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| KDKA - the early years |
For
the past nearly one hundred years, the history of the medium wave station 8ZZ-KDKA
in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania has been closely linked with the broadcast of voting
results for the American presidential campaign in November 1920. This event was the grand occasion for the
inauguration of the now historic medium wave broadcasting station KDKA on
November 2.
A major result of this programming
emphasis in 1920 catapulted KDKA to an all time historic high. Even though KDKA was not chronologically the
first radio broadcasting station on the air in the United States, yet their
inaugural broadcast on November 2, 1920 is seen without doubt as a major
turning point in the progressive development of radio broadcasting, not only in
the United States, but also right throughout the world.
However, it is not so well known,
that a large number of other radio stations in the United States have also
broadcast the progressive count of voting results in American presidential
campaigns, not only at the same time as the KDKA event in 1920, but also during
earlier campaigns as well. In our
program today, we investigate the usage of radio in giving wide coverage to
voting counts in presidential campaigns way back a hundred years ago.
From the middle of the 1800s
onwards, the nationwide network of wire telegraph systems in the United States
began to grow, as did also the transmission of news and information in Morse
Code, including progressive figures in presidential voting every four
years. When wireless telegraph stations
were installed in various areas across the nation, then presidential voting news
was also transmitted, sometimes informally, sometimes officially.
During the year 1910, the New York
Herald newspaper established a wireless station in the United States Barge
Office at The Battery in New York City, which operated on longwave 640 metres
(470 kHz) under the self chosen informal call sign OHX. A contemporary photograph in the New York
Herald showed the antenna system at station OHX stretched across a wide street
between two buildings.
The main purpose for establishing
station OHX was for the transmission of daily bulletins of newspaper news in
Morse Code for the benefit of other newspapers.
In addition to the broadcast of these daily news bulletins from wireless
station OHX in New York City, two other longwave wireless stations also carried
a relay of these same transmissions.
These two additional relay stations,
both Marconi stations, were station CC across the waterway from Cape Cod Boston
in Massachusetts, and station PH at Hillcrest in San Francisco California. The program feed in Morse Code was carried by
the regular landline telegraph system from station OHX in New York City to station CC in Boston and to station
PH in San Francisco.
The presidential campaign during the
year 1912 was a strange four way contest, though the main contenders were the
governor of New Jersey Woodrow Wilson and the previous president Theodore
Roosevelt. Wilson won that race with a
landslide victory.
The New York Herald wireless station
OHX provided wide area coverage of the progressive vote counts as they came in,
beginning in the evening of Tuesday November 5, 1912. Other wireless stations that carried similar
progressive news information in Morse Code were two navy wireless stations;
station NAD in Building 10 at the Massachusetts
Navy Yard in Charlestown Massachusetts and station NPH on Mare Island
California.
The amateur station 1AF at Harvard
University in Massachusetts, acknowledged as a control station in the Boston
area in 1912, also sent out the November election results in Morse Code.
However, for the first time ever,
the progressive vote count was presented live by voice, from the Charles
Herrold broadcasting station in San Jose California. Just a few months earlier, during the evening
of July 22, 1912, Herrold had begun a regular series of radio program
broadcasts over his self-made 15 watt Arcphone longwave transmitter, operating
without call sign at the time, just below 600 metres (500 kHz).
This new transmitter was installed
with the Herrold College of
Wireless and Engineering in the Garden City Bank Building at the corner of
First and West San Fernando Streets in downtown San Jose, which itself is a
conjoined city on the southern edge of San Francisco in California. The wireless station, with its water-cooled
microphone, was installed on the top floor of the seven storied bank
building. The longwave antenna system,
described as a carpet aerial, was made up of two miles of bronze wire which was
strung like an umbrella from the Garden City Bank Building across three other
adjoining buildings.
On the occasion of the broadcast of
the voting returns for the presidential election on November 5, 1912, the
University of California in nearby Berkeley on the eastern shore of San
Francisco Bay set up a receiver in their gymnasium so that students could hear
the progressive news counts. Although
not claimed as such, this was the first occasion in which the progressive
voting results were broadcast by voice in the United States.
Four years later, there was another
presidential election in the United States, and on this occasion, November 7,
1916, contemporary newspaper reports state that several thousand amateur radio
listeners heard the progressive news counts.
The 1916 election campaign was fought between the incumbent President
Woodrow Wilson and Supreme
Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes. As
the counting figures came in, the tallies ebbed and flowed between President
Wilson & Justice Hughes.
A few days prior to the election day
voting, radio inventor Lee de Forest installed a radio broadcasting station at
his Highbridge Laboratory at 1391 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx New York. This pioneer longwave radio broadcasting
station was licensed under the call sign 2XG and it emitted 125 watts on 800 metres
(375 kHz). The first test broadcast
from the new 2XG was transmitted on the evening of October 26, 1916, and
regular programming began just a week later on November 1. With
the presidential campaign in its final stages, and World War 1 in Europe
already two years old, there was much to report, although America dod not enter
that war until six months later on April
6, 1917. Initial programming from 2XG at
that stage was made up of music from Columbia disc recordings together with
news and information from the morning daily newspaper, the New York American.
Just a week later again on November
7 (1916), the new broadcasting station 2XG carried progressive reports on the
voting counts from the offices of the New York American, up until 11:00
pm. Just before closing for the night,
station 2XG announced mistakenly that Justice Charles Hughes had won the
election. However, subsequent late
returns from California swung the election results in favor of President
Wilson, a fact that was made known early next day.
Several contemporary newspaper
reports stated that many thousands of amateur radio operators heard the news
reports from station 2XG, and of course many of these radio operators also
rebroadcast the news further afield from their own amateur radio stations. The Electrical Experimenter magazine declared
that 7,000 amateur radio operators heard the news from station 2XG, and the
estimate from the New York American newspaper stated that 8,000 amateur radio
operators heard this news from the same station 2XG.
This figure, 7,000 or 8,000 amateur
radio operators, may sound a bit like a newspaper exaggeration. Maybe it was, but at that time, the
Commissioner of Navigation in an official report stated that there was a total
of 15,868 licensed amateur radio operators in the United States; double the
listenership that this newspaper was claiming.
The New York American declared
triumphantly: It was the first time in the history of this wonderful world of
ours that such a thing could be done.
For the first time, the wireless telephone has been demonstrated as a
practical, serviceable carrier of election news and comment.
Of course, that is not true; the 2XG
broadcasts in 1916 were not the first election results that were broadcast in
the voice mode. As we know, Professor Charles Herrold in San
Jose California broadcast election reports by voice in the 1912 presidential
campaign, four years earlier than station 2XG in New York in 1916.
We should also mention that a
competitor radio station, the New York Herald station WHB (ex OHX) also carried
its own programming of election results during that same 1916 presidential
race.
So, apparently several hundred, if
not thousands, of radio stations have broadcast presidential election results
in the years before the famous KDKA in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania performed a
similar service in 1920. Does that
dethrone KDKA from its illustrious place in radio history? No, not at all. Station KDKA played a pivotal role in the
development of radio broadcasting in the United States, and that honor can
never be removed from KDKA and given to another.
*AWR-Wavescan)
