[BC] Another history question

[Donna Halper]

>>Barry wrote--
>
>         ... and then there was Herrold's station....
>
>         ... with no PR department.

Oh absolutely.  But most historians believe, and I am inclined to agree, 
that the post World War 1 era was in fact the era of modern broadcasting-- 
prior to 1917 (the government took everybody off the air in 1917, allegedly 
for security reasons), there were no particular rules about who was or was 
not a broadcaster.  People tried to broadcast, didn't try for months, went 
back and forth beween sending morse code and trying to play music, etc 
etc.  The government (Department of Commerce) thought radio was going to be 
no more than a fad and didn't pay a lot of attention till mid to late 1920, 
from what I have seen in the course of doing research.

In those pre-World War 1 years, certain amateurs, as we all know, 
definitely did some close approximations of modern broadcasting-- the best 
example is indeed Doc Herrold and his wife Sybil, who played phonograph 
records and took requests at their college station, on the campus of the 
Herrold College of Wireless in San Jose.  Several other college stations 
also did something close to commecial broadcasting, even keeping a 
semi-regular schedule, but these seem to have been the exceptions.  Then, 
after the war was over and interest in broadcasting increased, there was 
new emphasis placed on differentiating between amateur/ college stations 
and commercial broadcasting stations.  I agree that in 1919-20, the 
difference was pretty hard to figure, but by February of 1922, amateurs 
were forbidden to do broadcasts to a general audience, and that was 
that.  I am not sure Doc Herrold was back on the air yet in 1919-20.  He 
held amateur calls, as did various other people (Frank Conrad among them), 
but what became KQW didn't get back on the air till 1922, if I recall.