Night of the Living Radio Radio Club panel
Title
Night of the Living Radio Radio Club panel
Transcript
The first broadcasts of the Radio Club consisted of sending transmissions in Morse code and streaming phonograph records, and soon after it began broadcasting campus events such as athletic games and dances. Call letters were changed to W2XBN for a few years and changed to W2GSB in 1932.(11) The Radio Club engaged in famous historic events, such as, on May 6, 1921, a live broadcast from an antenna rigged up to a baby carriage and wheeled through downtown Schenectady. This was quite possibly the world’s first portable broadcast receiver.(12)
Broadcasts at the time included campus events and services, including the first broadcast of an athletic event - a football game between Union and Hobart on November 13, 1920.(13) The Radio Club’s activities moved again toward experimental, short-wave transmissions for a period from 1923 to the 1940s, when it resumed programmed broadcasts.(14)
By 1922, the college was granted a license for the call letters WRL, while 2XQ was retained for Morse code transmissions and experimentation.(15) WRL broadcast experimental educational programs weekly until WGY, the station of General Electric, went on the air. Opting not to compete with General Electric, the College did not renew its license for WRL.(16) It is thought that, during the 1930s, some of the transmissions were broadcast via WGY.(17)