The Wilmington morning star., 1946-01-23

lou yet lllOSS col ~ OIL uS SNS
SIS.
l wonder if you remember when
radio broadcasting in Wilmington
began way back in 1925 In that
year A. B. Blake, and R. A. Dun
yea, received permit from the
feoeral Communications com.
mission to erect five watt sta
tlon mere with the call letters "
q 3 N the station was locat.
ed on the top floor of the Southern
building on Front and Chestnut
street and functioned for APPROX.
marcy year but in those
days commercial broadcastine
was trowned on by the government
so thai there was no way to SUD.
port the operation except at a
continual deficit five watts
power seems like a ridiculously
small amount of power, but re-
member that the largest trans
hitting tube made for CONNER
cial use, at that time, was the
fifty watt tube and old timers
will remember that K. D. K. A. in
Pittsburgh and W. B. T. in Char
lotte were operating as fifty watt
stations . those were the days
when a station would present a
fifteen minute program then very
respectively request the listeners
to stand by for one minute, two
minutes or five minutes before
the station presented the follow
ing program I wonder if those
Of you listening during the early
days ever knew what the stand by
was given for therH were
several reasons for the pause
First most Of the stations had only
one studio, and it was necessary
to clear this studio and set up for
the next program, while the listen
ers stood by" Then it was
common practice to use the mike in
the transmitting circuit direct,
and believe it or not, the stand
by was given SO that the mike in
use, having become extremely
hot, could be replaced with a
cooler mike OF course those
were the days of carbon mikes,
and the person with the loudest
voice had what was then term
ed a radio voice. However,
if the voice wasn't loud enough
there was always the possibility
Of getting as close as possible to
the mike and shouting That
was also about the time the mike
was slung in front of a phono-
graph to produce records, and fire.
quency response was either IN
popular or unknown, probably the
latter >. For if you will remem-
Der it was job enough to construct
a home made set, which, with the
help Of head phones, would allow
each member Of the family to
hear this new wonder wireless OF
radio, as it was beginning to be
called about that time OF
course your ability to hear this
new "fad" as it was then termed
was dependent on the state of the
weather, the state of your re.
ceiver and at times the state OF
your nervous system All in all
they were rather rugged radio
days - maybe we haven't the
nerve to say, they were the good
OLD days E.
We've always known that a gun
whether it's a 20 rifle or .155
nm. howitzer-has plenty of re-
coil. plenty of kick-back. You fire
it and the next thing you
know you're sitting in your neigh
bor's backyard calmly wondering
what hit you.
Ever hear OF a clarinet that
could do it? You blow into it . :.
not too loud, not too soft and
the next thing you know you're
back in the middle of yesterday.
Course it would have to be a very
special clarinet Matter of fact,
the only one we know of in captivi-
ty. belongs to gent by the monick-
er of Woodrow Wilson Herman.
Seems that Woody was blowing
that special clarinet one Saturday
evening long about p. m. when
beautiful brunette walked across
the stage in front of him. j. ever
try to blow a high note and whistle
at the same time? Woody tried
it sonce-and BANG! When
consciousness returned he found
himself smack dab in the middle
of Friday night. That thar clarinet
had blown him right back through
time and all the way-tWenty
four hours worth-back to Friday
night you'll find Mr.. Herman blow
ing that clarinet one day earlier
than usual. Same time same
station.
The initial broadc'asting $50
You Want To Lead A Band, popu-
lar vaudeville feature for aspiring
maestros, Abe, $50 p. m. EST to-
night The veterans own show.
1.-The American Legion On The
Air." WMFD, tonight 8:45 -.
Cavaicade of Sports, 10 p. m. FIJI
day night A salute to John
Farrell. secretary, Wilmington
Chamber of Commerce for tnls
swell job on the premiere OF the
STAR-NEWSREEL For an ~