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"Wavescan" is a weekly program for long distance radio hobbyists produced by Dr. Adrian M. Peterson, Coordinator of International Relations for Adventist World Radio. AWR carries the program over many of its stations (including shortwave). Adrian Peterson is a highly regarded DXer and radio historian, and often includes features on radio history in his program. We are reproducing those features below, with Dr. Peterson's permission and assistance.
Wavescan N694, June 12, 2022
The 100 Year Story of Mediumwave WLW in Cincinnati
More than one hundred years ago, Powell Crosley made the first broadcast from his own locally-built radio station. At the time, radio was very young, and Crosley was just 24 years old.
The new amateur radio station was installed in the living room of the family home at 5723 Davey Road in College Hill (suburban Cincinnati), and, as was frequently the custom in those days, Crosley had not yet received any form of official radio license. That very first historic radio broadcast occurred in the month of April in the year 1921.
On numerous occasions, Crosley played the only gramophone record he owned over his primitive radio station. That recording contained the popular song from that era, The Song of India, the melody of which you heard at the opening of our program today.
However, give another four months (August 1921), and the official Department of Commerce in the federal government at Washington, D.C. then awarded Crosley with three radio licenses, and three callsigns. The 20 watt amateur radio station in the family home at College Hill was granted the callsign 8CR. A radio transmitter in the small radio factory at 1625 Blue Rock Street near downtown Cincinnati was granted two callsigns; the amateur callsign 8XY, and also the callsign 8XAA as an experimental Special Land Station.
It was on March 2, 1922 that Crosley was awarded the desired broadcasting license (Number 62) for his radio station, together with a consecutive though randomly allocated callsign, the now well-known WLW. It took some time to make all of the various arrangements for the opening program. Thus, three weeks later, on Thursday, March 23, 1922, the newly identified mediumwave station WLW in Cincinnati, Ohio staged its official inauguration event.
The studio for this new radio venture was set up in a small room on the second floor of Crosley's small radio factory at 1625 Blue Rock Street in Cincinnati. Thick black curtains made out of traditional Monk's Cloth were stretched across the ceiling and hung upon the walls in order to deaden any sound reverberations.
A Persian Rug (Carpet) also served the same purpose on the flooring, and the two windows were closed in an effort to reduce the noise emitted by passing railway trains. The temperature inside the primitive studio was stifling, due to the heat emitted from the active transmitter, which was installed in the same studio room.
The studio also contained a player piano, a phonograph record player, and a new Morning Glory microphone, with its traditional wide horn, three feet across. Two 40 ft. radio towers were erected on the roof of the building, with four wires strung between as the antenna system.
Two newspapers in Cincinnati, The Enquirer and the Times-Star, each carried a full page advertisement on the day before the official opening of the handsome new WLW. Details and events of the grand opening were given, including an outline of the inaugural broadcast.
The recently-constructed 50 watt transmitter was switched into service around 7:15 pm, and it is stated that the actual programming began at about 7:30 pm, on March 23, 1922. We should also add that the first two Crosley transmitters, the 20 watt 8CR in the family home at College Hill and the 50 watt WLW in the small radio factory on Blue Rock Road, were both designed and built by Crosley employee Dorman Israel.
Participants in the opening program included Powell Crosley as the Master of Ceremonies, and there were three musicians: violinist William K. Knox, pianist Romeo Gorno, and his soloist brother, Giacinto Gorno who sang a classic prologue from the Opera Pagliacci.
The Mayor of Cincinnati, the honorable George P. Carrell, welcomed the new WLW to the radio scene in Cincinnati. Information regarding coming programs over the new WLW was also given during the opening ceremony, such as news, information, lectures, music and entertainment.
Yes, it did happen! At one stage during the opening ceremonies, the presentation of the evening programming was temporarily halted while a noisy railway train passed the factory building with its new radio station on the second floor.
More about the new WLW next time.