Part 1: Portland Radio History Changes

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Author: Craigadams (63.110.90.130)
Saturday, July 21, 2001 - 8:03 am
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Ten years ago when I started my research on Portland Radio History, I had on stumbling block. There were a few sources for commercially licensed stations, but next to nothing on the experimental pioneer broadcasters. In 1969 the early commerical station information was almost destroyed. The government was house cleaning! The info. was rescued. I assumed the earlier experimental info. was long gone. Still I held out hope, and kept looking and drew conclusions. I assumed they were on 360 Meters, all commercial class stations were in early 1922. This is why newspapers omitted frequencies. They also left out call letters in early 22. Newspapers used station owner names! Trying to pinpoint the start of broadcasting in Portland was even more difficult. The conclusion was made by sifting through newspaper microfilm day by day. Finding the beginning in late January 1922, but still searching back to November 1921. A lot of conclusions had to be drawn. These conclusions have stood....until now! Recently while surfing the web, I have discovered this early pioneer information, and it's stunning! The most enlightening were the dates the licenses were issued. I found Charles L. Austin's 7XF license was issued no later than June 1, 1921! Armed with this date, I sifted day by day through June 21. There is evidence, that I will present here tomorrow, that Mr. Austin was broadcasting music as early as the summer of 21! I also learned, in the beginning (1913), this class of license was for wireless telegraph stations, but eventually led to broadcasting as we know it today. This was done with experimentation of phonograph music played over the wireless in place of Morse Code, usually to the delight of the receiver. This was the rage of 1920-21. Imagine! To recieve music over the air! This lead the government to create a license class just for these wireless stations. The Commercial Class. Not all telegraph stations were allowed to play music. Only the class designated as experimental. There were 3 classes identified in the call sign, example: 7XA, 7YA, 7ZA. The number represented the region of the country. We were in the 7th Radio District. So was: AK, ID, MT, WA, WY. First letter identified license class. X = Experimental, Y = Technical & Training School, Z = Special Amateur. The rage of playing music over the air was so great that some stations that weren't designated Experimental, did it anyway! All Telegraph Stations operated on 200 Meters(1499kc). In Portland the earliest experimental license was 7XA owned by Radio Corp. of America (RCA) issued in Sept 1920(Monthly Report Oct 1, 20). What were they doing? I don't know. Did they build the station? Also an even earlier license in Eugene. 7YB Univ. of Oregon, March 1920(Monthly Report April 1, 20). The earliest was licensed to (of all places) La Grande 7ZH Orland M. Heacock(known to his friends as Doc). He was a Optometric. His spark station was licensed in February 1916(Monthly Report March 1916). Moved license to Enterprise OR in 1917. There are earlier Wireless Telegraph Stations in Oregon. Navy & Army Class from 1900: DM Salem, DO Roseburg, PC Astoria, PE Portland, PG Westport, PV Klamath Falls, PX Marshfield(renamed Coos Bay in 1940's). I should also mention that I always suspected that KOAC at O.S.U. first broadcast using an experimental license between October & December 1922, before recieving the Calls KFDJ. I even phoned O.S.U. once, trying to track it down. Here it is: 7XH, licensed in February 1922(Monthly Report March 1, 22). Part 2, tomorrow.

Author: Rca892r (4.41.235.56)
Saturday, July 21, 2001 - 7:52 pm
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Hey Craig
Throw in a paragraph now and then. THis is great stuff but a little hard to read when it's all stacked together.
Thanks for keeping track of the history for us.

Author: Dan_Packard (63.229.129.135)
Saturday, July 21, 2001 - 8:04 pm
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Yes, Craig you're a wealth of knowledge. Keep it up!

Author: Semoochie (24.4.255.70)
Saturday, July 21, 2001 - 9:00 pm
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What is now KNBR San Francisco evolved from experimental broadcasts dating back to 1909. I have heard claim from someone about a station that was sending out a signal as far back as 1893!

Author: Randy_In_Eugene (24.9.191.9)
Saturday, July 21, 2001 - 10:45 pm
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>What is now KNBR San Francisco evolved from experimental broadcasts dating back to 1909.

You're probably thinking of KCBS, previously KQW, which started as an experimental station in San Jose by Dr. Charles Herrold. For details, follow the link:

http://www.charlesherrold.org/

Author: Semoochie (24.4.255.70)
Saturday, July 21, 2001 - 11:21 pm
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Randy, you're absolutely right! I spoke too soon. I was going over the possibilities in my head and KNBR was the one that came to mind but I completely forgot about KCBS. It's been quite a while since I read about it.

Author: Nitefly (64.218.40.7)
Tuesday, July 24, 2001 - 9:37 pm
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So it's reasonably safe to say that "My Old Kentucky Home" was the first song played by listener request? :)

Author: Xyar
Tuesday, November 25, 2003 - 8:49 am
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Hey Dan, maybe you could hire Craig as an outside contractor to keep this good info going? He could create content for an entire section of this site himself!

Ever thought about converting some of Craig's threads into articles that could be posted under a 'Portland Radio History' section?

That would be cool!

Author: Dan_packard
Tuesday, November 25, 2003 - 7:25 pm
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Craig's outstanding content is already here in the history section of the board. But, I see that a link from the audio files area, to the content already in this area, is needed.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Author: Billboise
Sunday, August 21, 2005 - 7:43 pm
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If anybody has a chance they should go through the archives at the OSU library. There's quite a listing of info on the early days of KOAC.
http://search.oregonstate.edu/web/?query=KOAC&site=osulibrary.oregonstate.edu&x= 6&y=12

Author: Billboise
Sunday, August 21, 2005 - 7:46 pm
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A lot of info isn't on the web site yet!

Author: Djfrresh
Saturday, March 03, 2007 - 9:46 pm
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will kbms radio every change ther weid format

Author: Craig_adams
Saturday, March 03, 2007 - 10:52 pm
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Change in stations is always ineludible.

Author: Egor
Monday, March 12, 2007 - 11:19 am
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Thanks for the great info Craig! It's excellent!

Author: Jeffreykopp
Monday, April 02, 2007 - 8:23 pm
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From Alan Kline on The Broadcast List (Barry Mishkind's engineers' forum):

The Internet Archive (www.archive.org) has just opened a *huge* section of scanned PDF books. This is similar to the Google project, only the Archive is doing a much better job, IMHO. Anyway, go to www.archive.org/details/americana and enter "radio", "television", or "broadcasting" in the search window to find a treasure trove of early books. Most are from the 1920's, 30's, 40's, and 50's--primary sources for research... Be warned that these are very, very large files--this is definitely *not* a site for dial-up users...

Author: Brockster
Wednesday, March 04, 2009 - 1:04 pm
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To whom it may concern,
I was recently speaking to my father who told me that my grandfather used to have a radio show in Portland sometime during the 40's. His name was Les Anderson. If anyone has any information at all regarding this, I would appreciate so much. I can be contacted at brockjanderson@gmail.com

Thank you.....

Author: Craig_adams
Thursday, March 05, 2009 - 3:08 am
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Brock: Couldn't come up with anything on your grandfather. That doesn't mean he wasn't on Portland radio. It's a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack without radio station call letters, plus the fact in the 1940's many local radio shows had short runs. Some a few weeks or months. Adding to that, most radio shows ran 15 minutes, making for many program titles and easy to miss. Then there's the possibility the show ran once a week or maybe on weekends. My advise would be to take a day or two at the Multnomah County Library looking at newspaper microfilm and checking out the radio listings for your grandfathers name.


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