Grove City College
A CENTURY ‘ON AIR’
First broadcast made Grove City College a pioneer in radio By Nick Hildebrand
This spring marks the 100th anniversary of a major event in Grove City College’s history: the birth of College radio and its first broadcast. At the time, radio was in its infancy. Experiments in “radio telephony,” had been going on since the early days of the 20th century. Grove City College professor Dr. Herbert Harmon, chair of the Physics Department, had been working in the field since 1911. His work on radio transmitting and receiving was recognized as significant – he won $100 in gold for his design of “a practical radiophone for the amateur” in 1919 – and helped lay the groundwork for later advances and the eventual commercialization of the medium. “Harmon’s early research and experimentation, conducted in the old 30 | w w w. g c c.e d u t h e G ēD UNK
Grove City High School that was across the street from lower campus, made possible some of the earliest advancements in audio transmission, i.e. ‘radio telephony,’ and earned him a spot as a pioneer in broadcasting,” Darren Morton, director of Broadcasting and Audio Support Systems and director and engineer for WSAJ Radio, said. Harmon was experimenting with transmissions as early as 1914 before the government shut down all civilian radio stations during World War I. After the hostilities ended, Harmon secured an experimental call sign – 8YV – on Dec. 1, 1918, and made his first experimental transmission on July 25, 1919. Less than a year later, on April 26, 1920, the station that would become “The One” broadcast a speech by then-President Weir C. Ketler to the New
Castle Rotary Club, 20 miles from campus. At the time, it was a technological wonder and significant development in regional broadcasting. It would be months before KDKA, the “first” commercial radio station in the country, was established and the transmission to New Castle became part of Grove City College lore, with many contending that the College had “the first station on air in the country.” That claim is very hard to prove since the early history of radio is sketchy and verifiable “firsts” are elusive. “There were numerous colleges as well as the military who had been issued experimental call signs and subsequently experimented with radio telephony dating back to 1911,” according to Morton. There is even a verified story of a land-based operator