Radio Broadcast (May-Oct 1922)

Record Details:

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How Radio Came to Independence, Kansas 235 Omar Wible, who heard on his home-made receiving set the services at Calvary Church in Pittsburgh, Pa., 863 miles away, and thus started the craze Heink or Al. G. Fields may provide the touch of genius. It is thought the local ministers must brace up to compete with the beautifulservices from Pittsburgh and Detroit. By the last of January it was possible to get KDKA in Pittsburgh and Fitzsimmons Hospital in Denver every night, at least when Bob Flint was not sending crashes of energy to Chester Pendarvis at Elk City eighteen miles distant. A month later, Home of Omar Wible whence he broadcasted the first concert and first sermon in Southeastern Kansas on a transmitting set that cost him only forty dollars " listeners-in " heard a new call and a voice announcing the Detroit News Station. The service from this station came regularly with startling perfection. There were now three big stations which could be depended upon. Then Dallas came in, and, night after night, new ones appeared; notably Schenectady, 'ndianapolis, and Atlanta. So many attempted to use the narrow band, about 360 meters, that KDKA was crowded out. For weather, market reports, and good music, the big cities are depended upon. Several fans even sent contributions to the Detroit News to help finance the Symphony Orchestra concerts so marvelously broadcasted. The dramatic effect of the radiophone is far more profound in the rural districts of the West than in New York City, and the time will arrive with startling speed when every farmhouse will have a set. Already one hears grumbling in the Eastern cities about the character of the programmes of certain of the big stations, so exacting and critical is the public mind in a big, conventional city. But our Western listeners are less critical of the programmes from the East, and the anticipation of marvelous broadcasting developments next winter is creating a rapidly growing interest. A sound that becomes each day more familiar in the Central West is: " Say, where can 1 get some bulbs?" The sewing machine peddler who "sells" the farming districts in his little "whoopie" will be crowded off the road by the radio peddler with most any sort of a set from a dollar up. It is on the farm where the best receiving success will prevail, being far from high tension lines, dirty street car commutators and power houses. I t i s t o the lonely farms of the Central West that the radiophone will bring a new interest, an interest which may hold the ambitious farm boys, and the farm girls as well, from flocking to the city.