Radio Flyer wagons were named as a tribute to two famous men of the day: Marconi and Lindbergh. Italian inventor and engineer Guglielmo Marconi developed, demonstrated, and marketed the first successful long-distance wireless telegraph and in 1901 broadcast the first transatlantic radio signal. Charles Lindbergh completed the first solo, non-stop flight across the Atlantic in 1927. Combining those two marvels, Pasin christened his new metal wagons "Radio Flyer". In 1933, Chicago was the host of the World's Fair, Century of Progress, and Radio Steel was asked to be a part of the celebration. Antonio Pasin took on major debt to fund the
Guglielmo Marconi day during which the entire transatlantic path was in daylight. It is now known (although Marconi did not know then) that this was the worst possible choice. At this medium wavelength, long-distance transmission in the daytime is not possible because of heavy absorption of the skywave in the ionosphere. It was not a blind test; Marconi knew in advance to listen for a repetitive signal of three clicks, signifying the Morse code letter "S". The clicks were reported to have been heard faintly and sporadically. There was no independent confirmation of the reported reception, and the transmissions were difficult to