The Radio Historian

 

THE HIGH-FIDELITY AM RADIO STATIONS
OF THE 1930’s

By John F. Schneider W9FGH

www.theradiohistorian.org

Copyright 2023 - John F. Schneider & Associates, LLC

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(Click on photos to enlarge)

 W2XR QSL
WQXR QSL Card

 W9XBY QSL
W9XBY QSL Card

W6XAI QSL
W6XAI QSL Card

John V. L. Hogan

 John V. L. Hogan, W2XR

 WQXR transmitter
WQXR's Custom-Built High Fidelity Transmitter

WQXR Studio

 A Live Broadcast From the WQXR Studio

 WQXR hi fidelity receiver
WQXR Offered This Hi-Fi Receiver For Sale
to the Public in 1939.

Article about WQXR expansion

 WQXR  Expansion , 1936

 W1XBS transmitter building - exterior
W1XBS Transmitter Building and Towers - Exterior View

W1XBS transmitter building - interior

 W1XBS Transmitter Building - Interior View




By 1930, radio broadcasting had become a great success!  In scarcely ten years’ time, the tinkering of a few home experimenters had blossomed into a large and profitable industry.  The 1929 Great Depression turned out to be a tremendous boost for radio -- the public was now staying away from theatres and nightclubs, instead finding its entertainment for free over the airwaves.   In 1930, approximately 12 million households (40 percent of the U.S. population) owned a radio, and this jumped to 28 million by 1940.

But radio was an imperfect technology, and listeners were now complaining about interference, static, and its limited audio quality.  The broadcast band plan, established in the early 20’s, had set the channel width at 10 kHz which limited the audio fidelity to 5 kHz and less.  That was adequate in the early years when most programs were speech and music came from tinny acoustic phonographs, but the technology had improved significantly in the succeeding years.  Phonograph records were now being recorded electronically using high-quality condenser microphones, and the newest electronic home phonographs now sounded better than the radios installed in those same cabinets.  There was a public desire to do something about radio’s limited sound quality, but no way to improve its high frequency response as long as the country was stuck with a 10 kHz channel plan.

A New Concept

In 1930, the Federal Radio Commission assigned eight channels from 1712 to 2470 kHz for a police radio service, freeing up the 1500-1600 kHz spectrum which was held in reserve for future experimental broadcasting.  Consulting engineer T.A.M. Craven (who was later to become the FCC’s Chief Engineer), proposed establishing a few new wideband channels in this range for experimental high-fidelity broadcasting.  The FRC agreed, and so on Dec. 19, 1933, it opened three channels for new hi-fi stations - 1530, 1550 and 1570 kHz.  Because of the wider spacing between these three channels compared to the standard broadcast (AM) band, stations were able to modulate with a bandwidth of 20 kHz (+10 kHz), permitting an audio frequency response of 10 kHz with no channel overlap.  Six-month experimental licenses would be issued with a power of 1 kW   The purpose of the experiment was to determine if the frequencies above 1500 kHz could provide good broadcast service, and to experiment with high fidelity broadcasting.   The applicants needed to demonstrate adequate financing, technical prowess, agree to broadcast high fidelity programs (a minimum of 30 Hz to 10kHz), and agree to send reports on coverage and other measurements back to the FRC.  Experiments on antenna efficiencies at these frequencies were also encouraged.  Although the licenses were experimental, the stations were allowed to broadcast commercial advertising to support the operations.

Obstacles

To broadcast with higher fidelity, the stations would need better quality broadcast equipment than previously available.  Fortunately, Western Electric, RCA and others had already begun marketing studio and transmitter equipment offering low distortion and high frequency response.   Furthermore, the phone lines that carried programs from the studio to the transmitter needed to meet those same high-fidelity specifications.  All this meant considerably more expense for the new stations, who were not guaranteed a return on their investment.  This probably limited broadcaster interest in applying for these new licenses.  (In fact, most of the interested parties turned out to be experimental television stations that already had the necessary transmission equipment.)

There was yet another factor that limited broadcaster interest: existing receivers couldn’t reproduce the higher fidelity, and many could not even tune above 1500 (although some sets had a second “police band” that tuned 1500-3000 kHz).  Some radio repair shops found good business re-adjusting the trimmer capacitors of these sets to tune the higher frequencies.

Nonetheless, manufacturers started offering high-fidelity receivers in response to the market demands.  By 1938, there were a number of top-end hi-fi console sets on the market with features like variable IF bandwidth, noise reduction, and even ultra-shortwave or FM reception.  These sets were probably the best AM receivers ever made, as many of today’s antique radio collectors can attest.

Four New Stations

On April 4 and 5, 1934, the Federal Radio Commission held hearings on six applications for the new hi-fi channels, and two weeks later, the Commission approved four of the six applications. According to “Broadcasting” Magazine, “The fact that more applicants for the newly opened wave lengths did not appear has produced considerable surprise, particularly in the ranks of the Radio Commission.”

The four authorized hi-fi stations were:

  • W1XBS, Waterbury, CT, 1530 kHz
  • W9XBY, Kansas City, MO, 1530 kHz
  • W2XR in Long Island City, NY, 1550 kHz
  • W6XAI, Bakersfield, CA, 1550 kHz

No stations were ever authorized for 1570 kHz.

W2XR

The first of these hi-fi stations to go on the air was W2XR, operated by inventor and radio pioneer John Vincent Lawless Hogan.  After early wireless work with Dr. Reginald Fessenden, Hogan began experimenting with mechanical scanning television systems.  He put W2XR, an experimental mechanical television and sound station, on the air from lower Manhattan in 1929.  His experimental sound broadcasts of classical music began to gain a local following, and this encouraged him to apply for one of the new hi-fi broadcast frequencies.  He only needed to modify his existing TV transmitter to meet the new requirements.

Initially, Hogan broadcast just two hours a day, from 5:00 to 7:00 PM, specializing in classical music.  There were a few live programs, but most programs came from hi-fi transcriptions.  Wanamaker Stores and the Packard Motor Company sponsored these first programs, helping to underwrite the operating cost.

In his reports to the FRC (which was superseded by the FCC in 1934), Hogan reported good signal coverage, stating that 25% of listener responses came from outside the New York metro area.  His custom-built transmitter had a frequency response of 30-16,000 Hz with less than 1% distortion.

In 1936, W2XR changed its call sign to the similar-sounding WQXR, but was still only operating in the evenings.  In 1936, Hogan joined with Elliott Sanger to form the Interstate Broadcasting Company, and broadcast hours were expanded.  In 1939, WQXR even offered its own model of high-fidelity medium wave and shortwave receiver to the public.  An FM station was also inaugurated - W2XQR, later becoming WQXR-FM, which continues broadcasting to this day.

W1XBS

The second station on the air, on November 1, 1934, was W1XBS in Waterbury, CT, owned by the Waterbury Republican & American newspaper.  Mornings were dedicated to experimental transmissions, with commercial programs in the afternoons and evenings, including those provided by the short-lived American Broadcasting System network (unrelated to the later ABC network).  W1XBS broadcast from a site in nearby Prospect using a two-tower directional antenna with a 1,000-watt RCA transmitter.  However, the signal was not being heard well in either Bridgeport or New Haven.  The station requested permission to add two 100-watt booster transmitters, but this permission was never granted.  The call sign was changed to WBRY in 1936.

W9XBY

The third station was W9XBY,which debuted on New Year’s Eve, 1934.  The owners were Arthur M. Church, the majority owner of KMBC; Sam Pickard, a former FRC commissioner; and Sidney Noel, operator of First National Television, a radio/TV school that operated an experimental mechanically-scanned TV station, W9XAL.  The 600 students of the radio/TV school operated the equipment.  Studios were in the top three floors of the Power and Light Building, which was the tallest building in the Midwest at the time.  Daytime coverage was reported to reach a radius of 50 miles, and up to 200 miles at night.   W9XAL was operated as a serious commercial station, broadcasting 20 hours a day with 26 employees.  It specialized in sports broadcasts, including play-by-play of local baseball and hockey games.  It also broadcast late-night swing band music from night clubs around Kansas City which were heard all around the Midwest.  In fact, W9XAL is remembered for launching the career of Count Basie through its nightly broadcasts of his band from Kansas City’s Reno Club.  Bennie Goodman reportedly heard one of the Count’s broadcasts while driving in his car in Chicago, and he made arrangements for Basie to get a record contract.  W9XBY became KXBY in 1936, and then changed again to KITE in 1938 after an ownership shakeup.

W6XAI

The final station to begin hi-fi broadcasting was W6XAI in Bakersfield, CA, which debuted in April, 1935.  It was owned by the Pioneer Mercantile Company, which for several years had been operating yet another experimental TV station, W6XAH. The radio station was built by Los Angeles radio engineer Ralph D. LeMert, who had previously used the W6XAI license to broadcast ship-to-shore telephone communications on the shortwave bands.  (LeMert left the station in 1936 to join Lee de Forest at his de Forest Television Corporation.)  The call sign was changed in 1936 to KPMC, which stood for the Pioneer Mercantile Co. 

Other Hi-Fi Solutions

Although the operation of these experimental stations solved some of the interference and fidelity issues of AM radio, it still did not resolve the static problem.  Also, coverage areas were smaller than expected at these higher frequencies, although some stations compensated for this with better antennas.

During this same time, experimental hi-fi broadcasting was also going on in the “Ultra Shortwave” frequencies of 25-42 MHz.  These stations were transmitting wideband AM-modulated hi-fi audio with 100 watts. CBS was the first to experiment on these frequencies in New York in 1932, using the call sign W2XDV.   Soon, dozens more of these so-called “Apex” stations were on the air.  True, static was not a problem at these frequencies, but coverage was very limited and interference was being experienced on occasions due to ionospheric skip.  Ultimately, the technology chosen by the FCC was Major Edward Armstrong’s Frequency Modulation (FM) system.  It offered even better audio fidelity, was completely static-free, had better coverage with the same transmitter power, and was minimally affected by skip interference.

The NARBA Treaty

The beginning of FM broadcasting coincided with another event that would put an end to hi-fi broadcasting on the standard AM band.  The four broadcast-band hi-fi stations had enjoyed exclusive use of their frequencies since 1934 and were being heard at night all across the country.  It was the NARBA, the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement (also known as the “Havana Treaty”) that changed everything. 

For years, Mexico, Canada and Cuba had complained that the United States early-on had grabbed all the broadcast frequencies for themselves, leaving little spectrum for other countries.  Particularly, the U.S. claimed all the “clear channel” frequencies for itself.  Because there was no frequency coordination between the nations, broadcasters in other countries were interfering with U.S. stations on their same channels.  Especially troublesome were the infamous “border blasters”, who used extremely high power to transmit to the U.S. from just inside the Mexican border.  Mexico used the existence of these stations as a negotiating hammer to force negotiations with the U.S.

The final solution to these problems was NARBA, an international treaty signed in 1937 designed to reorganize the broadcast band and make room for new clear channels in other countries.  Most American stations were required to shift upwards in frequency on “Radio’s Moving Day”, March 29, 1941.  In order to fit in all the U.S. stations, the broadcast band needed to be stretched upward into the experimental hi-fi area.  Under the new plan, 1510 to 1580 were designated as clear channels, and new 1590 and 1600 frequencies were classified as regional channels.  The clear channel stations previously on 1460-1490 kHz shifted up to 1500-1530 (WMEX, WLAC, KGA, WKBW, KOMA, KFBK, and WCKY).  

The result was that the four hi-fi stations were re-classified as standard broadcast stations on regular 10 kHz-wide channels.  WQXR and KPMC were moved to 1560 and WBRY and KITE switched to 1590.  A few new stations also managed to grab channels in the top of the band before the World War II FCC freeze stopped all radio changes (WALB Albany GA, WAKR Akron OH, and KXEL Waterloo, IA).  WWRL in New York City was able to move from its 1500 time-shared channel to become the country’s only station on 1600.    After the war, hundreds of new stations populated the expanded broadcast band, resulting in today’s overcrowded top-band conditions.

But What Became of the Four Hi-Fi Stations? 

The New York Times purchased WQXR AM/FM in 1941 and it operated as a distinguished classical music station for many decades.  In 1956, the AM station increased its power to 50 kW.  The Times sold WQXR-FM in 2009, and it became a non-commercial classical station that continues today.  WQXR-AM became WQEW in 1992, programming a big band and pop music format.  It then became a “Radio Disney” station in 1999, with the Disney Corporation purchasing the station outright in 2007.  WQEW was again sold in 2014 to the Family Stations group of religious broadcasters, becoming WFME.  After selling off its transmitter site property in New Jersey in 2021 for $51 million, the station was downgraded to 500 watts, broadcasting from a temporary location.  This year, the station was shut down after receiving interference complaints at the new site.  However, Family Radio is said to be looking for a new location and hopes to resume operations one day.

WBRY became WQQW in 1972, and went silent in 1992.  The license was later acquired by WWRL in New York City, who voluntarily shut down the station so that WWRL could increase its power to 25,000 watts.

First National Television, Inc. in Kansas City developed financial problems and was unable to keep KITE on the air.  It left the air for good in October, 1942.

KPMC in Bakersfield operated for many years as a successful local station.  Today it is known as KNZR, operating on 1560 kHz with 25 kW daytime, 10 kW at night.  It is the only one of the original four stations still on the air today.


This article originally appeared in the June, 2024 issue of The Spectrum Monitor


 

RESOURCES:

www.theradiohistorian.org