Image: Frank Conrad radio station 8XK 1920

Description: Frank Conrad's radio station 8XK in the garage of his home in Wilkinsburgh, PA July 1920, the origin of one of the first pioneering commercial broadcasting stations, the hugely popular KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Conrad was assistant chief engineer of Westinghouse Corporation. His home station was licensed for experimental work (indicated by the "X" in the callsign) and Conrad used it for communication tests with Westinghouse's downtown Pittsburgh headquarters 4 miles away. During WW1 it was one of the few transmitters allowed to remain on the air, After the war, at the request of fellow "hams", on October 17, 1919 Conrad initiated one of the first entertainment broadcasts, playing phonograph records over his transmitter for two hours each Wednesday and Sunday evening. The next year when Westinghouse decided to start a radio station to promote the sale of their radio receivers, it asked Conrad to set it up. KDKA began broadcasting on 833 kHz at a power of 100 watts from a shack on the roof of Westinghouse's Pittsburgh office building on November 2, 1920, with coverage of the Harding-Cox Presidential election.
Title: Frank Conrad radio station 8XK 1920
Credit: Retrieved October 20, 2015 from T. R. Kennedy Jr. "From Coherer to Spacistor" in Radio Electronics magazine, Gernsback Publications, Mt. Morris, Illinois, Vol. 29, No. 4, April 1958, p. 51 on http://www.americanradiohistory.com
Author: T. R. Kennedy Jr.
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No