[QCWA] Fw: KDKA

[N0UF]

I stand corrected ( as does 
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dt20ra.html ).

This is an email I received from Donna Halper.  Donna isn't subscribed to 
the reflector so it bounced.

If you have questions please contact Donna directly.

I'm sending a copy of this to Donna and she is more than welcome to 
subscribe to the Reflector.

While early Commercial Broadcast Radio isn't within the scope of this 
reflector, I think it's of interest to many of the subscribers so for now, I 
consider it in scope.

Again,  please send all questions directly to Donna as her responses to the 
reflector will just bounce.

have fun es 73,
Bob N0UF
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Donna Halper" <dlh at donnahalper.com>
To: <n0uf at kc.rr.com>
Cc: <jfenn at lava.net>; <qcwa at mailman.qth.net>; <w1eof at hamnutz.com>
Sent: Monday, March 14, 2005 12:16 AM
Subject: RE: KDKA


> Mark wrote:
>>The posting was on the QCWA email list. Somone asked about it and Bob, the
>>guy who is the webmaster for the QCWA, he's responsible for the site I 
>>sent
>>you earlier today.
>>
>>and Bob said--
>>
>>Yep, KDKA was the first commercial broadcast station.
>> >From http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dt20ra.html
>>On November 2, 1920, station KDKA made the nation's first commercial
>>broadcast (a term coined by Conrad himself (Dr. Frank Conrad was a
>>Pittsburgh area ham operator)).
>
> There is nothing I love more than a good myth.  But, guys, that's the 
> problem.  It's a myth.  I've been asked to comment, so please don't take 
> this like I am some know-it-all, but I am a media historian of many years 
> duration, and I spend large amounts of time refuting the KDKA story.  Okay 
> fine, it does contain a grain of truth, but if I may, here are a few 
> facts.  Fact 1-- KDKA was NOT the first station.  That honour goes to 8MK, 
> better known as WWJ in Detroit.  And here in greater Boston, little 1XE 
> (later WGI) was also on the air before KDKA.  So was the Marconi station 
> in Montreal-- XWA, later CFCF.   And no Conrad didn't think up the term 
> "commercial station"-- the only true part of the  link from PBS page is 
> the fact that yes, Conrad was indeed a Pittsburgh ham radio operator.  But 
> so were ALL of radio's pioneers.  So, how come so many people today think 
> KDKA was the first station?
>
> That brings me to fact two-- many people today mistake PUBLICITY for 
> history.  You see, KDKA had the muscle of Westinghouse (back then, a giant 
> conglomerate) behind it.  Westinghouse sunk thousands of dollars into 
> sending out expensive press kits, wining and dining newspaper editors, and 
> making sure textbook publishers-- most of whom were not radio people--  
> knew what KDKA had supposedly done.  Trouble is, KDKA *didn't* do 
> everything that it claimed.  But boy did it have a massive publicity 
> machine, and the story of KDKA was spread far and wide.  The biggest 
> champion of the KDKA story was the New York Times, which explains how the 
> story goes out to so many other cities.  You may say, hey Donna why didn't 
> those other stations do the same thing and get their own publicity 
> machines going?  Oh they tried, but Westinghouse was bigger, advertised in 
> more newspapers (the NY Times among them) and magazines, and had more 
> dollars to put behind spreading their version-- the company even flew 
> Conrad to various cities to discuss KDKA's achievements.  meanwhile, the 
> other stations were coming from behind from day one.  8MK was owned by the 
> Detroit News, which for reasons I cannot fathom, only publicised the 
> station in Michigan.  1XE was staffed largely by dedicated volunteers who 
> worked days for a small receiver company (AMRAD) and nights on the radio 
> station, with its 100 wonderful watts and equipment that broke down 
> constantly.  But 1XE had the first woman radio engineer, the late great 
> Eunice Randall, 1CDP (and yes she was a ham, and very respected too; she 
> could fix a transmitter, send morse code, or do whatever else, and she 
> also announced, did news, and if guests didn't show up, she sang...), and 
> a number of soon to be famous performers got their start at the little 
> station on the campus of Tufts College (and no it wasn't a college 
> station; its two founders were Tufts grads).  What it didn't have was the 
> kind of budget to take on Westinghouse.
>
> Fact three-- 8MK in Detroit went on the air on 20 August 1920, and it 
> broadcast Michigan state election results on 31 August.  And guess what-- 
> it also broadcast the presidential election results on 2 November, just 
> like KDKA did.  As for 1XE/WGI was probably on the air sometime in early 
> September of 1920, based on records I've seen and recollections from 
> old-timers who worked there.  And boy were they annoyed to read that KDKA 
> had been the first station-- every time that claim got printed somewhere, 
> somebody from 1XE would write an irate letter to the newspaper or magazine 
> that printed the claim-- but alas, it was a losing battle.  1XE/WGI went 
> bankrupt in April of 1925 and is today forgotten (except by people like 
> me).  8MK, later WWJ, is still around and periodically tries to remind 
> people that even FAMOUS FIRST FACTS lists their station as first, not 
> KDKA.  But again, it's a losing battle.  The myth took hold, spread 
> largely by one famous textbook written by Gleason Archer-- who was not 
> there, didn't know any of the players, and basically let Westinghouse tell 
> the story whatever way they wanted to tell it.  Winners write the 
> history-- WWJ had owners that were far too modest, 1XE/WGI had owners that 
> were far too poor, and another big corporation got to create a legend. 
> And so it goes.
>
> Bob also wrote--
>>They chose that date because it was election
>>day, and the power of radio was proven when people could hear the results 
>>of
>>the Harding-Cox presidential race before they read about it in the
>>newspaper.
>
> Umm, not exactly.  Fact four:  KDKA went on the air a few days earlier as 
> 8ZZ and waited anxiously for the license to arrive that said they could do 
> commercial broadcasting.  It finally arrived on 1November, just in time to 
> do election results.  The new station had an agreement with the Pittsburgh 
> Post and Gazette, but neither newspaper mentioned them by name, since 
> newspapers regarded radio as competition in those early years.  If anybody 
> knew about KDKA's first broadcast, it was a few amateurs who had heard the 
> test broadcasts of 8ZZ.  Most people still did rely on the newspaper.  A 
> department store which sold Westinghouse receivers, Horne's, put up a 
> speaker, and some people did hear the election broadcast that way. 
> Horne's saw it as a way to sell receivers.  But the story of how KDKA 
> broadcast the election results was buried on page 4 of the newspapers (I 
> know because I have the photocopies, direct from the microfilm).  Years 
> later, the legend that this was a big deal and everybody knew about it had 
> spread, but the truth is, few people knew and fewer people had any 
> equipment to even listen.  There was no "power of radio" yet, except among 
> our friends the amateurs.  And the Department of Commerce-- there was no 
> FCC yet-- put a stop to the hams participating in commercial radio by 
> February of 1922.  More on that in a later post.
>
>>Bob also wrote--
>>KDKA was a huge hit,
>
> Again, not exactly.  I think we are up to fact five-- it was a small 
> sensation among friends of Conrad's, but other cities had already been 
> doing the same thing, and their friends liked it just as much.  Commercial 
> radio (as opposed to ham radio) would not really take off for another 
> year.  And as for the so-called 'commercial license'-- all it meant was 
> you had to broadcast at a couple of specific frequencies on the AM band--  
> 833 kc was the first place, and soon there were about 15 stations sharing 
> that one frequency, so the government opened up one more.  But by early 
> 1922, there were suddenly over 200 stations and believe me, chaos was 
> about to ensue.
>
> Bob wrote--
>>inspiring other companies to take up broadcasting.
>
> Oh the many hours I spend refuting this.  I can name you a number of 
> stations that had been broadcasting for months-- in some cases, several 
> years.  Our little 1XE was sending out weekly music concerts beginning in 
> 1916 (!).  Lee DeForest had a station in suburban NY that sent out 
> election results in 1916 too, if memory serves me.  I could go on and on. 
> But suffice it to say that while KDKA would go on to become a well 
> respected station with many legitimate firsts, August comes before 
> November.  8MK/WWJ was on the air first, and has never gotten the credit 
> it deserves for that.
>
> More about how the hams created commercial radio, what a commercial 
> license really meant, who thought it up, etc etc, some other time.  Yours 
> for accuracy in media history,
>
> Donna L. Halper, contributing editor, Boston Radio Archives
> author "Invisible Stars:  A Social History of Women in American 
> Broadcasting"
>
>