Edward Samuel Rogers Sr. (June 21, 1900 – May 6, 1939) was a Canadian inventor and pioneer in the radio industry who founded the Rogers Vacuum Tube Company and the CFRB radio station in Toronto, Ontario. His only child, Edward S. Rogers Jr., established Rogers Communications. Early life and family Rogers was born on June 21, 1900, in Toronto, Ontario. During his childhood, his family lived at 49 Nanton Avenue in the Rosedale neighbourhood of Toronto. His father, businessman Albert Stephen Rogers (1860–1932), was a director of Imperial Oil (after his Queen City Oil Company was bought out) and formerly a partner in Samuel and Elias Rogers Coal Company (later Elias Rogers and Company). The coal firm had been founded in 1876 by his Quaker father, Samuel Rogers, and uncle Elias Rogers. The latter served as a Toronto alderman for St. Lawrence Ward in 1887. The family descends from Timothy Rogers (1756–1834), a Quaker leader who established Newmarket and Pickering in what is now the province of Ontario. Career Rogers first became interested in radio when he saw a receiver at age 11. By 1913, he was noted in local newspapers for his skill at operating a radio station, which at the time was an impressive technical accomplishment. Rogers worked as a radio officer on Great Lakes passenger ships during the summers of 1916-1919 inclusive. He graduated from the University of Toronto Schools in 1919. Two years later, Rogers operated the only Canadian (and only spark-gap) station to successfully compete in the first amateur trans-Atlantic radio competition. Rogers held the amateur radio call sign 3BP, and joined the Canadian chapter of the American Radio Relay League in 1921. In the early 1920s, radio transmitters and receivers ran on large and expensive batteries to provide the high voltages needed for the vacuum tubes used. Early attempts at producing a radio receiver to operate on household alternating current were unsuccessful, since tubes designed for the low current supply from batteries were unsatisfactory when operated on 25- or 60-hertz alternating current. The batteries were also extremely large and bulky. In April 1924, Rogers travelled to the United States and saw experimental AC receiving tubes at the laboratories of Westinghouse in Pittsburgh. He purchased the patent rights to the experimental alternating current tubes of Frederick S. McCullough. After further development, Rogers produced a design of vacuum tube that would operate on alternating current. By