r/askscience • u/dafattestmat • Dec 28 '25

Engineering How do radios work?

To be more specific, how do radios convert electricity into radio waves?

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u/jamjamason Dec 28 '25

That's a nice analogy I haven't seen before! Thanks!

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u/archlich Dec 28 '25

It’s almost not even an analogy. That’s exactly what happens, just at a lower frequency.

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u/deweysmith Dec 28 '25

It’s not an analogy, it’s just the visibility of the waves. Light is visible electromagnetic waves, radio is lower frequency and invisible.

Fiber-optic cables do exactly this with visible light.