CHAPTER TWO: AN INDUSTRY BEGINS

BAY AREA RADIO
IN THE TWENTIES

With the amateur experiments becoming commonplace from New York to New Mexico, the Government took some steps toward regulation. As early as 1915, the Department of Commerce, under the direction of Secretary Herbert Hoover, had begun to license stations for amateur use. Callsign 6XE, later changed to 6XO, was put into use by the Doc Herrold's station in San Jose during this time as part of the program.

After the war, the Herrold station was indeed among the first to return to the airwaves — unlicensed — its operation "not a matter of being licensed," according to Herrold.

Taking into account the future possibilities of radio as a force in communications, the Government began issuing licenses to stations for commercial broadcasting in 1920, with the first going to the Westinghouse station KDKA in Pittsburgh, Penn., which began its life by broadcasting the results of that year's presidential election between Harding and Cox on November 2.

It would be more than a year after KDKA took to the air, however, before the Government would issue another license for a broadcast station, at which time it would issue twenty-five to various enterprises across the United States, including twelve to manufacturers, eleven to individual experimenters, one to a newspaper and one to a church. (A full list of these stations may be viewed by clicking here.) Among the very first of these was a San Francisco station.

On December 8, 1921, the Radio Division of the Bureau of Navigation, U.S. Department of Commerce, issued its twelfth limited commercial broadcast license to Edwin L. Lorden of California Street in San Francisco for the station he had constructed.

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