Re: radio in '22/WLAN

[Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com>]

Cooper wrote:
>I am curious to know if anyone knows of a WLAN?  It
>was a station put on the air in Houlton Maine back in
>September 1922.

As most local stations were, WLAN (whose call letters were issued 
sequentially, after WLAG, WLAH, WLAI, WLAJ, WLAK, and WLAM) was owned by a 
small local business-- in this case, Putnam Hardware.  It was very common 
for so-called electric shops and hardware stores to open stations in 
1922-3, since people were still building their own sets and these stores 
had the components necessary. Radio stations were very expensive to 
operate, however, and the small shops quickly got out of the radio biz as a 
result.