Radio broadcast .. (1922-30)

i38 RADIO BROADCAST Robert W. Kelly, Radio Editor of the Detroit News realize that what had been a laboratory curiosity had become a commonplace of everyday life, and that the future held extraordinary developments which would affect all society. Every week-day since that date the News has broadcasted a programme to an ever-increasing audience. There has been no interruption in this service, and the programmes have constantly become more extensive and elaborate. At first the concerts were confined entirely to phonograph music. Two programmes were broadcasted daily— one at 1 1 130 A. M. and the other at 7 P. M. — and, after a time, speakers and singers were occasionally secured to entertain the invisible audience. Soon reports commenced coming in from outlying communities that the concerts were being successfully received and tremendously enjoyed. The radio has become such a familiar affair in so short a space of time that it seems odd to consider how remarkable this was regarded at the time. The thing held the element of magic. The local receiving set became the centre of wondering interest in the little suburban town. The interest grew and dealers reported a demand for radio materials. Then the steamer W. A. Bradley reported through the Marconi station at Ecorse — a little town west of Detroit — that the music of a News concert had been received where the vessel was steaming along through the night in the middle of Lake St. Glair. This, somehow, impressed the public as even more remarkable than sending the music over land, although, of course, it was not so. But the notion of a ship far off from land actually comprehending the words spoken and the music performed in a little room of a building in a great city seemed a peculiarly significant conquest over distance and darkness. During the first week of broadcasting a party at the home of Mr. O. F. Hammond, 1 80 Parker Avenue, Detroit, danced to music sent out by the News apparatus and this was considered the local beginning of the social aspect of wireless telephony. The man in the street, traditionally sceptical, was much impressed when, in October, 1920, the results of the World's Series contest between Cleveland and Brooklyn were instantly sent out to the waiting base-ball enthusiasts, and the first returns of a national election ever broadcasted were given by the News in November of the same year when hundreds of partisan voters held receivers to their ears and were informed by the voice through the ether that Harding had rolled up an enormous majority over Cox. When the Christmas season came around, the number of radio amateurs had greatly increased in Detroit and the surrounding communities. Small boys were becoming great enthusiasts and Santa Claus remembered a great many with receiving sets. This added members to the News family of radio enthusiasts, and special holiday music, appropriate to the season, was broadcasted. On New Year's Day of 1921 the News stated: " For the first time, as far as known, a human voice singing a New Year's melody of cheer went out across uncounted miles over the invisible ether that is the medium of the wireless telephone when Louis Colombo, Detroit attorney and famous baritone, sent his resonant tones into the mouthpiece at the office of the Detroit News at midnight, Friday." And an astonishing achievement was con