From HAM radio to modern day communications tech

What if you could talk to your past? Detective Raimy Sullivan (Peyton List) is about to find out on the forthcoming CW series Frequency, premiering October 5, 9/8c, when she uses an old ham radio to speak to her deceased father.

But ham radios have made more of an impact than just allowing detectives to figure their father’s unsolved murder—they’re partly to blame for the device in your pocket. From the first radios to the iPhone, here’s a brief history of the last century of telecommunications.