"Doug Smith W9WI" wrote in message
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Lelannie wrote:
I am very interested in the history of radio ,and i was wondering
if any one in your group knew where the first radio station in the
united states was located.Thank you for your time and help.

The answer depends on a number of definitions.

Most references will tell you the answer is Pittsburgh, where KDKA is
located.

Most references, and the industry itself, has designated KDKA as the first radio
broadcaster. This is in part due to your note that KDKA's management was the first
to have deliberately intended to broadcast to the surrounding population (in fact,
KDKA's first general manager, whose name I've forgotten, is considered to have coined
the word "broadcast"). I'll admit that I'm biased - I used to work for the old girl.
But while the industry designates KDKA as the first, they also do recognise the other
pioneers who showed Westinghouse Electric that broadcasting was a viable industry,
since they were, accidently or otherwise, also broadcasting to their own regions.

There were radio stations for other purposes before any of these
broadcast stations came along. Hams; stations on ships (and the shore
stations that communicated with them); military stations; and scientific
experimenters all predated broadcasting. It has been suggested Nathan
B. Stubblefield of Murray, Kentucky was the first to experiment with
radio in the U.S.. I would by no means rule out the possibility someone
beat Stubblefield to it though. Since licenses weren't required until
1912 (and occasionally not bothered with even after that date) records
are incomplete.

Stubblefield, I hold, wasn't using "radio" per se. He was using the electromagetic
spectrum, unmodulated, more as an induced audio-range EM field...I'll give him that.
Because of the nature of his method, it would never have been practical, even if one
were to have unlimited amounts of power, since only one such transmitter would be
possible in any given area (with more than one, the overlapping audio-rate EM fields
would be worse than the co-channel interference AM radio has today).
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