The Standby

A Wireless Journey Toward the Birth of Radio

Discover the extraordinary journey of Frank E. Butler, a small-town Ohioan who stepped onto the world stage at the dawn of wireless communication. After a life-changing visit to the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, Butler abandoned security to pursue innovation, becoming assistant to pioneering inventor Lee de Forest. The Standby resurrects a long-hidden 1948 memoir that captures the crackle of spark-gap transmitters, the ambition of early radio visionaries, and the tension of emerging monopolies. This powerful true story reveals how one unlikely figure helped shape the communications revolution that transformed the modern world.