Volume One – 1899 to 1945 1 Copyright 2019 by Carl Mann All Rights Reserved. Please feel free to use this material in a responsible manner, providing credit and attribution. Photos and illustrations may not be reproduced outside of this content without proper permission from the credited owners. Permission granted to reproduce for personal and educational use only. Obtain permission before redistributing. In all cases this notice must remain intact. This work may be used free of charge. Selling is prohibited. Commercial copying, hiring, lending, or digital posting is prohibited and will constitute an infringement of copyright. Revised First Edition 2019 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS INTRODUCTION CHAPTER ONE – THE FIRST SIGNALS WIRELESS STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA GOVERNMENT REGULATION BEGINS WUH Fort Omaha 1913 KDEF U. S. Post Office Station 1915-1927 SPECIAL LAND STATIONS BEGIN EMERGING IN THE MIDWEST 9YT Wayne 1915-1924 9XT Lincoln 1915 - 1916 9XU Omaha 1916 9YD University Place (Lincoln) 1916 COUNCIL BLUFFS NATIVE LEE DEFOREST INTRODUCES THE TRIODE THE WORLD WAR AND RADIO 1920 - THE BUDDING OF BROADCASTING 9YP Omaha 1920-1923 9VE Omaha 1920 9YY Lincoln 1920 1921 - BROADCASTING BLOSSOMS- THE FIRST STATIONS WOU Omaha 1921-1923 9XAA Omaha 1921 WYCG U.S. Army Station, Fort Crook 1921 WVU Fort Omaha 1922 1922 - BROADCASTING IN BLOOM WDV Omaha 1922-1923 WAAW Omaha 1922- present-day KOWH KMEO KCRO WIAK South Omaha 1922-1925 WNAL Omaha 1922-1928 WPAF Council Bluffs 1922-1923 WCAJ Lincoln 1922-1933 WFAV Lincoln 1922-1927 WJAB Lincoln 1922-1925 WGAT Lincoln 1922-1923 WKAC Lincoln 1922-1923 WIAX Lincoln 1922-1923 WLAF Lincoln 1922-1923 WMAH Lincoln 1922-1925 WSAS Lincoln 1922-1923 WJAG Norfolk 1922-present day WPAA Wahoo 1922-1923 3 WRAR David City 1922-1923 WOAE Fremont, Nebraska 1922-1925 WTAU Tecumseh 1922-1925 WGAJ Shenandoah, Iowa 1922-1923 1923 - THE AM BROADCAST BAND IS FORMED WOAW WOW Omaha 1923-Present Day KOMJ KXSP. KFFX Omaha 1923-1925 KFDU Lincoln 1923-1924 KFLZ KICK Atlantic, Anita, and Red Oak, Iowa 1923-1933 1924 - THE AM BROADCAST BAND IS EXTENDED KFCZ KOCH Omaha 1924-1928 KFOX Omaha 1924-1928 KFAB Lincoln 1924-1947 KFOR David City 1924-1927 KFNF Shenandoah, Iowa 1924-Present Day KYFR 1925 - THE PUSH FOR COMMERCIALISM STRENGTHENS KOIL Council Bluffs, Iowa 1925-1936 KMA Shenandoah, Iowa 1925-Present Day CLOSE UPS and TECHNICAL IT’S THE FACILITIES, NOT THE CALL LETTERS CALL LETTERS ASSIGNMENTS WAVELENGTH AND FREQUENCY UNDERSTOOD CHAPTER TWO- THE FIRST STATIONS WAAW— OMAHA’S FIRST, BY SOME ACCOUNTS WOAW WOW-- OMAHA’S BIGGEST KFAB— FROM LINCOLN, OMAHA’S FUTURE BIGGEST KOIL- FROM THE HILLS OF COUNCIL BLUFFS RADIO’S ROARING TWENTIES CHAPTER ENDS CLOSE UPS and TECHNICAL STATION CALL LETTERS ORIGINATION COMMERCIAL BROADCAST TRANSMITTERS THE FEDERAL RADIO COMMISSION 1927-1934 THE PORTABLE STATIONS OF THE TWENTIES KFVP 1925 Omaha Chamber of Commerce. KUPR 1925 Union Pacific Railroad KFQV 1925 Omaha Grain Exchange KGIF 1928 R. B. Howell KFOR - LINCOLN’S OTHER HISTORIC STATION KFNF and KMA - THE SHENANDOAH STATIONS - THE LUCRATIVE YEARS 1923 NEBRASKA STATIONS LIST- Omaha World-Herald 1923 NEBRASKA AND IOWA STATIONS LIST- US Commerce Dept. THE 1928 FREQUENCY ASSIGNMENTS list- Federal Radio Commission 4 CHAPTER THREE- THE GOLDEN YEARS THE GOLDEN AGE DAWNS OMAHA’S STATIONS DURING THE GOLDEN YEARS WOW 590 Omaha WAAW 660 Omaha KOWH 660 Omaha (1939-) KFAB 770 Lincoln KOIL 1260 Council Bluffs KOIL 1260 Omaha (1936-) KICK 1420 Carter Lake, Iowa (1933-1934) CLOSE UPS and TECHNICAL BROADCASTING TECHNICAL ADVANCES IN THE THIRTIES RADIO RECEIVER ADVANCES IN THE THIRTIES KFAB and WBBM SYNCHRONIZATION THE NETWORKS IN A NUTSHELL RADIO WINS THE NEWS BATTLE INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTS FROM OMAHA- THE SHORTWAVES BEFORE FM- KOIL AND THE APEX EXPERIMENTS THE GRAND ISLAND MONITORING STATION THE SHENANDOAH STATIONS- KFNF, KMA REACH MATURITY CHAPTER FOUR- THE WAR YEARS KBON 1490 Omaha SIGNS ON KOIL 1290 Omaha ADDS A NIGHT TIME DIRECTIONAL ARRAY KFAB 780 Lincoln EXPANSION PLANS ARE PUT ON HOLD WOW 590 Omaha LITIGATION FORCES TRANSFER OF CONTROL THE DAWNING OF FM OMAHA RADIO AND THE WAR CLOSE-UP and TECHNICAL DIRECTIONAL ANTENNA SYSTEMS A NEW LANDSCAPE ABBREVIATIONS GUIDE ABOUT THE AUTHOR 5 PREFACE What would it have been like to work in radio during its dawning years? What would one hear while scanning the frequencies when stations were just beginning to appear? How exciting it must have been to be involved with such a marvel. These thoughts only came to me in much later years while following a calling in radio. As a youngster, it was much different. Distant voices and music coming from out of the air at the twist of a dial mesmerized. Its entertainment created adventure and new-found friends in a young imagination. As my parents drove by the rural transmitter building of KFAB one night, I looked upward to its three tall towers outlined by red beacons silently blinking in the dark sky. I knew that, amazingly, a flood of words and music was somehow pouring out from those majestic towers, reaching far beyond the moonlit horizon. Later while working in radio I would wonder what it would have been like to play records over the air in the 1920s while tuning and maintaining an early transmitter quietly flinging its information-laden signal to unseen thousands. And, how did this magic in my home town come to be? With this, I embarked on an exploration to see how it all went down for those who traveled this road before me. Research began. Books, then the Internet, and soon a picture formed of what earlier radio professionals endured and enjoyed. Enough so that I could imagine myself running an arc transmitter or introducing scratchy recordings to strangers at unbelievable distances. I also wondered what the AM band would sound like to the early listener tuning around at home. Instead of a band awash with voices and melodies like today, one would eavesdrop on distant broadcast stations mixed with ships and amateur communications, many in Morse code. What emerged is the story of radio broadcasting as witnessed from a singular region’s point of view. Omaha’s setting is an ideal cross-section of Americana, both rural and urban. This region experienced nearly all developments of radio, missing only the earliest round of FM pioneering that was primarily confined to New England. The city also had its share of “firsts” in radio, most notably the move from block programming to music formats forged by Omahan Todd Storz and his 500-watt daytime station. Radio's past is often quite murky with many areas of contradiction and ambiguity. The narrative here details radio’s history as specific Omaha area stations reached the air. This work will show how educators, engineers, businessmen, and talent combined to evolve a medium of entertainment and information in the face of fast-changing technology, commerce, and legalities. Though the narrative is an attempt at comprehensive storytelling, the reader is encouraged to simply look up and/or skip to areas of interest. It’s understood that only portions of this work will appeal to those of various interests in broadcasting and history, with focuses likely on specific themes, eras, stations, people, events, or background material. It is hoped that this work will serve to preserve, enlighten, and satisfy. 6 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Documenting radio’s early years relies on spotty, erratic, and often incomplete and inaccurate record keeping. Assembling a comprehensive history involves piecing lots of puzzle pieces together and then playing detective. The workhorse sources of this project were the archives of the Omaha World-Herald and the dozens of publications preserved in David Gleason’s amazing website AmericanRadioHistory.com. Also invaluable from government sites were the Radio Service Bulletins that best document the incremental changes in a station’s history during its beginning years. Other newspapers to acknowledge are the Lincoln Journal Star, the Plattsmouth Journal, the Wayne Herald, and the New York Times. Numerous periodicals that came and went during radio’s early stages turning up nuggets in this research were Telephone And Telegraph Age, Radio Digest, QST, Radio News (Ziff Davis), Popular Science Monthly (1922 issue), Editor And Publisher, Radio Volume 4 (Pacific Radio Publishing Company), Radio Age Magazine, New Science And Invention In Pictures- Vol 8 (1920 publication), Popular Radio Incorporated (1922, piece authored by Kendall Banning), Broadcasting Magazine, and Rural Radio. Other publications contributing bits and pieces were the Nebraska Blue Book (Nebraska Legislative Council 1915), Central High Register (Omaha, 1921), Nebraska Blue Print (1920), Lincoln Nebraska State Journal (1924), the Antique Wireless Association, the WOW Tower monthly publication, and RADEX (Radio Index for DXers). In the bibliography are Odyssey of the Midnight Flyer by Eldon Vernon Lee, Education’s Own Stations by S.E. Frost Jr, and KMA The First 60 Years by Robert Birkby. Photo and illustration sources outside the author’s collection of paraphernalia and brochures are credited to their source, particularly to the Omaha World-Herald. Most importantly are the individuals whose contributions are acknowledged with gratitude: Michelle Gullett of the Omaha World-Herald, Bill Gonzalez of the Durham Museum, Paul Eisloeffer and Martha Miller of the Nebraska State Historical Society, Larry Walklin of the University of Nebraska, Dick Warner of the Pottawattamie County Historical Society, Jim Timm and Marty Riemenschneider of the Nebraska Broadcasters Association, David Gleason, webmaster of American Radio History dot com, WJAG Historians Mark Smith and Jerry Jaroska, radio engineer, writer, and historian Mark Durenberger, and thesis writer Robert Earl Lee. 7 INTRODUCTION This is one of three volumes on this topic. It covers the development of broadcasting from its emergence, through the Golden Age and concluding at the end of the war years.