the road. He hangs an electric wire onto it that he then links up between the neighbouring cottage and a tree. Notes burst out from the radio.
Nationality: Danish
Length: 26"
Genre: animation
Sound: silent with soundtrack
Original elements: tinted
Composer: Eric Le Guen
Original language: Danish
A BRIEF HISTORY : Pallesens radio
A Danish manufacturer made an advert about this curious radio receiver in 1915, although the context was not very favourable to listening to news items from around the world, scrambled as it was by the sound of canons. During the war the radio was above all intended for military purposes.
Contrary to appearances this model wasn't mains operated. The development of mains-operated receivers only dates back to 1928. This radio had a detector made of galenite, a natural lead sulphide-based stone. It didn't need a power supply because the energy of the radio waves was enough to make it work.
This advertisement is the only trace of the existence of the Pallesens model. Just after the First World War, industrial manufacturers were interested in radio. Some specialised like Philips and Radiola; others dawdled before turning to other machines: Ducretet and Siemens for example and Peugeot and Pathé. Radio's progress was meteoric. Twenty years after the first radio stations appeared on Radiodiffusion, in other words at the dawn of the second world war, statistics counted more than 3,000 transmitters in the world whose programmes were listened to by more than 425 million listeners, owners of 130 million receivers.
