English: A dramatic public relations demonstration in 1940 by General Electric of the resistance to static (RFI) of its new radio broadcasting technology, frequency modulation (FM). It was held in GE's high voltage lab in New York, with a lightning-like arc from a million volt three phase-transformer as a source of interference behind the radio. The prototype radio, center, had both an AM and FM receiver. The AM receiver was tuned to music from WABC, GE's New York City AM station. The FM receiver was tuned to the same program rebroadcast by Edwin Armstrong's experimental FM radio station, W2XMN, in Alpine, New Jersey. When the AM radio was turned on, only a roar of static from the spark could be heard. When the FM radio was turned on, the music program came through clearly with just a slight amount of static. It took until the 1970s for FM broadcasting to really catch on, but today virtually all serious music broadcasting has moved from AM to FM due to its superior audio quality.

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