They became the first commercial radio station on Earth on November 2, 1920. Pittsburgh is the site of the first commercial radio broadcast, which marks its … KDKA radio is now 100 years old! A more comprehensive description of the KDKA transmitting antenna — at least as it existed less than two years after the 1920 broadcast — was offered by Little in a 1922 article in Radio News about the station’s technical facilities: “[It consists of six wires] 90 feet in length on 20 foot spreaders. Bored by the chatter, Dr. Conrad chose to introduce entertainment to the airwaves, and on Oct. 17, 1920, he put his microphone by a phonograph. There was an effort to establish Westinghouse’s radio industry by the vice president of the company (H.P. It was on the evening of Tuesday November 2, 1920 that the famous American mediumwave station KDKA made its historic inaugural broadcast; exactly 97 years ago, during this past week. In celebrating the upcoming KDKA anniversary, most people are likely to say something like “Radio started in November 1920.” I wasn’t happy with this simplification, so I turned to two of RW’s favorite radio history writers, John Schneider and James O’Neal. When the year 1920 began the only people who thought about radio thought of it as an art that could be understood and enjoyed only by the expert or the electronics whiz. At 6 p.m. on Nov. 2, 1920, 8KX became KDKA Radio and began broadcasting at 100 watts from a make-shift shack atop one of the Westinghouse manufacturing buildings in East Pittsburgh. National Museum of Broadcasting. A photo from inside the KDKA radio facility in 1920. KDKA’s intent was to sell sets to the general public—not sets by the dozen, but, as things turned out, by the millions. A two-day celebration commemorating the 100 th anniversary of KDKA’s first radio broadcast is being held tonight and Tuesday nights.. At 6 p.m. Nov. 2, 1920, 8KX became KDKA Radio and broadcast the returns of the presidential race between Warren G. Harding and James M. Cox from a shack … History Radio origins. Davis). It commenced radiotelephone transmissions on Aug. 20, 1920 of news on a daily basis, more than two months before KDKA took to … KDKA Radio – 100 Years. Radio history fans are well aware of this, but many others are not. Perhaps the greatest challenge to KDKA’s “first and foremost” status was Detroit’s 8MK (later WBL, and now WWJ), which was owned by The Detroit News. Only 100 people were listening, but the first broadcast from a licensed radio station occurred at 8 p.m. on Nov. 2, 1920. It was Pittsburgh’s KDKA, … The Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company entered broadcasting with the November 2, 1920, sign-on of KDKA radio in Pittsburgh. Here is a history of the radio station, from that fateful November until present day. The 1920s.