hello,
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.

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.

KDKA argues that it was the first station to take out a license for the
specific purpose of broadcasting. Other stations used experimental
licenses to engage in broadcasting before KDKA's appearance - the
stations now known as WWJ (Detroit), WHA (Madison, Wis.), and KCBS (San
Francisco, originally KQW San Jose) are often cited.

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.
--
Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66
http://www.w9wi.com

The first licensed radio broadcast station was KDKA, PITTSBURGH, PA, going
on the air in 1920. Before then, stations were unlicensed, and, more or
less, experimental.

"Lelannie" wrote in message
...
hello,
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.

http://www.comm.wayne.edu/images/wright/17_radio.html

http://www.audiouk.com/milestones.htm

"Doug Smith W9WI" wrote in message
...
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).
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there's nothing that offends you in your community, then you know you're not
living in a free society.
Kim Campbell - ex-Prime Minister of Canada - 2004
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
For direct replies, take out the contents between the hyphens. -Really!-


..

"Blue Cat" wrote in message
...
The first licensed radio broadcast station was KDKA, PITTSBURGH, PA, going
on the air in 1920. Before then, stations were unlicensed, and, more or
less, experimental.

The first licensed in the USA, you mean.

(in fact, KDKA's first general manager, whose name I've forgotten, is
considered to have coined the word "broadcast")

That would be a neat trick, seeing as how one cannot coin a word that already
exists. The term "broadcast" came from agriculture.

"Sid Schweiger" wrote in message
...
(in fact, KDKA's first general manager, whose name I've forgotten, is
considered to have coined the word "broadcast")

That would be a neat trick, seeing as how one cannot coin a word that already
exists. The term "broadcast" came from agriculture.

Okay...so let's see how this relates....

There's a place in Greece called Marathon. It's been there for a long time, but
before the battle of Marathon, and before Phidippides ran to Athens from there,
Marathon was always a place, not a race. That's coinage.

Spam was (and still is) a once-ubiquitous canned meat, that some people found
appeared in many undesirable places and after a time, despised. It's a word that's
been around for some 75 years. Now it's the email glut that, after a time, most of
us despise. That's coinage.

Gay used to mean happy. Glad. Merry. Cheery. Sunny. Bright. Still does, for that
matter. Now it also means someone who is sexually attracted to someone of the same
sex. That's coinage.

So (or sew). Broadcast, when used in the context of an agricultural effort, means to
spread seed over a wide area. Seeing as radio has nothing to do with farming, when
Frank Conrad (I've since found a reference for this...and of course, Conrad was one
of the main protagonists in KDKA's beginnings, but never its general manager)
appropriated a word which is suggestive of how radio waves propagate, and how he
intended to use that property, he coined the term in the context most understood
today. If you consult http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=broadcast, you'll see
that agricultural sense, the transitive form, as in spreading seed, is considered the
word's fourth sense. But Conrad's word also took on an intransitive verb form,
requiring no object at all, and a noun form. Neither of these has an analogous sense
in agriculture. That's coinage.
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there's nothing that offends you in your community, then you know you're not
living in a free society.
Kim Campbell - ex-Prime Minister of Canada - 2004
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
For direct replies, take out the contents between the hyphens. -Really!-

"Sid Schweiger" wrote in message
...
(in fact, KDKA's first general manager, whose name I've forgotten, is
considered to have coined the word "broadcast")

That would be a neat trick, seeing as how one cannot coin a word that
already
exists. The term "broadcast" came from agriculture.

Coining new meanings from older words happens all the time. Consider "Mace",
originally meaning a club (weapon), used as a trademark for a chemical that
repels attackers, and in danger of becoming a generic word.

Coining new meanings from older words happens all the time.

along those lines, asbestos is a Greek word meaning "uncombustible" and not
really a "name" for a certain chemical that can "extinguish" a fire.