Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $9.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Seattle Radio
    Seattle Radio
    Seattle Radio
    Ebook248 pages1 hour

    Seattle Radio

    By John F. Schneider

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Seattle’s first radio broadcast aired in 1919, and over the next 90 years, the city drew national attention for its collection of flamboyant and sometimes quirky broadcast impresarios and performers. The parade of people that passed in front of and behind the Puget Sound microphones included a big-time bootlegger and his wife, two embezzling bank managers, a political campaign manager, and a lumber mill baron’s daughter. Two local radio men started with practically nothing and built their own successful Northwest station groups. An underpaid novice Seattle radio announcer went on to become the dean of the country’s television newscasters. A 1950s disc jockey used acrobatic publicity stunts to draw an audience for his station. A guitar-strumming radio singer capitalized on his fame to build a chain of restaurants. And the founder of a Seattle “free form” FM radio station went on to build a network of community FM stations around the country, making him “The Johnny Appleseed of Community Radio.”
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateNov 11, 2013
    ISBN9781439644270
    Seattle Radio
    Author

    John F. Schneider

    In this book, radio historian John F. Schneider introduces these and many other fascinating radio people and traces the evolution of what has become today’s mature Puget Sound radio industry.

    Related to Seattle Radio

    Related ebooks

    Photography For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Setting Up Virtual Python Environments

      May 30, 2023

      Les Pounder is associate editor at Tom’s Hardware and a freelance maker for hire. He blogs about his adventures and projects at http://bigl.es. Any Pi An LED 330 ohm resistor (orangeorangebrown-gold) 2x femaleto-male jumper wires Breadboard M ost o

      4 min read

    • Article

      CQ Amateur Radio: 75 Years and Counting!

      Jan 1, 2020

      Welcome to CQ’s 75th anniversary issue! Amateur radio has undergone incredible changes since it came back to life after World War II, and CQ has been there every month to chronicle its progress and, frequently, lead the way. Here’s a look back at hig

      19 min read

    • Article

      Don’t Touch That Dial

      Nov 25, 2021

      In addition to the good that firefighters do daily—like putting out flames and saving people’s lives—we can also credit them as the original Texas disc jockeys. The first radio station in Texas—the second in the country after KDKA in Pittsburgh, Penn

      1 min read

    • Article

      Tuning In To Soulis Radio Sale

      Dec 5, 2024

      Before the 19th century, wireless radios seemed like a far-fetched concept until physicist Reginald Fessenden changed that on Dec. 24, 1906, when he sent the first long-distance transmission of human voice and music from his station at Brant Rock, Ma

      2 min read

    • Article

      America’s Voice

      Sep 1, 2019

      America’s Voice
      7 min read

    • Article

      The BBC begins

      Dec 28, 2021

      At six o’clock in the evening on Tuesday 14 November 1922, the BBC took to the airwaves for the first time. Nearly a century later, we might think of this as a defining moment in cultural history but, at the time, it made almost no impact on the worl

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Television Age

      Sep 1, 2022

      For the first 14 years of its life, the BBC had been synonymous with radio. But on 2 November 1936, the corporation launched the world’s first regular “high-definition” television service. And although it would take more than two decades for this new

      5 min read

    • Article

      Music Legend And Landmark Diesel Star In Naming Ceremony

      Oct 24, 2023

      HUNDREDS of steam, diesel and music fans descended on Mangapps Railway Museum in deepest Essex on October 1 for a locomotive naming ceremony that featured two stars – rock legend and former trainspotter RickWakeman and the locomotive itself, preserve

      2 min read

    • Article

      Bridging the Atlantic

      Feb 28, 2024

      When Cunard’s express ocean liner, the luxurious RMS Aquitania, docked in Southampton on 22 November 1921, one of the 3,000 passengers who disembarked carried somewhat unusual luggage. 32-year-old radio amateur Paul Godley had sailed from NewYork on

      7 min read

    • Article

      Broadcast views: Radio Times at 100

      Sep 28, 2023

      When Radio Times first hit newsstands, on Friday 28 September 1923, few predicted that a printed schedule of programmes would become what one of its editors proclaimed “the most prosperous and successful timetable in the world”. It was initially desc

      5 min read

    • Article

      Encounters

      Jul 7, 2022

      Encounters
      5 min read

    • Article

      On The Radio

      Jan 26, 2023

      On The Radio
      2 min read

    • Article

      CQ CLASSIC: Bringing Back WAZ (Again)…

      Jan 1, 2022

      For this month’s “CQ Classic,” we decided to look back exactly 75 years, to January 1947. CQ was beginning just its third year of publication, yet it already had on board some of the top names in amateur radio at the time — Frank Jones, W6AJF; Herb B

      1 min read

    • Article

      Golden State of Mind

      Apr 23, 2020

      Golden State of Mind
      8 min read

    • Article

      Gear Innovators

      Nov 17, 2023

      Gear Innovators
      4 min read

    • Article

      Rickenbacker Electric Guitar

      Sep 27, 2023

      AT 8.00PM Eastern Time on Sunday 9 February 1964 a staggering 73million Americans tuned in to The Ed Sullivan Show, then the largest-ever TV audience, for the first TV appearance in the US of a long-haired ‘beat group’ from Liverpool. To say that the

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Game Changer

      Mar 12, 2021

      The Game Changer
      4 min read

    • Article

      Radio Signalled Changing Times

      Jan 13, 2023

      Development of the radio was a monumental event in most Americans’ lives. Until those small receiver boxes were available and regular programming became common, the average person had no music in his life other than that created by live performance.

      1 min read

    • Article

      Fender Tweed Amps

      Apr 6, 2021

      “Fender amps are rooted in Leo Fender’s radio repair shop,” says Terry. “By 1940, he had a full-time business with several employees in Fullerton under the Fender name. It was very successful in the local area, and, according to Leo, they did over 10

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Cultural Institution

      May 12, 2022

      At 6pm on 29 September 1946, when the Third Programme took to the air for the first time, it seemed as if the BBC was dramatically abandoning one of its core “Reithian” principles. The corporation’s “founding father”, John Reith, had always insisted

      5 min read

    • Article

      Fender Tweed Champ

      Jun 2, 2020

      Fender Tweed Champ
      1 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Seattle Radio

    4/5

    2 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      I grew up listening to KJR and KING-FM, among other stations in Seattle, so it was neat to read about and see the history of these and other stations. I also learned for the first time that Ivar Haglund (Ivar's Fish & Chips) started out as a folk singer.

    Book preview

    Seattle Radio - John F. Schneider

    www.theradiohistorian.org

    INTRODUCTION

    Although experimental radio telephone transmissions in Seattle—led by Lee de Forest, William Dubilier, and others—took place as early as 1906, the consumer radio boom did not hit Seattle until the fall of 1921. By 1922, radio was all the rage.

    Seattle’s first broadcaster was undoubtedly Vincent Kraft. He started broadcasting from the garage of his Ravenna home over his amateur station, 7XC, in 1919. He played phonograph and piano music through his 10-watt transmitter and single microphone. Other hams and early experimenters encouraged him to do more, and by March 1922, 7XC had been relicensed as KJR.

    The city’s second broadcaster was the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s station KFC, transmitting from the roof of the P-I building at Sixth and Pine Streets. Carl Haymond was the program manager, announcer, engineer, and probably also the janitor. He led performers up the steep iron stairs to the roof and held a megaphone in front of the microphone while they sang or spoke into it.

    Louis Wasmer started Seattle’s third station, KHQ, from his motorcycle shop on Thirteenth Avenue N. After increasing power, he sold his old transmitter to the Economy Market, where it went on the air as KZC. Rhodes Brothers Department Store put KDZE on the air in May 1922, and Seattle City Light’s John D. Ross put KTW on the air for the First Presbyterian Church.

    In the first two years, all of these stations, plus some latecomers, were required to share time on a single frequency—360 meters (833 kilohertz)—and listeners could only hear one station at a time. A station would broadcast for an hour and then shut down to be replaced by another station, stronger or weaker than the last one. The stations met with the local radio inspector periodically to work out an operating schedule.

    Many of these early stations had poor audio quality and suffered continuous technical difficulties, and people soon tired of listening to scratchy broadcasts of phonograph records, so in 1924 the government established a second class of station. Class B stations operated with at least 500 watts and were prohibited from playing phonograph records. They were assigned their own exclusive frequencies and could operate more hours each day. The remaining stations continued to share 360 meters. The Rhodes station—by now known as KFOA—was Seattle’s first Class B station, assigned to the 660-kilohertz frequency. KJR and KTW later upgraded to Class B status as well.

    As the decade progressed, many more stations were licensed, creating a glut. With just one channel available for most, there was no room for all to exist simultaneously. Many of these new stations were not serious efforts, only started by companies or individuals wanting to cash in on the radio boom. Many left the air within a year.

    Roy Olmstead, Seattle’s biggest bootlegger, started KFQX from his Mount Baker home in 1924. That November, federal prohibition agents raided the home, shut down the radio station, and arrested Olmstead, who was convicted and sent to McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary. KFQX was then leased to Birt Fisher, who ran it as KTCL, but in 1926 Olmstead sold it to KJR’s Vincent Kraft, who planned to take over the station when the lease expired in December. So, Fisher joined forces with the owners of the Fisher Flouring Mills Co. to open a new station, KOMO. Generously financed with a staff of 65 producing 14 hours of live programs a day, KOMO quickly became one of Seattle’s most popular stations; meanwhile, Vincent Kraft took over KTCL and turned it into KXA.

    Kraft’s primary station, KJR, had grown into Seattle’s other big radio operation by the late 1920s. Kraft built additional stations in Spokane, Portland, and San Francisco and tied them together in 1926 to create one of the first radio networks. In 1928, he sold his four stations to Adolph F. Linden and Edmund Campbell, directors of Puget Sound Savings & Loan. Soon, the money flowed freely, and KJR became among the most popular and best-financed stations in the Northwest. It had a large program staff with announcers, singers, a dance band, and a symphony orchestra. Linden expanded Kraft’s network and formed the American Broadcasting Company (unrelated to today’s ABC) to distribute his own shows and Columbia’s (CBS) East Coast programs across the Western United States.

    It was soon discovered where all of KJR’s money was coming from. Linden and Campbell had been surreptitiously borrowing from their savings and loan association to run the station and finance their Camlin Hotel. When the savings and loan filed for bankruptcy in August 1929, the money stopped abruptly. Network phone lines were shut down for nonpayment, and most of KJR’s staff and musicians departed when their paychecks stopped coming in. Linden and Campbell were charged with defrauding shareholders and depositors out of $2 million, and each was sentenced to 15 years at the Walla Walla State Penitentiary.

    In 1931, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) acquired KJR and its three sister stations. But in a 1933 cost-cutting move, NBC leased KJR to KOMO, its local affiliate, for $1 a year. The Fishers combined KOMO and KJR into a single large operation in the Skinner Building, operating them as Western Washington’s NBC Red and Blue Network affiliates. This continued until 1945, when new FCC regulations forced the Fishers to sell KJR, which they transferred to Birt Fisher. Retaining KOMO, they soon raised its power to 50 kilowatts and built a model broadcast studio center in the Denny Regrade area. In a few years, it would also be the home of KOMO-TV.

    Louis Wasmer was another major player in early Seattle radio. Wasmer, Rogan Jones, and others used Seattle as a radio nursery, starting stations in the city and then relocating them to outlying towns with no local radio service. Wasmer moved KHQ to Spokane in 1925, where it became an important broadcaster. Other radio stations departing Seattle included KVOS, moving to Bellingham in 1926, and KXRO, which moved to Aberdeen the next year. KPQ moved to Wenatchee in 1928. KGEA moved to Longview in 1928, where it became KUJ, and then it moved again to Walla Walla in 1931.

    In 1928, Wasmer teamed up with his brother-in-law Archie Taft Sr., who owned Piper and Taft Sporting Goods and had developed an interest in radio by selling crystal sets from his store. Together, they bought KFOA, changed the call sign to KOL, and moved it into the Northern Life Insurance Building. KOL became Seattle’s CBS outlet in 1930. In 1937, after losing the CBS affiliation to KIRO, Wasmer, Taft, and Carl Haymond started the Pacific Broadcasting Company, an extension of California’s Mutual-Don Lee Network. They paid the line costs to bring Mutual programs to Seattle and then resold the service to other stations. At one point, it was said that Wasmer and Taft controlled half of all Washington’s radio stations: their own stations KOL, KGY, KGA, KHQ, and KRKO and their network affiliates KXRO, KVOS, KELA, KMO, KPQ, and KIT.

    Kraft’s KXA was Seattle’s most important independent broadcaster during the 1930s and 1940s. It signed off every day at local sunset to protect a New York station on the same channel but then returned to the air each evening from 10:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. local time. As Seattle’s only late-night station, it achieved its own popularity with its Stay-Up Stan, the All-Night Record Man program.

    Moritz Thomsen of the Pacific Coast Biscuit Company, a competitor to Fisher Flouring Mills Co., felt the need to match his competitor’s radio activities, so he put KPCB on the air in 1927. But unlike the Fishers, Thomsen never invested in KPCB, and it operated without much local attention until purchased by Saul Haas in 1935. Haas changed the call letters to KIRO and used his ample political influence to get

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1