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It was shortly after World War I that Clarence Thompson, a partner of Lee de Forest, formed a new company Radio News & Music Inc. in New York. His goal was to encourage newspapers to broadcast their news reports by wireless, using de Forest transmitters.

The franchise offer — available to only one newspaper in each city — offered the rental of a de Forest 50-watt transmitter and accessories for $750. Just one newspaper signed up for the deal; it was the Detroit News, led by publisher William E. Scripp.

He had been interested in wireless since investing in Detroit experimenter Thomas E. Clark’s wireless company in 1904. Scripp’s son, William J. “Little Bill,” was an active ham radio operator, operating a station in the Scripps home.

People might laugh

Scripp proposed accepting the Radio News & Music offer and building a Detroit News radio station in 1919, but he met resistance from his board of directors. It was not until March of 1920 that he was given the go-ahead to sign a contract.

The de Forest transmitter was shipped to Detroit on May 28, 1920, but was lost in transit; a second transmitter was constructed and sent on July 15. This delayed the installation of the station until August.

Radio News & Music hired a Detroit ham operator, 19-year-old Michael Lyons, to install the transmitter on the second floor of the News building and to erect a rooftop antenna. A license was needed, but broadcasting in 1920 was just an experimental activity, and broadcast licenses did not yet exist.

The handful of pioneer broadcasters were operating under a variety of license classes, including amateur, experimental and “commercial land station.” The News decided that an amateur license was the most expedient option, and a license was quickly obtained with the call sign 8MK.

Scripps initially worried about the optics of a newspaper giving away its news reports for free over the air, and so he wanted the appearance of an arms-length relationship with the station. For this reason, the 8MK license was registered in Lyons’ name.

In a 1973 letter, Lyons recalled:

I’ll never forget the Tuesday we started broadcasting, and the reporters would not publish the fact, because they were afraid people would laugh at the Detroit newspaper. Besides, I was told, there was a chance the radio news would deter people from buying newspapers to get the news.

8MK made its first transmission on Aug. 20, 1920, on a frequency of 200 meters (1500 kHz), the bottom of the amateur band. It was just a test of the new equipment, and so it was not publicized. It is estimated that no more than 30 people heard the broadcast that night.

Elton Plank, a 16-year-old office boy, was given the task of being the first announcer because of his pleasing voice. At 8:15 p.m., Plank placed a megaphone against the transmitter’s mouthpiece and announced, “This is 8MK calling, the radiophone of the Detroit News.”

He then signaled Howard Trumbo, operating a borrowed hand-crank Edison phonograph, to play two records: “Roses of Picardy” and “Annie Laurie.” Listeners were asked to telephone in their signal reports to the newspaper, and 8MK signed off the air.

Election bulletins, August 2020

After several more test transmissions verified the equipment was working properly, 8MK made its first publicized broadcast on Aug. 31, 1920, the night of the state’s primary election.

A front-page announcement in the News alerted the public to the upcoming broadcast: “Miscellaneous news and music will be transmitted from 8 until 9 o’clock so that operators may adjust their instruments. Election bulletins begin at 9 o’clock and will continue on the hour and half-hour until midnight.”

An estimated 500 listeners heard that night’s broadcast.

After that auspicious debut, 8MK began a schedule of two broadcasts per day, six days a week, featuring news and weather summaries from the pages of the Detroit News combined with entertainment from phonograph records.

Each day, the program schedule of the “Detroit News Radiophone” was published on the front page of the newspaper. Encouraged by the positive results of his radio experiment, Scripps transferred the 8MK license into the name of the newspaper and dedicated more resources towards his fledgling operation.

A staff of three was assigned — two engineers and a program manager. New program concepts were tried: in September, there was a remote broadcast of live dance music by the Paul Specht Orchestra, and the results of the Dempsey-Miske boxing match were announced. The Brooklyn-Cleveland World Series baseball play-by-play scores were sent out in October.

On Nov. 2, 8MK broadcast the Harding-Cox presidential election returns, the same night as KDKA’s famous first broadcast. Live Christmas carols were broadcast in December. Lectures, dramatic readings and poetry were added in 1921, and live music was increasingly being heard.

Although still operating under an amateur license, 8MK was a commercial broadcaster in all aspects, operating from a business establishment with a paid staff and professional content.

National coverage

In the fall of 1921, new government regulations were issued that prohibited amateurs from broadcasting news and entertainment.

This meant that the Detroit News, along with dozens of other pioneer broadcasters, were required to apply for a new class of license called “Limited Commercial.” Subsequently, in November, 1921, the “Detroit News Radiophone” received a new license with the randomly-assigned call letters WBL, and it moved to the new shared broadcasting frequency of 360 meters (833 kHz).

But when listeners had trouble hearing the call sign correctly, a new call sign was requested, and the Detroit News station became WWJ on March 3, 1922.

Scripps now poured considerable resources in his radio operation. A new WWJ studio/office suite was built on the fourth floor of the building. A 290-foot antenna was stretched between the News building and the Fort Shelby Hotel in 1921, and a 500-watt Western Electric transmitter was installed in 1922, only the second factory-made broadcast transmitter in the country.

With these improvements, WWJ was now being heard across the country at night. By summer, there was a full-time staff of nine. Live broadcasts of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra began in February, and in May a new 16-piece WWJ Orchestra was organized, consisting mostly of symphony musicians. Regular church services were broadcast on Sundays.

Star performers appeared on the station, including Fanny Brice and Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians. Nightly news reports with running commentary were delivered by Albert Weeks, billed as “The Town Crier.” Children’s bedtime stories were being read nightly.

As local live talent was hired to broadcast on WWJ, some refused to believe there was really an invisible audience hearing their performances. They were accustomed to the immediate feedback of a live audience, but the microphone offered only silence.

When future radio comedian Will Rogers made his first ever radio broadcast over WWJ in October, 1922, he didn’t believe that people were really listening: “I don’t think you can hear me,” he announced. “If this isn’t the bunk, let me know if you can hear me.”

To his great surprise, he received letters and postcards from all over the Midwest. Even Henry Ford had heard him, using a receiving set he had built himself.

Live remote play-by-play broadcasts on WWJ began in October, 1924, when Chief Announcer Edwin “Ty” Tyson called a University of Michigan football game from the stadium. The university allowed just this one broadcast because the stadium was already sold out, but when they were flooded with ticket requests for the next game they agreed to allow regular broadcasts.

In 1927, Tyson broadcast the entire season of Detroit Tigers home games over WWJ. He soon became one of the country’s foremost early sportscasters, and called both the 1935 and ’36 World Series games for NBC.

In 1923, WWJ moved to 517 meters (580 kHz), sharing the frequency with the new Detroit Free Press station WCX (now WJR), and then in 1925 it moved to 850 kHz, operating full-time with a new 1 kW transmitter. After the company’s new parking garage was completed across 3rd Avenue in 1926, the transmitter moved into the garage building, and two new towers suspended the antenna 265 feet above street level between the garage and the paper warehouse.

(WWJ was shifted to 920 kHz in 1928, and then to its current 950 kHz frequency in the NARBA Treaty realignment of 1941.)

Showcase station

As radio entered its “golden age” in the 1930s, backed by the ample resources of the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain, no expense was spared to make WWJ a first-class station.

When the NBC Red Network was organized in 1926, WWJ became its Detroit affiliate. In 1936, a new showplace five-story studio building was built for a cost of $1 million, and an opulent 5 kW transmitter building and new tall tower were inaugurated. Both structures were designed by the famed Detroit architect Albert Kahn.

Frequent remote broadcasts originated from a fleet of remote trucks and the Detroit News aircraft. “Radio Jake,” the WWJ Interference Engineer, prowled the city in his own vehicle, solving interference complaints for citizens as a free public service.

The Detroit News had operated WWJ entirely as a goodwill service to the public. By 1928, it had reportedly invested $466,000 in the station, despite earning not a penny in return.

There was no way knowing if WWJ benefited the company through increased newspaper sales. This was the conundrum of radio in the late 1920s — it was now an essential public service, but had no clear source of revenue. It was not until advertising was permitted in the early 1930’s that radio became a profitable medium.

WWJ was continually at the forefront experimenting with new broadcast technologies. In 1938, it transmitted a radio newspaper during overnight hours to facsimile printers in local residences. In 1936, it inaugurated an experimental “Apex” high-fidelity AM station, W8XWJ, broadcasting on 41,000 kHz from the top of the Penobscot Building skyscraper.

In 1940, this was converted to W45D, one of the nation’s first FM stations (now WXYT-FM). And in 1947, WWJ-TV took to the airwaves (now WDIV).

The 65-year relationship between WWJ and the Detroit News ended in 1985, when The Gannett Company bought the newspaper and spun off WWJ/WJOI to a group of local businessmen. Then in 1989, they were purchased by CBS Radio, who invested in a major power increase to 50 kW in 2000.

In 2017, CBS Radio merged with Entercom, today’s owner of WWJ, which coincidentally also owns pioneer stations KDKA and KNX. The original WWJ de Forest transmitter was donated to the Detroit History Museum in 1959, where it can be seen on display today.

For more of John Schneider’s history articles, including other centennial stations that were heard prior to the famous KDKA broadcast of 1920, visit www.radioworld.com/author/johnschneider.

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Smuggled dinosaur bones? Scuba diving under a pyramid? Binaural audio recording onsite?

It’s all part of the third season of the “Overheard at National Geographic” podcast. For its production team, gathering field recordings from exotic locations and subjects is just another day at the office.

“It’s hard to be in the [National Geographic] office for five minutes without immediately seeing there are a million stories out there to tell,” says producer Brian Gutierrez.

“You walk around, and there’s an archivist who’s recording old transcripts of Jacques Cousteau. There are people coming back from remote islands [and] writing about volcanoes and earthquakes. It’s almost impossible to not tell this to other people in the way that we’ve been doing it on Overheard.”

Capturing That Field Sound

Hosted by National Geographic writer and editor Peter Gwin and executive editor Amy Briggs, “Overheard at National Geographic” tags along with explorers, photographers and scientists who uncover unlikely and unheard stories from the edges of the world.

“The tone of the show,” Gutierrez says, “is, ‘Hey, the world’s a big, amazing, crazy place full of interesting, fascinating stuff I bet you didn’t know.”

Often, no one is closer to these tales than the journalists themselves. That’s why, after wrapping the first season of the podcast, the team began training them to capture audio so the podcast could piggyback on location stories the magazine and television channel produce.

“One of the learnings we took away from season one was, ‘How are we going to push the show further, and how can we think of ways to incorporate more of that field sound into the show?’” says Whitney Johnson, director of visuals and immersive experiences at National Geographic.

By outfitting journalists with handheld recorders like the Zoom H6 and Roland R-07, they’re able to bring back audio that puts listeners in the adventure right alongside them. Sometimes audio comes from less conventional sources, such as a GoPro camera that captured underwater sounds used in the episode “Scuba Diving in a Pyramid.”

But when they get the chance to go into the field themselves, the production team takes advantage of the opportunity.

“I went to a warehouse in Queens [New York] where a paleontologist had dinosaur fossils given to her by Homeland Security because they had been illegally shipped to the United States,” says Gutierrez.

“Just following her with the recorder and letting her tell her story, I think brings you into the moment more than just being in the studio.”

Bounce-back

Gutierrez embraced the challenge of creating a sense of place, even in a nondescript location like a warehouse. He pointed a shotgun microphone at a wall to get audio bounce-back when he interviewed the paleontologist, and used binaural omnidirectional condenser mics from Core Sound while walking through the spacious, Raiders of the Lost Ark-like trove.

“They’re these little microphones that are the size of medicine pills, and I clip them to the sides of my hat,” he says. “There’s this sort of 3D effect of being in a space, because the microphones are literally where your ears are.”

The hosts track their narration with Shure SM7B mics when they can record in the studio, but currently they both use a Zoom recorder and Sennheiser ME66 shotgun mic at their homes. Gutierrez works with two additional producers on each episode, which takes about six weeks from concept to completion.

Although the podcast plays off adventurous themes like the ones National Geographic magazine has explored for more than 130 years, the podcast creators set out to fulfill a different kind of mission in the audio medium.

“We were really interested in trying to develop a show that held on to the ethos of what makes a great National Geographic story — a commitment to really immersive storytelling and great characters—but [also what] was really appropriate for audio,” says Johnson. “We knew we were not trying to make the audio version of a magazine story, and that we had to create something that was unique and deliberately [a] podcast.”

This story originally appeared in our sister newsletter Podcast Pro.

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From Radio World’s Who’s Buying What page.

The FM 3 kW transmitter from WorldCast’s Ecreso transmitter brand has been approved for acquisition by German association of regional public broadcasters, ARD (Arbeitsgemeinschaft der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland).

WorldCast Systems Director of Product Marketing Gregory Mercier said, “The ARD specifications are acknowledged to be among the most demanding in the industry. We are honored that this organization has once again approved an Ecreso transmitter and proud that our product meets their standards for efficiency, reliability and robustness.”

Several Ecreso models have been approved for use by the nation’s public broadcasters and almost 2,000 are in use a release said.

The FM 3 kW is an FM transmitter that is compatible with Ecreso’s SmartFM technology.

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The Federal Communications Commission is offering deadline relief to certain AM radio stations in the United States that hold construction permits for FM translators.

The Media Bureau said it will accept COVID-19-related requests to postpone the expiration date for CPs from Auctions 99 and 100 that are due to expire by the end of June 2021.

The bureau “is aware that shutdowns associated with the pandemic have forced stations to halt construction, have disrupted equipment availability and deliveries, and have interrupted travel for tower and equipment installers,” it announced.

“In addition, the pandemic has compounded the severe financial difficulties experienced by many AM stations, including the significant loss of advertising revenue due to economic disruptions and the need to cover breaking news and air public service announcements relating to the pandemic.

“These financial difficulties, in some cases, may have caused AM stations to delay construction of authorized cross-service translators.”

The two filing windows date to 2017 and were part of the FCC’s AM “revitalization” initiative. The windows produced more than 1,700 construction permits for these new “cross-service” FM translators. Radio World has asked the commission how many of those CPs are now on the air and will report any reply.

Stations should submit a waiver request at least 15 days before the expiration date. Extensions can be no more than six months.

Waiver requests should be in the form of a letter submitted by e-mail to Robert Gates (Robert.Gates@fcc.gov) or Larry Hannif-Ali (Larry.Hannif-Ali@fcc.gov) of the Media Bureau, Audio Division. There is no fee. (Don’t use the Licensing and Management System for this request.)

Requests must specify how the pandemic or its economic impact has prevented timely construction. Evidence of justification might include financial statements demonstrating the pandemic’s economic impact on the permittee; affidavits or other evidence of the unavailability of components or tower crews; or copies of equipment orders.

The rules don’t provide for CP extensions; but the bureau wrote, “We will in appropriate cases grant a waiver of the construction deadline based on ‘rare and exceptional circumstances beyond the permittee’s control.’”

It added that this is specifically for CPs awarded to applicants in those two auction windows expiring on by June 30. “While other applicants and permittees are free as always to seek waiver relief, our public interest finding does not specifically pertain to other construction permits, applications or services.”

More information is here.

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Radio World’s Fall Product Peeks webcast was a hit (you can watch it here), and now comes the sequel.

Join us for the next 30-minute Radio World webcast, and learn about more new products coming from radio’s leading technology vendors like Tieline and Wheatstone. We’ll also give you a special preview of the technical sessions of the upcoming virtual Radio Show.

Editor in Chief Paul McLane spends a few minutes with each manufacturer to learn what they are offering for radio broadcasters. This format is intended to be fast-moving so you can learn about new products without taking up a lot of your day.

We’ve had great feedback about our shorter, more accessible format, which is fast-moving so you don’t have to tie up a lot of your day. 

Joining us for a special segment is Skip Pizzi of the NAB, discussing the technical sessions of the virtual Radio Show in October.

Register here for this free Radio World webcast, and we’ll send you a reminder close to the date. 

The post Second Fall Product Peeks Webcast Explores More New Products appeared first on Radio World.

A new flight of audio and video spots is available to stations to highlight the role of local radio and TV stations in the United States.

The National Association of Broadcasters put out the spots focusing on broadcaster news and information.

This is part of its We Are Broadcasters initiative, launched in 2013 with the explicit goal of educating policymakers about their constituents’ reliance on local broadcasters. (One of its outreach efforts promotes use of the hashtag #BroadcastGood.)

“The new spots highlight the role local broadcasters have played in providing fact-based reporting and lifeline coverage of significant events nationwide over the past six months, including the COVID-19 pandemic, civil protests and unrest over racial equality, wildfires and hurricanes, and the 2020 political elections,” NAB stated.

Spots are available in English and Spanish. Find them here.

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National Public Radio has said it is modifying its “Consider This” podcast in collaboration with 12 member stations. The aim is to provide localized content versions for the 12 stations.

Those stations are Boston, (WBUR and GBH), New York, (WNYC), Philadelphia, (WHYY), Washington, (WAMU), Chicago, (WBEZ), Minneapolis/St. Paul, (MPR), Dallas/Fort Worth, (KERA), Los Angeles, (KPCC and KCRW), San Francisco, (KQED), and Portland, Ore, (OPB).

Each station will be able to add local stories to the “Consider This” they receive while other NPR stations will utilize the national feed of the program.

Concerning listener details, the “local” aspect is designated by the selection a “favorite” station and cross-referencing by location data and Nielsen Designated Market Areas.

More stations/markets can be added and are expected to be added. NPR is partnering with AdsWizz on the project.

A release says, “This national/local on-demand experience, a first not just for public radio but for the podcast industry as a whole, is made possible by public radio’s shared journalism and digital networks.”

NPR’s Senior Director for On Demand Programming Neal Carruth “This project is truly the best reflection of the public radio mission. … ‘Consider This’ is now a collaborative podcast that will know where users are and deliver them the news of the day from their community and beyond. It demonstrates what only the public radio network has the ability to do.”

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From Malta comes this look inside the new studios of RTK 103FM, courtesy of AEQ. The facility features AoIP infrastructure and visual radio elements.

RTK Ltd. is the media company of the Catholic Church in Malta; it is owned by Beacon Media Group.

A team from DAB Electronica Ltd. led by Alan Gatt led the technical infrastructures and studio build.

“Studying different alternatives, eventually the system decided upon was entirely audio over IP based, except for the local inputs and outputs in terms of microphones, headphones and monitoring,” AEQ reported in a project summary.

Exhibo of Italy installed two auto-control operated studios using 12-fader AEQ Forum Split IP consoles. Studio One is a main studio with provision for three guests; Studio Two allows for am anchor or DJ to host up to six guests.

“Either studio can be controlled form either console thanks to the possibility to share all the stations audio resources over the AoIP network,” AEQ wrote.

“To make antennae, studio and playout switching simpler and automated, a NetBox32 MX with RTC option was installed, thus providing a 64×64 non-blocking routing Matrix for AoIP, analog and digital audio sources. This unit is used for format conversion, thus allowing for any analog or digital source to become part of the AoIP Multi-channel network.”

Automation, scheduling and playout are from WideOrbit and connected to the AoIP network with Dante Virtual Soundcards.

“As Wideorbit allows embedding third-party commands as objects in their lists and schedules, the Virtual GPO protocols for AEQ equipment can trigger macros and salvos for any of AEQ’s AoIP networked equipment,” AEQ said.

“This becomes very handy when general programming is switching for news on the hour. The other way around, it allows the DJ to trigger the play-out, cue a song etc., directly form the console control surface or to start the control of the microphones in the other studio, etc.”

The studios use Sennheiser MK4 Condenser Mics and HM300 Headphones, as well as an AEQ Systel IP 16 Talk-show and phone-in system with three SystelSet+.

Visual radio support is provided by BroadcastPix video switchers. Each studio has three JVC HD PTZ cameras. Any channel or audio source in the installation can trigger a camera setting, video clip, transition or sequence available on the Broadcast Pix system.

AEQ Phoenix ALIO portable devices are used for remote/OB work, connected via 4G router or standard internet. “Normally Opus encoding is used for either voice-quality of full-bandwidth music.” Connectivity at the station is by a Phoenix Venus 3 with AoIP networking; the ControlPhoenix application allows a technician at the studio to control the local and remote codecs.

Two Phoenix Venus 3s with AoIP are used to create the studio-transmitter link and return telemetry.

Radio World welcomes photos and details of radio projects to show our readers how new technology is being deployed. Email radioworld@futurenet.com.

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DHD Audio has introduced a firmware update for its broadcast audio mixing consoles, routers and control interfaces.

“New functions have been integrated to make operation easier, faster and more flexible,” the company stated. “Also being introduced are flat table-mount versions of the RX2 and SX2 mixers.”

DHD makes five audio consoles that can be paired with several cores of different capacities and equipped with a variety of interface modules. International Sales Manager Christoph Gottert said these products are used by both radio and TV stations.

“Our latest firmware additions expand the capabilities of version 9.1 which we announced in Q1. That update included support for Unicode character sets such as Chinese, Russian, Japanese and Korean, Snapshots App and Labels App, enhanced log-in, hot configuration and refinements to the DHD REST API,” he was quoted saying.

“We are now introducing two additional web apps, Assist App and System App, plus an advanced SNMP interface.”

Assist App is a browser-based application allowing remote operation of a DHD mixing desk from a tablet, laptop or desktop PC. The remote user can control fader and central modules and view the integral displays.

“Assist App enables a technician to support DJs during their daily operation without being on-site,” the company said. It’s compatible with DHD RX2 and SX2 mixers and TX touch panels.

System App provides control to configure and supervise a DHD system. Its interface includes IP address assignment and web connection management. “Detailed information for each module connected to the core is displayed, including serial numbers, temperature and uptime.” Local and IP-connected remote devices can be seen.

SNMP is for use where the mixers and routers are part of a large infrastructure and where devices are centrally managed. It’s available for XC2, XD2 and XS2 cores, and will be available for AES67/Ravenna interfaces this year.

DHD posted a video demo about these firmware features:

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The author is president of Henry Engineering in Seal Beach, Calif.

Please let me add my 2 cents’ worth regarding music tracks that have been clipped and trashed with “brick-wall” audio processing (May 27, Opinion section).

The next time your radio station receives a CD or file that has been brick-wall limited, simply return it to the sender with an impersonal form letter saying “The music you have supplied is defective and/or unsuitable for broadcast. We do not air any material that is detrimental to our listenership,” or words to that effect.

If a few hundred radio stations return a few thousand, refusing to air them, perhaps the music producers and record labels will fix the problem.

We can only hope!

Submit letters to the editor to radioworld@futurenet.com.

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