A Pittsburgh department store advertises ready-made radio receivers that can pick up a local broadcast station.
Just like early homebrew computer enthusiasts later in the century, radio aficionados had to build their own sets from scratch or with kits. Electrical engineer Frank Conrad built a receiver and transmitter. Under license 8XK, he started broadcasting from his garage in 1916. In fact, Conrad was a pioneer in using the word broadcasting in radio. It’s a farmers’ word for spreading seeds far and wide. Radio had been mainly a two-way, point-to-point medium. Using one transmitter to reach a broad audience equipped only with receivers was a new idea.
Tweaking his equipment for hours on end, Conrad tired of constantly announcing his call letters and location, so he started playing gramophone records to rest his voice. Conrad was radio’s first DJ, and he was building an audience.
Horne’s department store had something new: the first shipment of ready-to-use radio receivers. Nothing to build; just plug and play. The store advertised in the Pittsburgh Sun that you could listen to music over the air:
Mr. Conrad is a wireless enthusiast and puts on these wireless concerts periodically for the entertainment of many people in this district who have wireless sets. Amateur wireless sets are on sale here $10 and up. [Ten bucks equals $115 in 2012 cash.]
Harry Davis, Conrad’s boss at Westinghouse Electric, saw business possibilities. Davis applied for a commercial license to supplant 8XK and received the arbitrary call letters KDKA. The station went on the air November 2 and broadcast the results of the Harding-Cox presidential election over its mighty 100-watt transmitter.
In 1922, the United States had thirty radio stations, and one hundred thousand consumer radios were sold. Just a year later, 556 stations were on the air, and half a million receivers were sold. Radio was on its way.—RA