vitanola
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 4,254
- Location
- Gopher Prairie, MI
The centenary of the generally accepted (thanks to the publicity departments of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company and the Radio Corporation) inauguration of radio broadcasting is fast approaching. On November 2nd 1920 Station KDKA broadcast the Harding-Cox election returns.
We who collect radios have immense resources of programming available today through the internet, programming which we can easily broadcast to our sets using modern flea-power Part 15 transmitters. The one thing which most of us do not have is access to a real antique signal, with all of its distortion and poor modulation. Now, by the mid-1920s (earlier for major industry players) radio signals were of pretty good quality. In some ways the broadcasts of the big name stations in 1928 or 1929 were of better audio quality than our modern overmodulated AM signals, but in the early 1920s that was not necessarily so.
I’m in the process of assembling a small (20 watt) transmitter of 1920 style. The intention is to more or less re-create the election return broadcast. This sort of thing was pretty commonly done for earlier anniversaries, but the big 100 appears to be fairly quiet, probably because AM Radio is no longer particularly relevant to much of our population. This antique signal will be demodulated using a quality modern receiver and live streamed, so that any collector who is so inclined may transmit it to his century old receiving set.
I wonder whether there would be any interest in this crowd? I know that 1920 is a little early for the Lounge.
We who collect radios have immense resources of programming available today through the internet, programming which we can easily broadcast to our sets using modern flea-power Part 15 transmitters. The one thing which most of us do not have is access to a real antique signal, with all of its distortion and poor modulation. Now, by the mid-1920s (earlier for major industry players) radio signals were of pretty good quality. In some ways the broadcasts of the big name stations in 1928 or 1929 were of better audio quality than our modern overmodulated AM signals, but in the early 1920s that was not necessarily so.
I’m in the process of assembling a small (20 watt) transmitter of 1920 style. The intention is to more or less re-create the election return broadcast. This sort of thing was pretty commonly done for earlier anniversaries, but the big 100 appears to be fairly quiet, probably because AM Radio is no longer particularly relevant to much of our population. This antique signal will be demodulated using a quality modern receiver and live streamed, so that any collector who is so inclined may transmit it to his century old receiving set.
I wonder whether there would be any interest in this crowd? I know that 1920 is a little early for the Lounge.
