On April 12, 1922, Houston’s first radio station, WEV, broadcast weather, market and crop reports on 485 meters, roughly 619 kilocycles/kilohertz, at 10:00 am. Here, like elsewhere, there had been experimentation by amateur, special amateur and commercial land station operators prior to this time, but this was the first transmission by a licensed broadcasting station in Houston. The service was to air twice a day, at 10am and 5:30pm, and would include road conditions as necessary since most roads weren’t paved and weather ‘bulletins’ as necessary.
Within days the station also started regular programming of ‘music, speeches and other entertainments’ on 360 meters, roughly 833 kilocycles/kilohertz. Those were the two frequencies that had been set aside by the Navigation Bureau of the Commerce Department for broadcast radiotelephony as opposed to point-to-point communications and those were the activities early broadcasters were licensed for nationwide. Everything on 485 meters had to come from official government sources; everything on 360 meters had to be performed live. A typical broadcast day might only last 30 minutes or so.
WEV was owned by the Hurlburt-Still Electrical Co. and operated from their automobile battery service garage on the northeast corner of McKinney Avenue at San Jacinto Street in downtown Houston, where One Houston Center now stands. B.J. ‘Ben’ Still, a partner in Hurlburt-Still, was General Manager of Houston’s first radio station. The license had been issued on March 23. It was the 4th broadcasting station licensed in Texas and 108th nationwide. With 200 watts of power the Houston Press said it was the most powerful station south of Kansas City. Just days earlier, the paper had headlined that Houston was ‘Wild over Wireless’ and receiving sets were sold out at the two local merchants that carried them. All three papers were running serial articles on how to build your own crystal set or one-tube superheterodyne receiver, antenna and battery.
Within 5 weeks of WEV’s launch a second station would receive a license and be on the air and the Houston Post would be sponsoring concerts on both of them 7 days a week. By the end of the year, 8 stations would receive licenses in Houston, 2 in Galveston; 6 would have actually made it on the air while 2 would already be deleted. The era of broadcasting had arrived.<P ID="signature">______________
'But have you ever heard music on a crystal set? That's the sweetest music ever broadcast.' Alfred P. Daniel, Houston radio pioneer, in an interview in 1948.</P>
Within days the station also started regular programming of ‘music, speeches and other entertainments’ on 360 meters, roughly 833 kilocycles/kilohertz. Those were the two frequencies that had been set aside by the Navigation Bureau of the Commerce Department for broadcast radiotelephony as opposed to point-to-point communications and those were the activities early broadcasters were licensed for nationwide. Everything on 485 meters had to come from official government sources; everything on 360 meters had to be performed live. A typical broadcast day might only last 30 minutes or so.
WEV was owned by the Hurlburt-Still Electrical Co. and operated from their automobile battery service garage on the northeast corner of McKinney Avenue at San Jacinto Street in downtown Houston, where One Houston Center now stands. B.J. ‘Ben’ Still, a partner in Hurlburt-Still, was General Manager of Houston’s first radio station. The license had been issued on March 23. It was the 4th broadcasting station licensed in Texas and 108th nationwide. With 200 watts of power the Houston Press said it was the most powerful station south of Kansas City. Just days earlier, the paper had headlined that Houston was ‘Wild over Wireless’ and receiving sets were sold out at the two local merchants that carried them. All three papers were running serial articles on how to build your own crystal set or one-tube superheterodyne receiver, antenna and battery.
Within 5 weeks of WEV’s launch a second station would receive a license and be on the air and the Houston Post would be sponsoring concerts on both of them 7 days a week. By the end of the year, 8 stations would receive licenses in Houston, 2 in Galveston; 6 would have actually made it on the air while 2 would already be deleted. The era of broadcasting had arrived.<P ID="signature">______________
'But have you ever heard music on a crystal set? That's the sweetest music ever broadcast.' Alfred P. Daniel, Houston radio pioneer, in an interview in 1948.</P>