New England radio dial, 1923

[Donna Halper]

On 12/11/2015 11:46 AM, Dave Doherty wrote:
> There were a lot of shared-time arrangements way back in the early days.
> I'll bet that's what was happening in Providence.
>    
And that happened in other cities too.  But let's remember that in early 
1923, few stations were on the air for more than a couple of hours at a 
time -- in fact, most only kept a 3 or 4 night a week schedule.  There 
were indeed share-time arrangements, and magazines of that era listed 
what hours a station might be on the air. Bigger stations like WBZ and 
KDKA were on the air more hours (and more days of the week)-- and even 
little WGI (formerly 1XE) was on a pretty regular schedule by then, but 
it too was still on for just a couple of hours a night.  So while 833 
kilocycles was indeed crowded, not all of those stations were on the air 
on a regular basis.  It wasn't till later in 1923-1924 that regular 
schedules and daytime broadcasts became the norm, and the Department of 
Commerce also opened up more places on the AM dial to accommodate the 
growing number of stations.