radio history

Root Electric Company at 127 East Cedar (now Broadway) was displaying the Grebe Synchophase radio receiver. The Dickinson Piano Company featured the Zenith Long Distance radio, capable of picking up broadcasts from “as far as 1,500 miles away.” Even the H. O. Bell auto dealership on South Higgins offered the Radiola, priced from “$35 to $425 with convenient terms, if desired.”

In December 1923, Waldemar Kaempffert, a “noted technical expert,” described the transition from the “the first timid experiments” with radio signals to the birth of the “broadcasting business.” That business created a whole new language and job descriptions. There were terms like “Broadcast Studio,” “Power Room” and “Master Clock,” and job titles like “Director of Broadcasting,” “Power Man” and “Announcer.”

December 23, 1950 was a pivotal day in my life, although I didn’t realize it at the time. I was only four years old. A radio station, KLCB (the “LCB” part standing for Lincoln County Broadcasting), signed on the air for the first time in my hometown of Libby.