Ted Rogers Wins First Prize for Amateur-Built Radio

Ted Rogers builds a batteryless radio courtesy 

http://torontoist.com/2012/12/toronto-invents-the-batteryless-radio/

Obsessed with radios from childhood, 13-year-old Ted Rogers built an amateur radio which won first prize in an Ontario contest.  Rogers worked as a radio officer on the Great Lakes passenger ships from 1916 to 1919. In 1921, he won an American contest for low power broadcasts across the Atlantic, the only Canadian radio station to enter.

Originally, radios operated on rechargeable acid filled batteries, which were large and expensive.
But that all changed when Rogers invented an amplifying tube that would operate on alternating current.  No longer would living room carpets be stained with acid; no longer would pocketbooks be stretched to the limit.  "At a time when a schoolteacher might earn $1,000 per year, the top of the line Rogers radio sold for $370." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_S._Rogers_Sr.). 

In 1927, Rogers created CFRB (Canada's First Rogers Batteryless) radio station, operated by Bell Media today.  Rogers died prematurely in 1939, but his brother, and later his son, took over the business now known as Rogers Communication.