KDKA (AM)
KDKA is a class A, clear channel, AM radio station, licensed to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Owned and operated by Audacy, Inc. Its radio studios are located at the combined Audacy Pittsburgh facility in the Foster Plaza on Holiday Drive in Green Tree, and its transmitter site is at Allison Park. The station's programming is also carried over 93.7 KDKA-FM's HD2 digital subchannel, and is simulcast on FM translator W261AX at 100.1 MHz.
KDKA features a news/talk radio format. Operating with a transmitter power of non-directional, the station can be heard during daylight hours throughout central and western Pennsylvania, along with portions of the adjacent states of Ohio, West Virginia, and Maryland. Under the right conditions, it can also be heard in far western New York State and the southernmost part of the Canadian province of Ontario. At night, KDKA can be heard across much of the Eastern United States and Eastern Canada with a good radio. The station serves as western Pennsylvania's Primary Entry Point for the Emergency Alert System.
KDKA has described itself as the "Pioneer Broadcasting Station of the World". It is considered by many historians as the first commercially licensed radio station. Initially using the temporarily assigned "special amateur" call sign of 8ZZ, it traces its beginning to its broadcast of the Harding-Cox presidential election results on the evening of November 2, 1920.
History
Initial point-to-point service license
Although KDKA's history has been extensively reviewed, there are some inconsistencies between accounts, leading one researcher to note: "While the KDKA story is often recounted, the details tend to vary slightly both in the secondary source material and in the published recollections of the participants, including differences in the chronology of events and the relative importance of the parties involved."KDKA's establishment was an outgrowth of the post-World War I efforts of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company of East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to expand its commercial operations in the radio industry. During the war, Westinghouse received government contracts to develop radio transmitters and receivers for military use. They used recently developed vacuum tube equipment that was capable of audio communication. Previous spark gap transmitters could only be used to transmit the dots-and-dashes of Morse code. At the time of the entry of the United States into World War I in April 1917, the government ordered all civilian radio stations off the air. However, during the conflict Westinghouse received permission to operate research radio transmitters located at its East Pittsburgh plant and at the home of one of its lead engineers, Frank Conrad, in nearby Wilkinsburg.
With the end of the war, the government contracts were canceled. However, Westinghouse moved aggressively to establish itself as a national and international provider of radio communication. Its primary competitor in this effort was the Radio Corporation of America, which had recently been formed as a subsidiary by Westinghouse's arch rival, the General Electric Company of Schenectady, New York, using the assets of the Marconi Company of America.
The effort to establish Westinghouse's radio industry presence was led by company vice president H. P. Davis. To strengthen the company's patent position, especially related to receivers, he spearheaded the purchase of the International Radio Telegraph Company, primarily to gain control of a "heterodyne" patent originally issued to Reginald Fessenden, and also arranged for the purchase of the commercial rights to the regenerative and superheterodyne patents held by Edwin Howard Armstrong. However, because of the competitive advantage RCA had in international and marine communications, initially there appeared to be limited opportunities available to Westinghouse.
Although it would gain its fame as a broadcasting station, KDKA actually originated as part of a project to establish private radiotelegraph links between Westinghouse's East Pittsburgh factory and its other facilities, to avoid the business expense of paying for telegraph and telephone lines. In September 1920, a newspaper report noted that "a new high-power station, to operate under a special or commercial license, is being installed at the Westinghouse plant in East Pittsburgh. It will be used to establish communication between the East Pittsburgh plant and the company branch factories at Cleveland, O., Newark, N. J., and Springfield, Mass., where similar outfits will be employed."
An application, signed by H. P. Davis, was submitted to the Eighth District Radio Inspector, S. W. Edwards in Detroit, who forwarded it to Washington, and on October 27, 1920, Westinghouse was issued a Limited Commercial station license, serial No. 174, with the identifying call letters of KDKA. This Limited Commercial grant was consistent with the standard practice being followed at this time, for licenses issued to companies engaging in private radio communication. Neither KDKA's original application, nor the resulting license, mentioned broadcasting, only that the station was to be used for radiotelegraphic communication with stations located at the Westinghouse facilities in Cleveland, Newark and Springfield, plus station WCG in Brooklyn, New York, which was operated by the recently acquired International Radio Telegraph.
At this time, radio stations in the United States were regulated by the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Navigation. Beginning with the introduction of licensing in late 1912, the standard practice had been to assign call letters starting with "W" to radio stations east of the Mississippi River. However, KDKA happened to receive its assignment during a short period during which land stations were being issued call letters from a sequential block of "K" call letters that had previously been assigned only to ship stations. Although the original policy was restored a few months later, KDKA was permitted to keep its non-standard call sign.
Addition of a broadcasting service
Shortly after beginning the process of setting up KDKA to be used for point-to-point communication, a series of events occurred which resulted in it also becoming a broadcasting station, which would overshadow its original role.Prior to World War I, Frank Conrad had operated an experimental radiotelegraph station, with the callsign 8XK. Following the war, the U.S. government again allowed the operation of civilian radio stations, and Conrad revived 8XK, which was located in a detached two-story garage at his residence. He used the knowledge gained during the wartime period to upgrade his station to begin making audio transmissions, and became well known among radio amateurs for his experimental activities. On October 17, 1919, Conrad made the first of what would become a semi-regular series of entertainment broadcasts.
During this time the Joseph Horne department store ran daily full-page advertisements in the Pittsburgh papers, and, in its placement of September 23, 1920, stated that the store had started selling "Amateur Wireless Sets" for "$10 upwards". Six days later, the store's September 29 installment included a small notice titled "Air Concert 'Picked Up' By Radio Here", which noted that its demonstration set had been used to receive one of the Conrad broadcasts. H. P. Davis saw this advertisement and immediately recognized the "limitless opportunity" of adding radio receivers to the lines of appliances sold to the general public by Westinghouse, and to create demand for the receivers, he decided that Westinghouse should provide regular programming as an incentive for persons considering a purchase. Davis held a staff meeting with his "radio cabinet" and asked them to have a station operational in time to broadcast the presidential and local election returns on November 2, 1920.
Election return broadcasts had been a tradition since shortly after the development of radio, although due to technical limitations initially they could only be done using Morse code, which greatly limited the potential audiences. Following the development of vacuum-tube transmitters that made audio transmissions via amplitude modulation possible, the first spoken-word election night broadcast was made on November 7, 1916 by the DeForest Radio Telephone and Telegraph Company's station, 2XG, located in the Highbridge section of New York City, in conjunction with the New York American, announcing the results of the Wilson-Hughes presidential election. On August 31, 1920, the Detroit News, whose "Detroit News Radiophone" began making daily broadcasts on August 20, had broadcast local primary election results. That station operated under the amateur call sign of "8MK" and is now AM 950 WWJ.
Westinghouse's preparations included the construction of a shack and antenna system on the roof of the nine-story K Building at the East Pittsburgh Works in Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania. The antenna consisted of six 90-foot-long wires spread 20 feet apart, strung 210 feet above the ground between a brick smokestack and a 100-foot pipe mast atop the K Building. Frank Conrad had originally planned to broadcast the election results over 8XK, in cooperation with the American Radio Relay League, but shifted his efforts to help with the Westinghouse broadcast. He and Donald G. Little had primary responsibility for constructing a 100 watt vacuum-tube transmitter, scaling up Conrad's previous 50 watt radiotelephone transmitter design.
A telephoned temporary authorization was received to operate under the call sign of 8ZZ. Although the pre-broadcast publicity and contemporary accounts stated that 8ZZ was the call sign used for the election night broadcast — for example, in 1922 L.R. Krumm, Westinghouse's Superintendent of Radio Operations, referred to Westinghouse's "station at East Pittsburgh, now known as KDKA, the matured successor of 8ZZ" — later reviews, including a 1930 re-creation of the original broadcast, often incorrectly state that the KDKA call sign was used during the debut broadcast.
Extensive regional publicity by Westinghouse heralded the upcoming broadcast, both among technically knowledgeable amateur radio enthusiasts, plus, through the organization of public listening sites, toward a more general audience of potential future radio receiver purchasers. Promotional announcements described the offering as a joint effort between Westinghouse and its International Radio Telegraph subsidiary, and A. E. Braun, an International Radio Telegraph officer who was also the president of the Pittsburgh Post and Pittsburgh Sun, made the arrangements for his newspapers to provide election results to the station.
In the days before November 2, a series of test transmissions were made to check the equipment. The announcer for the election night broadcast was a publicity department staff member, Leo Rosenberg. Frank Conrad stood by at his home station, ready to take over using his 8XK transmitter if the East Pittsburgh transmitter failed, but the effort was successful, with one newspaper report noting that: "The returns by wireless telephone, which were transmitted from the Westinghouse international radio station at East Pittsburgh, were exceptionally clear and distinct. The service was utilized by many amateurs to entertain gatherings at their various stations. Between announcements of the returns radiophone music was transmitted, which added much to the entertainment."
This Westinghouse broadcast was not unique – that evening at least three other stations made audio transmissions of election returns, including the Detroit News "Detroit News Radiophone" service, a temporary arrangement made by the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch in conjunction with William E. Woods of the Benwoods Company, "manufacturers and distributors of wireless outfits", and the Buffalo Evening News, over an amateur station operated by Charles C. Klinck, Jr. Later station publicity proclaimed that Westinghouse's election night broadcast "was a national sensation, acclaimed by newspapers all over the country", however a comprehensive review of contemporary newspapers determined that reports, although positive, actually appeared only in a few local papers, thus it "was not an immediate 'sensation' and that the fame of this event developed over time with later celebratory accounts". Although the election night broadcast was only heard by about 1,000 people, KDKA would eventually gain national prominence once it began to offer an extensive range of programming.
After initially operating under the call sign 8ZZ – apparently for just a few days, although the chronology is not completely clear – the station switched to identifying itself as KDKA. Through the next month semiweekly broadcasts were made, until December 21, when the station embarked on an ambitious daily schedule, initially for about an hour each evening. KDKA soon gained a reputation as one of the premier broadcasting stations in the nation. On August 1, 1921, the transmitter was upgraded from 100 to 500 watts, and two months later saw an additional doubling, to 1,000 watts.
The election night broadcast was transmitted on a wavelength of 550 meters. Later publicity stated that KDKA was now broadcasting on 330 meters, and in the fall of 1921 all the Westinghouse broadcasting stations began using 360 meters. In the United States there were no formal standards defining a broadcasting station until December 1, 1921, when the Department of Commerce issued a regulation specifying that stations making broadcasts intended for the general public now had to hold a Limited Commercial license that authorized operation on 360 meters or 485 meters. KDKA was one of a small number of stations that already met this standard at the time of its adoption, as its second year-long license, issued November 7, 1921, included the notation "360 meters for general broadcasting" in addition to continuing the point-to-point service authorization.
Encouraged by the success of KDKA, by the end of 1921 Westinghouse established stations in three additional major population centers, including WJZ in Newark, New Jersey ; WBZ, originally in Springfield, Massachusetts ; and KYW, originally in Chicago, Illinois.