jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I think radio station KDKA in Pittsburgh was the first commercial radio station. As someone mentioned a few days ago, stations east of the Mississippi have their station names begin with a "W," while those in the west begin with a "K." How does KDKA fit into that?

polonois Loc: Lancaster County,PA.

Wasn't W1AW in Newington ct. the first?

revhen Loc: By the beautiful Hudson

As an old Pittsburgher and now near neighbor I became very interested in this. Here's what Wickedpedia has to say:

KDKA has described itself as the "Pioneer Broadcasting Station of the World."[4] 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; 101 years ago.

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."[5]

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.[7]

Harry P. Davis, Westinghouse vice president and founder of KDKA
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 (RCA), 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.[8] In order 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.[9]

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."[10]

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 #174, with the identifying call letters of KDKA.[11] 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.[a]

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.[b]

Addition of a broadcasting service

Photograph of the 9th floor KDKA transmission room. c. 1921
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.[c] 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.[17] On October 17, 1919, Conrad made the first of what would become a semi-regular series of entertainment broadcasts.[18]

During this time the Joseph Horne department store ran daily full-page advertisements in the Pittsburgh papers, and, in its September 23, 1920 placement, stated that the store had started selling "Amateur Wireless Sets" for "$10 upwards".[19] 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.[20] 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,[21] and in order 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.[d] Following the development of vacuum-tube transmitters that made audio transmissions via Amplitude Modulation (AM) 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.[22] On August 31, 1920, the Detroit News, whose "Detroit News Radiophone" began making daily broadcasts on August 20, had broadcast local primary election results.[23] 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.[24] The antenna consisted of six 90 foot-long (27m) wires spread 20 feet (6m) apart, strung 210 feet (64 m) above the ground between a brick smokestack and a 100-foot (30 m) pipe mast atop the K Building.[25] 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.[25]

A telephoned temporary authorization was received to operate under the call sign of 8ZZ.[26] (The first "Z" in this call sign indicated it was a "Special Amateur" grant,[27] which was a classification that permitted the use of transmitting frequencies other than the congested 200 meter (1500 kHz) standard amateur wavelength.) 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"[28][e] — 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.[29]

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,[30] 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.[31]

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,[f] 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."[32]

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,[33] 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",[34] and the Buffalo Evening News, over an amateur station operated by Charles C. Klinck, Jr.[35] Later station publicity proclaimed that Westinghouse's election night broadcast "was a national sensation, acclaimed by newspapers all over the country",[4] 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".[36] 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,[37] until December 21, when the station embarked on an ambitious daily schedule,[38][39] initially for about an hour each evening. (Reflecting the December launch, the January 1, 1922 debut issue of Westinghouse's Radio Broadcasting News included the reference "Fifty-fourth week broadcasting".)[40] 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.[37]

The election night broadcast was transmitted on a wavelength of 550 meters (545 kHz). Later publicity stated that KDKA was now broadcasting on 330 meters (909 kHz), and in the fall of 1921 all the Westinghouse broadcasting stations began using 360 meters (833 kHz). 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 (619 kHz).[41] 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.[42]

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 (now WABC in New York City); WBZ, originally in Springfield, Massachusetts (now Boston); and KYW, originally in Chicago, Illinois (now Philadelphia).

Also my wife studied nursing in Wilkinsburg and my father-in-law worked for Westinghouse.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

KDKA was the first COMMERCIAL radio station in the US.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Thanks for that, revhen. "Quote Reply" is not working.

Mac Loc: Pittsburgh, Philadelphia now Hernando Co. Fl.

In addition to KDKA Pittsburgh also had KQV.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

No. W1AW is the official amateur radio station of the ARRL (Amateur Radio Relay League) and was previously W1MK and dates to 1928, but the first US government issued amateur radio licenses were 3 letter call signs beginning in 1913.

fetzler Loc: North West PA

1AW and W1AW were the personal callsigns of Hiram Percy Maxim the founder of the ARRL. After his death in 1936 the call was transferred to the ARRL. This station is the HPM memorial station and is an Amateur station.

fetzler Loc: North West PA

This fine video discusses the origin of KDKA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOzcKuWD0F8

sb Loc: Florida's East Coast

I thought that a number of stations that were licended early on could keep the original call sign - like WLS in Chicago, which I used to listen to as a child in Kansas City..

wapiti Loc: round rock, texas

To my knowledge, the only exception to this is WOAI in San Anatonio, TX

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

👍👍

tainkc Loc: Kansas City

WLS; World's Largest Store. Guess which one that was?

fetzler Loc: North West PA

Other stations worth mentioning a pioneers in broadcasting are KNX (LA) and WWJ(Detroit) who also came on the air in Dec 1920 deserve mention. I think by some criteria that WWJ can be considered the first station.

fetzler Loc: North West PA

Another discussion of early broadcasting is given below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jutnc4R7VMU