Lane County Historian
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Lane County Historian PUBLISHED BY RADIO DOiNGS COMPLETSIND UP-TODPrE OF19CtALU61¼ OF BROADCA8T STAf1014S COMPILO BY U.S. DEPARTMENT Radio Call Book-1926. Complete official list of Broadcast Stations compiled by U.S. Department of Commerce. Roger Houglum ColIecton LANE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Vol. XIX, No. 1 Eugene, Oregon Spring, 1974 LANE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Mrs. C. A. Huntington, Route 2, Box 277, Eugene, Oregon 97401 President Stuart W. Hurd, Rt. 2, Box 345, Eugene, Oregon 97401 Membership Secretary LANE COUNTY HISTORIAN lnez Long Fortt (Mrs. James 0. Fortt) Editor 3870 Watkins Lane, Eugene, Oregon 97405 The Lane County Historian is a quarterly publication of the Lane County Historical Society, a non-profit organization. Membership in the Lane County Historical Society includes subscription to the Lane County Historian. Annual dues: $3.00; family membership: $5.00. CONTENTS RADIO "Early Day Broadcasting in Lane County" MEN by Roger J. Houglum: Consult- Wanted ant on Media, Lane Community College, Eugene; Former Chair- BIG (.4.,, S.4l.ø..,. man, Dept. of Electronics, LCC. PAY! C....l...,,,..C.,.a.,...l..,4 Author: "The History and Development of Radio Broad- 4,nateur easily become commercial e*pert casting," 1971; "World System I of Radio and TV Broadcasting," 0.11 in- nO .pn 1972; "Federal Regulations and . I. Sn - ¶.,b.-. ., 4..fl,I., ...*..- Private Ownership: The Ameri- I, .11 W,,-. sin ,s.....*n. .h.,k,... ps.Mi't (4. ,.n.S,.t5.. can System of Broadcasting," I...5-...s.in .1....,r' -ni...,in T..n4(I., R.4.. I4.a $ r Hn.. 1973. (,_ l.a Sfl.,b..* - ....n. u. r.z,. Founder, KRVM, Pacific N.W. 7 _=J=';?.:: pioneer Educational Broadcast '- Station; Co-Founder, Eu g e n e Nt.Tifl*AI.,flflnr,flcSs. a*D1O SCHOOL ..s.. Broadcasters Inc., which built KERG; Founder, La n e Com- ... ...... ... munity College FM Station, KICO. G.*s 4 Radio Schools-1920s. "Big Future" and "Big Pay" stressed in Radio Service Trade. Roger Houglum Collection 2 Car4 /3roaIcaó1injinJane Coun1, By Roger Houglum Somehow the legend has per- Lane County's first salaried "disc sisteci through the years that KORE jockey" and chief engineer, both was Lane County's first broadcast at KGEH, and later at KORE, are station, and that its first broadcasts particularly comprehensive and originated from its s t u d I os on complete, and his detailed and per- South Willamette street sometime sonalized account m a k e s mu c h in the mid-thirties more vivid and real this era of There is no question but that early-day broadcasting i n L an e KORE played a dominant and in- County, extending approximately fluential role in early-day broad- from 1919 to about 1942. casting in this area, but just a min- RaleighWildman summarizes imum of research reveals t h at radio developments of this period when it first went on the air in as follows: 1928 from studios over the Metro- "At the time Eugene's second politan Store, at least two officially broadcast station, KFAT, was lic- licensedbroadcaststationshad ensed to Dr. S. T. Donahue in the preceded it; and that "unauthor- Fall of 1922 by the Department of ized," but not illegal, broadcasting Commerce, there was very little of both voice and music had been distinctionbetween an amateur going on in the Eugene area spor- radio station and a broadcast sta- adically since World War I. tion. In my opinion, KFAT, located This was recently revealed in a in the doctor's dental offices on the series of tape-recorded interviews second floor of the Link Building with Raleigh Wildman of Spring- at the Northeast corner of 7th field and "Tommy" Thompson of Avenue and Willamette Street, was Eugene, and in extensive corre- operated more like an amateur sta- spondence with Jerry DeBroekert tion than a true broadcast station. of Bend, all of whom had the good It was on the air when he pleased, fortune to be living and working and shut down when he pleased; in Eugene during the most rapid and there was no regular or fixed period of radio's development in broadcast schedule. I felt that it this area, the 1920s. Additional was purely operated for Dr. Dona- local color and background was hue's enjoyment and pleasure, not contributed by the vivid recollec- that of the comparatively small tions of the early years at station listening audience of that period. KORE as recalled by former staff "The equipment was pretty prim- members, Ted Charles and Dolph itive too. The transmitter had just Janes of Eugene. Regrettably, Eu- two tubes and was limited to 50 gene radio pioneer, Paul Hoppe, watts of power; there was only one died suddenly last summer just be- microphone, and when the staff fore his scheduled interview. Ra- wanted to play phonograph rec- leigh Wildman's recollections as ords, they'd just wheel up a spring- 3 wound Victrola before the mike and pick up the music jn that way. There was quite a lot of story-tell- ing on the air too, principally di- rected towards Donahue's friends and acquaintances. During New Year's Eve of 1922 KFAT was on the air with a special broadcast, and it was rumored that some of the stories told got pretty 'rau- cous,' and that there were many telephone calls and letters of com- plaint from listeners. This very well could have been a factor in the decision not to renew the KFAT license in the Spring of 1923 when the existing Department of Com- "Tommy" Thompson, built KGEH, Eugene; KIDO, merce license expired. Boise; later founder of KPIR (KPNW). Thompson "Shortly after the decision was brothers operated Thompson's Radio Service, rec- reached not to renew the license of ord and electronic equipment, etc., Eugene. KFAT, two recent graduates of the Roger Houglum Collection University of Oregon, Frank L. the same time I believe they also Hill of Eugene and Curt G. 'Shrimp' purchased the 50 watt broadcast Phillips of California who had be- transmitter of KFEC, licensed to come close friends while attending the Meier and Frank department school, decided to go into the radio store. broadcasting business in Eugene. "Tommy Thompson and P a ul Their first step was to go to Port- Hoppe of Eugene helped bring the land and purchase from Lewis I. equipment to Eugene where it was Thompson both the license and the promptly 'cannibalized' for parts, transmitting equipment of his 10 as it had little value in its existing watt broadcast station, KLIT. At form. The equipment so obtained was minimal; the important thing they were after was the KLIT broadcast license issued by the De- partment of Commerce. "Within a month the station li- cense was amended to specify the call letters KGEH rat her t ha n KLrF; the change was to reflect the sponsorship of the station by the Eugene Hotel where studios and equipment were to be located. The hotel made available to the station a large suite of rooms on the Southwest side of the building for the station's offices, transmitter room, and main studio. The late Paul Hoppe and Louis DuBuy, now Frank I.. Hill, early pioneer in radio broadcasting sound engineer of the Oregon Leg- business, Eugene. Courtesy, Reg5ter-Guard islature, were assigned the respon- sibility of erecting the antenna on the roof of the building. It was to '.T.r, be a multi-wire 'flat-top' running North and South, and mounted on GlLmnrcRArno 50 foot poles, with a down-lead on Lit .\ i.'!fl)Ilit) ll?.Lflrfl:,.i the South end leading to the trans- role P., mitter below. Somehow, in the proc- ess of putting up the north pole S,n;.,. on the cornice of the roof, the pole broke away from Hoppe and Du- Buy and fell with a resounding crash to the sidewalk on 9th Av- enue. It was a frightening experi- ence, but fortunately no one was injured. "As far as I could tell, no money changed hands between the Eu- GunTiAN BROS. IN gene Hotel and radio station -- i W.a4 S. LX' L.'iSuatCM. KGEH. The radio station was ex- pected to promote and advertise the GILFILLAN RADIO (battery) advertised in 1926 hotel and its activities, while the RADIO CALL BOOK. station was to have the free use Roger Houglum Collection of a suite of rooms in return for and constructed a new 50 watt this publicity. transmitter f o r KGEH using a "By this time there was little Western Electric Type 203-A tube left of the original KLIT and KFEC in the final amplifier, and with transmitting equipment we had an even bigger tube, a Type 212, brought down from Portland; most used to super-impose the voice and of the gear had been pretty well music on the carrier wave. A Gen- dismantled for the c o mp one n t eral Radio crystal-controlled oscil- parts. Meanwhile I had designed lator kept us on our assigned fre- quency of 1500 kc. This same transmitter was later used when we moved to studios over Hill's Economy Store and became KORE, and was still in service when the move was made to the South Wil- lamette location in the late 1930s. "After about a year of operation at the Eugene Hotel, apparently the original mutual arrangement between the radio station and the hotel's management was termin- ated, and it became necessary to move KGEH to the top floor of the Morning Register building on the J. Raleigh Wildman, Springfield, was Eugene's southeast corner of 9th Avenue first salaried chief engineer and disc jockey.