July 13 Radio History

In 1898…Guglielmo Marconi applied for a patent for his radio technology.

Marconi

Marconi, just twenty years old, began his first experiments working on his own with the help of his butler. In the summer of 1894, he built a storm alarm made up of a battery, a coherer, and an electric bell, which went off if there was lightning. Soon after he was able to make a bell ring on the other side of the room by pushing a telegraphic button on a bench.

One night in December, Guglielmo woke his mother up and invited her into his secret workshop and showed her the experiment he had created. The next day he also showed his work to his father, who, when he was certain there were no wires, gave his son all of the money he had in his wallet so Guglielmo could buy more materials.

In the summer of 1895 Marconi moved his experimentation outdoors.  After increasing the length of the transmitter and receiver antennas, arranging them vertically, and positioning the antenna so that it touched the ground, the range increased significantly.  Soon he was able to transmit signals over a hill, a distance of approximately 2.4 kilometres (1.5 mi).  By this point he concluded that with additional funding and research, a device could become capable of spanning greater distances and would prove valuable both commercially and militarily.

Marconi wrote to the Ministry of Post and Telegraphs, then under the direction of the honorable Pietro Lacava, explaining his wireless telegraph machine and asking for funding. He never received a response to his letter which was eventually dismissed by the Minister who wrote "to the Longara" on the document, referring to the insane asylum on Via della Lungara in Rome.

In 1896, Marconi spoke with his family friend Carlo Gardini,Honorary Consul at the United States Consulate in Bologna, about leaving Italy to go to England. Gardini wrote a letter of introduction to the Ambassador of Italy in London, Annibale Ferrero, explaining who Marconi was and about these extraordinary discoveries. In his response, Ambassador Ferrero advised them not to reveal the results until after they had obtained the copyrights. He also encouraged him to come to England where he believed it would be easier to find the necessary funds to convert the findings from Marconi's experiment into a practical use. Finding little interest or appreciation for his work in Italy, Marconi travelled to London in early 1896 at the age of 21, accompanied by his mother, to seek support for his work; Marconi spoke fluent English in addition to Italian. Marconi arrived at Dover and at Customs the Customs officer opened his case to find various contraptions and apparatus. The customs officer immediately contacted the Admiralty in London. While there, Marconi gained the interest and support of William Preece, the Chief Electrical Engineer of the British Post Office.

The apparatus that Marconi possessed at that time was similar to that of one in 1882 by A. E. Dolbear, of Tufts College, which used a spark coil generator and a carbon granular rectifier for reception.  A plaque on the outside of BT Centre commemorates Marconi's first public transmission of wireless signals from that site. A series of demonstrations for the British government followed—by March 1897, Marconi had transmitted Morse code signals over a distance of about 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) across Salisbury Plain. On 13 May 1897, Marconi sent the world's first ever wireless communication over open sea. The experiment, based in Wales, witnessed a message transversed over the Bristol Channel from Flat Holm Island to Lavernock Point in Penarth, a distance of 6 kilometres (3.7 mi). The message read "Are you ready".  The transmitting equipment was almost immediately relocated to Brean Down Fort on the Somerset coast, stretching the range to 16 kilometres (9.9 mi).

From his Fraserburgh base, he transmitted the first long-distance, cross-country wireless signal to Poldhu in Cornwall.

Impressed by these and other demonstrations, Preece introduced Marconi's ongoing work to the general public at two important London lectures: "Telegraphy without Wires", at the Toynbee Hall on 11 December 1896; and "Signaling through Space without Wires", given to the Royal Institution on 4 June 1897.

Marconi watching associates launch a kite used to lift an antenna in 1901 at St. Johns, Newfoundland

 Numerous additional demonstrations followed, and Marconi began to receive international attention. In July 1897, he carried out a series of tests at La Spezia, in his home country, for the Italian government. A test for Lloyds between Ballycastle and Rathlin Island, Ireland, was conducted on 6 July 1898. The English channel was crossed on 27 March 1899, from Wimereux, France to South Foreland Lighthouse, England, and in the autumn of 1899, the first demonstrations in the United States took place, with the reporting of the America's Cup international yacht races at New York.

Marconi sailed to the United States at the invitation of the New York Herald newspaper to cover the America's Cup races off Sandy Hook, NJ. The transmission was done aboard the SS Ponce, a passenger ship of the Porto Rico Line.  Marconi left for England on 8 November 1899 on the American Line's SS St. Paul, and he and his assistants installed wireless equipment aboard during the voyage. On 15 November the St. Paul became the first ocean liner to report her imminent return to Great Britain by wireless when Marconi's Royal Needles Hotel radio station contacted her sixty-six nautical miles off the English coast.


In 1913...broadcaster Dave Garroway was born in Schenectady NY.  He was one of the first practioners of a conversational approach on the air, as opposed to ‘announcing’ to the audience.  He had a popular late night jazz radio show in Chicago before being featured in Garroway at Large in the earliest days of the TV era, and then being named first host of the NBC Today Show. He was fired ten years later after lying down in the studio to press his contract demands. Sadly he committed suicide July 21 1982, just days after his 69th birthday.


In 1928…actor Bob Crane was born in Waterbury Conn.  While he had excellent radio credentials from his KNX Hollywood breakfast show, he is best remembered as the star of TV’s zany German prison sitcom, Hogan’s Heroes. He was found murdered in his hotel room in Scottsdale, AZ June 29, 1978 at age 49.


In 1960…KDBQ-AM, San Francisco, California changed its call letters to KYA-AM.

KYA was for many years the leading Top 40 music radio station in the Bay Area, until the stronger-signalled KFRC switched to the format in 1966. From time to time, up through 1970, KYA would again beat KFRC in the Arbitron ratings, but KYA's dominance was truly over after the mid-60's.  Former KYA morning man and legendary radio programmer Bill Drake went on to consult KFRC to its ratings success; it was at KYA that Drake first made his mark as program director. KYA was also instrumental in the careers of future sportscaster Johnny Holliday, audio and electronics store pitchman Tom Campbell, Hall of Fame disc jockey and underground radio pioneer Tom Donahue (a/k/a "Big Daddy"), and Tommy Saunders, who retired from KYA's successor, KOIT, in 2006.

KYA Tribute Station: Click Here.

Other notable disc jockeys who plied their trade on KYA's airwaves in the 1960s included Les Crane, (air name Johnny Raven), Jim Stagg, Bobby Mitchell, Norman Davis, "Emperor" Gene Nelson, Peter Tripp, Tony Bigg, Russ "The Moose" Syracuse, Chris Edwards (aircheck below), Ed Hider, Johnny Holliday, Casey Kasem, Bill Holley (a cousin of Buddy Holly), Bwana Johnny, Jeff Serr, and Ron O'Quinn. In the mid-1960s, a group of KYA DJs, led by Holliday, formed a basketball team known as the KYA Oneders. The team played many Bay Area high school faculties, helping the schools raise funds for a variety of programs. Perhaps the most famous of the Oneders was Rick Barry, who played for the team during the 1967-68 campaign before jumping from the NBA's San Francisco Warriors to the ABA's Oakland Oaks. During the 1960s, the radio station issued weekly tabloid newsletters and hit sheets, The KYA Swingin' Sixty and later the KYA Beat (also known as The Official Top 30). These popular flyers were available at Bay Area record stores and other sponsor locations. The station's under-promoted news team included Mark Adams(Don Allen), Terry Sullivan, Larry Buller, (air name of Larry Brownell), Tony Tremayne (air name of Mel Fritze) and Brad Messer, who would later be inducted in the Texas Radio Hall of Fame.

KYA's dominance was basically over by the late 1960s when FM stations began playing Rock 'n' Roll and gained large chunks of the audiences. King Broadcasting took over on November 1, 1977, and changed the format to Adult Contemporary.


In 1968…Announcer (March of Time newsreels)/newsman (Mutual Broadcasting System) Westbrook Van Voorhis died of cancer at age 64.


In 1969...more than 100 US radio stations banned The Beatles‘ new single ‘The Balled Of John and Yoko’ due to the line ‘Christ, you know it ain’t easy’, calling it offensive.

In 2008…Radio-TV talk show host/recording artist (Desiderata) Les Crane died at the age of 74. One of his five wives was "Gilligan's Island" actress Tina Louise, whom he married in 1966 and divorced in 1971.