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PART II: The infant industry's first steps turn-almost overnight-into the strides of a pant Radio Mirror continues the fahulous history of a fabulous medium
BveryOD6 known the iinnouncing voice "( Milton l.i"-' but radio Sril knew him U u MUOf Noloisl when In stilled on WJZ in 1921.
Pioneerini prima donuu bronfhl pand open to radio In 19M. Remit! i revived Intereei in *ood music.
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Distance disappears when you're equipped with an jVeriola, Jr. crystal set. These boys mudr that delightful discovery, but matt) others built Iheii n«n sets.
ADIO'S
By LLEWELLYN
1921: In this year of 1950 when radio is standard equipment not only for every home but for most cars, it is hard to believe that entertainment on the air was virtually unknown only thirty years ago.
1919 is the year that radio as we know it got its first feeble start. Before that, wireless operators had been hearing each other in Morse Code only. Then KDKA in Pittsburgh offered a dazzling novelty: regularly scheduled broadcasts of records— four hours weekly! What wouldn't they think of next? In 1920 the very first newscast went on the air— the results of the Harding-Cox presidential election. After that the deluge.
Little boys began to build crystal sets by the thousands. By 1921 it was estimated that there might be as many as fifty thousand such sets in the country. Their owners spent hours hopefully listening through ear-phones to bloops. cracklings, clicks, shrill mechanical screams and long, long stretches of humming silence. Static was terrible but everyone endured it fatalistically as part of the new wonder of sound in the air. Nobody complained. It W all too fascinating, just the. way it was. , ,
Much happened in 1921, but the program with probata the most far-reaching effect was the first broadcast of a
OWN LIFE STORY
MILLER
heavy-weight boxing championship fight.
On July 2, Jack Dempsey and Georges Carpentier were to meet at Boyle's Thirty Acres in New Jersey. Interest in the event was feverish. Seats were snapped up. It was the first million dollar gate in history. Radio had to get in on this. Major J. Andrew White, a famous figure in the early days of the air, decided to find a way to broadcast it. But now? There was no such thing as a portable sending unit in those days, and there was no station anywhere near the big wooden saucer. If the fight were to go on the air, a station would have to be built. That would take months. White began to scout around to see what he could borrow.
Fortunately, everyone knew him. He was the editor of RCA's Wireless Age. That was a handsome monthly specializing in such articles as "How To Build A Radiophone" (with a range of twenty-five miles!) though shortly it was to progress to personality interviews and to pictures of such top movie stars as Wallace Reid and Clara Kimball Young enjoying their head-phone sets, and Charles Ray with his "Ray-dio" — no press agent could resist that gag.
White combed the town. He discovered that General Electric had just finished a big new transmitter for the Navy. He talked fast and managed (Continued on page 91)
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„l ih,. ladies' i ii in \*.-~iii'iil -i-' Newark factory.
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