FM Broadcasting began in Alpine, New Jersey right on the top of the New Jersey Palisades. This was where Major Edwin Howard Armstrong, the inventor of FM radio built Alpine Tower, also known as “Armstrong Tower” in 1937. As the discoverer of frequency modulation “FM” in 1933, Armstrong spent many years experimenting on this discovery while working for RCA. Armstrong went through several legal battles throughout his thirteen years of FM discovery and research (and following his death). On April 10, 1938 Armstrong broadcasted for the first time on FM radio, from his experimental call sign W2XMN.
The FM radio was discovered after RCA’s former president David Sarnoff asked Armstrong to provide “a little black box” that could eliminate the static that plagued AM (amplitude modulation) broadcasting (FYBush). Ten years later, Armstrong discovered how to change the radio waves frequency. After Armstrong’s discovery and when David Sarnoff realized how great his discovery was. “This is not an ordinary invention," Sarnoff declared, “This is a revolution." (Amplifier) Sarnoff gave Armstrong RCA’s experimental television laboratory on top of the Empire State Building. Eventually, Sarnoff felt threatened by this discovery. RCA was slowly working on commercial television, and they did not want to spend extra money replacing radio equipment once Armstrong’s FM technology was accepted by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission). Armstrong was asked to remove his equipment from the laboratory and was told that RCA was going to continue to explore television development. They assured Armstrong that this was only temporary. However RCA never returned to working with Armstrong-they only worked against him in court when they decided to stop paying Armstrong his royalties to his patents. FM radio has changed a lot over the past decades. In the early 2000’s HD (high