page_title: WBT (AM)
section_title: Early years
hierarchical_section_title: WBT (AM) / History / Early years
caption_attribution_description: English: Portion of an advertisement placement for Little Long Company, referring to a crystal radio receiver capable of picking up transmissions from the recently established Charlotte radio station WBT.
context_page_description: WBT is a commercial AM radio station serving the Charlotte metropolitan area, which includes parts of North Carolina and South Carolina. First licensed on March 18, 1922, it was one of the United States' first broadcasting stations.
  The station airs a news/talk radio format that is simulcast on WBT-FM 99.3 and the HD2 digital sub-channel of co-owned 107.9 WLNK. WBT is owned by Entercom, one of the largest radio stations operators in America. Studios and offices are at One Julian Price Place on West Morehead Street, just west of Uptown Charlotte, co-located with the city's CBS television affiliate, WBTV, which is currently owned by Gray Television but at one time had common ownership with WBT Radio.
  WBT broadcasts full-time with 50,000-watts at 1110 kHz, as a Class A clear-channel station. Its transmitter is located in the southern part of the city off Nations Ford Road. During daylight hours it uses a non-directional antenna and is audible in a significant portion of the Carolinas, including cities as far away as Greensboro and Winston-Salem, North Carolina and Spartanburg and Columbia, South Carolina.
context_section_description: Initially there were no specific standards in the United States for radio stations making transmissions intended for the general public, and numerous stations under various classifications made entertainment broadcasts. However, effective December 1, 1921, the Department of Commerce, the regulators of radio at this time, adopted a regulation that formally created a broadcasting station category, and stations were now required to hold a Limited Commercial license authorizing operation on wavelengths of 360 meters for "entertainment" broadcasts or 485 meters for "market and weather reports" (833 and 619 kHz).
  The Southern Radio Corporation was issued a "provisional" broadcasting station license, with the randomly assigned call letters WBT, on March 18, 1922, which authorized broadcasts on the 360 meter entertainment wavelength. WBT made its first broadcast four days later on March 22. The next day's Charlotte Observer reported that: "Erected by the Southern Radio corporation of this city and attached to the Realty building, this station, officially designated as WBT, operating on a 360 meter wavelength, this station will arrange musical concerts, addresses on various subjects and will give nightly programs for the benefit of approximately 20,000 receiving stations within a hearing radius. The first program was given last night and several stations in this section are known to have picked up the Victrola music broadcasted." This article further described the "wireless telephone broadcasting station" as "the first station that has been erected and put in active operating condition in the Carolinas. A station has been erected at State college in West Raleigh, but it did not work properly and it will probably be a few weeks before it will be in a position to do any broadcasting." On April 11, following a successful inspection by the Fourth Radio District inspector, Walter Van Nostrand, Jr on April 4, 1922, the license's "provisional" qualifier was removed."
  In October 1925, Fred Laxton sold the Southern Radio Corporation to the Carolina States Electric Company for approximately $50,000, while retaining control of WBT. However, the next month the station was sold to Charlotte Buick automobile dealer C. C. Coddington, who would promote both the radio station and his auto dealership with the slogan "Watch Buicks Travel". The station was moved to the top of the Coddington building, although Coddington later moved the transmitter site to farm property he owned on Nations Ford Road in south Charlotte, where it remains today.
  On November 11, 1928, under the provisions of the Federal Radio Commission's General Order 40, WBT was assigned to a "clear channel" frequency of 1080 kHz, which gave it exclusive national nighttime use of that frequency. In 1929 C.C. Coddington sold WBT to the two-year-old CBS Radio Network. In subsequent years a series of power increases raised the station's from 5,000 watts to the maximum permitted, 50,000 watts. The 50,000 watt transmitter was dedicated on August 12, 1932.
caption: Little-Long Company advertisement for a crystal radio receiver capable of picking up WBT's programs (October 1922)
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