Editing Bill Lear (section)

===Radio engineer===
Lear was [[autodidact|self-taught]]: "He had read widely on [[wireless]]. He had built a radio set, based on a twenty-five-cent [[Crystal radio|Galena crystal]] which he sent away for, and he had learned the [[Morse code]], the fun ending with the ban on radio during World War I."<ref name=Boesen/>{{rp|15}}

One of his first ventures was with Lawrence Sorensen, selling "Loose Coupler" radios. Lear had been an "instructor in wireless" in the U.S. Navy so he confidently identified himself as a radio engineer to Clifford Reid in [[Quincy, Illinois]]. Reid was selling auto supplies and hired Lear to expand into radio. With contractor Julius Bergen, he founded Quincy Radio Labs and built speaker boxes for radios. Lear also helped develop WLAL which evolved into the powerful station KVOO.{{cn|date=June 2021}}

In 1924, he moved to Chicago and built a B-[[battery eliminator]] for the Universal Battery Company with R. D. Morey. He met Waldorf Astoria Smith of the Carter Radio Company who helped him with radio theory.  Tom Fletcher of the QRS Company was so impressed by Lear's radio set designed around a QRS [[rectifier]] tube that he hired him, offering 60% more pay than Universal Battery. Bill Grunow of the [[Grigsby-Grunow-Hinds]] Company topped that offer when Lear fixed a problem with 60,000 B-battery eliminators that they had manufactured. He came up with an invention in 1924 when [[power inverter]]s installed at Stevens Hotel failed to perform for the Radio Manufacturers' Association. Lear also built audio amplifiers and cases for [[Magnavox]] speakers.  The Magnavox "majestic dynamic speakers" that he produced with Grunow were very popular.{{cn|date=June 2021}} 

Lear pioneered an early step toward [[miniaturization]] in electronics. Tuning coils in the [[radio frequency]] stage of a set were rather large; Lear reduced their size by using [[Litz wire]], braided from many fine strands to create a large surface area, giving it high conductivity at radio frequency. Lear borrowed $5,000 from his friend Algot Olson to build machines to wrap the strands, braid the wire, and wind the coils. The industry was set up in the basement of his mother's old house on 65th street, and run with assistance of Don Mitchell, a railroad electrician. Lear called the company Radio Coil and Wire Corporation. [[Eugene F. McDonald]] of [[Zenith Electronics]] ordered 50,000 coils, which were one-quarter the size of coils made with solid wire.<ref name=Boesen/>{{rp|15–23}}

Lear traded his Radio Coil business for one-third interest in [[Paul Galvin (businessman)|Paul Galvin]]'s Galvin Manufacturing Company. At that time the radio had not yet been developed for use in automobiles. Lear worked with his friend [[Elmer H. Wavering|Elmer Wavering]] to build the first car radio.<ref name="wavering-ahof">{{Cite web |url=https://www.automotivehalloffame.org/honoree/elmer-h-wavering/ |title=Elmer H. Wavering |website=[[Automotive Hall of Fame]] |access-date=2021-04-25}}</ref> Lear partnered with Howard Gates of Zenith; Lear designed the circuit and layout, Gates did the metal work, and Lear completed the assembly.  Galvin initially dismissed the prototype, but later ordered a 200-unit production run. Galvin and Lear mulled over names for the product on a cross-country trip and came up with "Motorola", which was a [[portmanteau]] of "motor" and the then popular suffix "-ola" used with audio equipment of the time (for example "[[Victrola]]"). The product was such a success that Galvin changed the name of his entire company to [[Motorola]].<ref name="patent pending"/><ref name=Boesen/>{{rp|23, 24}}