A few days ago, Ray Robinson of shortwave KVOH in Los Angeles
alerted us to the information regarding a special historic ceremony in suburban
Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. Because of the
interest and significance of this event, we postpone our intended opening
feature in this edition of Wavescan and we present the story of this KDKA
Memorial: Historic 95th Anniversary
Ceremony in Pennsylvania. We are indebted to a
feature article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette written by Dave Zuchowski for
his information regarding this event, and additional information is taken from
other historical sources.
It was on
Friday evening October 17, 1919 that the Westinghouse engineer Dr. Frank Conrad
made a significant broadcast over his amateur radio station 8XK. The station was installed in the second floor
of his red brick garage in Wilkinsburg, a city adjacent to the better known
city Pittsburgh. This was Conrad’s first broadcast after
the United States re-opened the usage of the airwaves to amateur radio
operators subsequent to the end of World War 1 and it was one of the very early
program broadcasts in the history of radio broadcasting. This initial two hour broadcast over his
homemade radio equipment included several different styles of recorded music
together with announcements and spoken information. This historic broadcast proved so popular
that he began a series of similar broadcasts each Wednesday and Saturday
evening from the same station 8XK.
In September of
the following year, the local newspaper ran an advertisement on behalf of the
Home Department Store offering the sale of radio receivers which could tune in
Conrad’s
radio program broadcasts. The
Westinghouse company decided that they would construct their own radio
broadcasting station and install it in a small wooden and canvas shack on the
roof of their K factory building in suburban East Pittsburgh.
Engineer
Conrad assembled the necessary equipment for their new radio station and they
requested a commercial license from the federal government licensing
authorities. This new station made its
first broadcast on Tuesday evening November 2, 1920 with progressive
information about the Harding-Cox presidential election. For this inaugural broadcast, Westinghouse
was on the air under a temporary callsign 8ZZ, and a couple of days later the
commercial license arrived by post, granting a consecutively issued callsign
KDKA.
To honor Dr. Conrad’s contributions to the broadcast industry, the
Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission approved a historic marker to be
erected on a street adjacent to the Conrad garage and this was dedicated on
December 1, 1990. That marker was later
removed and placed in storage when the property and garage were sold during the
year 2000 to make way for a fast-food restaurant. With financial backing, the garage was
dismantled and all of the items were placed in storage along with documentation
on how to reassemble the garage once more.
At 2:00 pm last
Friday October 17, just two days ago, a special commemorative ceremony was held
at a planned new location at South Trenton and Penn Avenues
in Wilkinsburg and the original marker was rededicated at its new
location. This event took place exactly
95 years later to the very day after Conrad’s first historic
broadcast and it was staged at two consecutive locations, the Community Life
Building at 301 Meade Street and then at the new location for the memorial
marker. Present were two of Frank Conrad’s
great grandsons, Jamie Conrad and actor David Conrad.
Plans are in
hand to
reassemble the garage and currently they are looking at several sites in the
Pittsburgh area. It is intended to have
the garage rebuilt in time for the 100th anniversary of Conrad’s first broadcast, October 17, 2019. The completed project will cost an estimated
$1.6 million and already $225,000 has been raised for this historic event.
The
international radio world is indebted to the historic endeavors carried out by
Dr. Frank Conrad, together with Westinghouse and radio station KDKA. It is true that there were many earlier
ventures into radio broadcasting in the United States and in several other
countries, and even their historic election broadcast was not the first in the
history of radio broadcasting. However,
the KDKA venture was indeed a major turning point in the development of radio
program broadcasting, not only in mediumwave broadcasting but subsequently also
in shortwave broadcasting.
Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette
By Dave Zuchowski
September
25, 2014
(AWR Wavescan/NWS 295)
