Right at 6:00 pm on that fateful
stormy evening of Tuesday November 2, 1920, the new 100 watt transmitter signed
on for its inaugural broadcast on 545 kHz
from a temporary location in a wooden hut atop the eight storey Building K at
the Westinghouse factory complex in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The official callsign for the occasion was
the temporary special assignment 8ZZ, though the regular callsign KDKA had also
come into use at the time. The progressive election figures were provided by
telephone from the news room at the newspaper office of the Pittsburgh Gazette
Times.
It is correctly understood that the
inaugural broadcast from 8ZZ-KDKA, almost one hundred years ago, was for the
broadcast of progressive statistics in association with election voting for the
presidency of the United States, which incidentally was a landslide victory for
Warren Harding. However without
additional information to the contrary, the generally accepted concept seems to
be that the broadcast of presidential voting returns was a new and unique event
presented by 8ZZ-KDKA. However, that is not the case. In the edition of Wavescan two weeks ago, we
presented the story of wireless and radio in the broadcast of the November
presidential election results in the years 1912 and 1916.
Interestingly, the earliest known
usage of wireless for the broadcast of election results occurred well over one
hundred years ago, in November 1908.
This is what happened.
Around the middle of the year 1908,
business tycoon and entertainment entrepreneur Frederic Thomson commissioned
two playwrights, Paul Armstrong and Winchell Smith, to write a four act play
under the title Via Wireless that could be produced and presented in a large
entertainment theatre.
The opening night for Via Wireless
in the Liberty Theater was Monday November 2, the night before the voting for
the 1908 presidential election between Secretary
of War William Taft and lawyer William Bryan.
The plot line for Via Wireless was the story of a shipwreck, and a brave
rescue as a result of emergency transmissions from the ship wireless.
In order to enhance the effectiveness of the
four act melodrama Via Wireless, a live wireless station was installed in the
foyer of the Liberty Theatre at 42nd St in New York City. This station received and transmitted
electioneering information in Morse Code on Monday evening November 2, and also
on November 3, (1908) when statistical results were transmitted. We might add that William Taft obtained an
easy victory.
At the time, there were just four
licensed wireless stations in New York City, as well as many licensed and
unlicensed amateur stations, so it is not known which station was corresponding
with the Liberty Theatre. This is the
list of officially licensed wireless stations in New York City at that time:-
PT 900 m 333
kH z 15
kW Navy Yard Brooklyn
BW 450 666 2 Waldorf
Astoria Manhattan
FS 450 666 2 Hotel
Plaza Manhattan
NY Various 2 42nd & Broadway Manhattan
Comes the year 1920 and Warren
Harding and James Cox are fighting it out with the climactic voting taking
place on Tuesday November 2. In advance,
ARRL the American Radio Relay League (of amateur radio stations) arranged with
Frank Conrad that his amateur station 8XK should be the key station in the
Pittsburgh area for the broadcast of the election results.
However at the same time,
Westinghouse began to plan for the launching of its own new radio broadcasting
station in the evening of election day, and so recently married Burton Williams
8ZD at 3220 Orlean St in Pittsburgh agreed to
act as the Pittsburgh control for amateur radio coverage of the election
results. This arrangement allowed Frank
Conrad to work with the inauguration of the new Westinghouse radio broadcasting
station.
During the last week in October
(1920), test transmissions were radiated by the new Westinghouse station at
East Pittsburgh, 8ZZ with 100 watts on 550 metres (545 kHz). These test transmissions were heard clearly
in West Virginia and Ohio at a distance of 300 miles. In anticipation of the inaugural broadcast
during the evening of the next day, a final test transmission from 8ZZ was
conducted on the evening of Monday November 1, (1920).
The daily newspaper Cleveland Plain
Dealer announced on the Thursday before election day that some 600 amateur
radio operators in the greater Cleveland area would be listening to 8ZZ-KDKA
for the inaugural election day broadcast.
As is so well known, the inaugural
broadcast from 8ZZ-KDKA at the Westinghouse factory in East Pittsburgh was a
splendid success, and the broadcast of election results, music and
announcements was heard quite widely. As
a standby in case of failure at 8ZZ-KDKA, Frank Conrad was at the controls of
his own amateur station 8XK on the second floor of the family garage at the corner of Penn Avenue and Peebles
Street in Wilkinsburg. However as we
know, the new Westinghouse station 8ZZ-KDKA did not fail, and the standby usage
of amateur 8XK was not necessary.
There was another radio broadcasting
station that was also inaugurated on election day 1920 and this was station
9ZJ-WLK in Indianapolis Indiana. Young
Francis Hamilton installed amateur radio broadcasting station 9ZJ in the barn
behind the family home at 2011 North Alabama Street Indianapolis and the
opening broadcast was election day news.
Station 9ZJ transmigrated into
mediumwave broadcaster WLK which folded in 1923. The equipment was incorporated into KFGZ-WEMC
at Andrews Adventist University in Berrien Springs Michigan, and that station
eventually morphed into WKZO in Kalamazoo.
Another historic mediumwave station
that carried the 1920 election results was 8MK in Detroit Michigan. This station began as 8MK in the Detroit News
Building at 615 West Lafayette Boulevard with a series of test transmissions
beginning on August 20, 1920, three months in advance of the first broadcasts
from the more famous 8ZZ-KDKA.
The election day broadcast from 8MK
on 200 metres (1500 kHz) was announced in advance in the Detroit News daily
newspaper. This station later became the
more familiar WWJ, which is still on the air to this day.
Another important mediumwave station
that presented election news on election day in 1920 was 1XE which was on the
air at Tufts College (University) at Medford just north of Boston. This experimental station was inaugurated in
1917 as the first station in Massachusetts; it changed callsign to WGI one year
after the election broadcasts; another callsign WARC was adopted in 1925; and
it fell silent in bankruptcy in 1927.
Interestingly in 1926, the noted
Powell Crosley at WLW in Cincinnati Ohio announced that he planned to establish
a shortwave transmitter in Cincinnati for the purpose of providing a relay of
programming to WARC in suburban Boston.
But, nothing came of this matter.