Broadcasts with no purpose other than entertainment were made by a Dutch station. PCGG, which could be picked up in many parts of Britain despite technical eccentricities that prevented its use for calibration purposes. The station was run by Hans Idzerda to promote sales of his company’s crystal sets and components, and from April 1920 it radiated regular concerts on Sunday afternoons and on Monday and Thursday evenings, with the Dutch announcements repeated in French and English.

Down in the West 1920

In the permissive climate of the United States broadcasting had already begun. An engineer at Westinghouse’s Pittsburgh plant, Dr Frank Conrad, operated an amateur transmitter in is garage, would sometimes leave a phonograph playing in front of the microphone while he made adjustments. Other amateurs wrote asking for more, and he began regular recitals.

This far the story could equally well have taken place in Britain, but only this far. On 29 September 1920 a local department store advertised receivers to pick up Conrad’s ‘ Air Concerts’ and sold out its stock in two weeks, whereupon Westinghouse’s vice-president, Harry P Davis, encouraged Conrad to build for the Company a larger transmitter, which was allocated the callsign KDKA. At the same time, receivers capable of being operated by the non-technical were designed and built.

On 2 November, within weeks of the department Store’s advertisement, KDKA began broadcasting, giving the results of the presidential election, and entered history alongside the Dutch station PCGG. each claimed by its supporters to have been the world’s first non-experimental broadcasting station.

The Marconi Company can lay claim to achievements equally important on a world scale. Not only did it transmit the first live professional music recital from its New Street works on 15 June 1920 by Dame Nellie Melba. Britain’s first advertised public broadcast programme, but it also took the lead in founding the consortium of manufacturing interests that developed into the publicly-funded BBC, setting world Standards in public service broadcasting to this day. Though their overt purpose remained the promotion of radio telephony for point to point communication, it is safe to assume that at this time Arthur Burrows now Marconi’s Publicity Manager, was not the only person in the company with a vision of broadcasting.

30 July 1920 Lauritz Melchior (below) the Danish tenor broadcast from New Street works. In January 1920, a powerful telephony transmitter had been put into operation, and in Febuary 1920 the world’s first wireless telephony news service was inaugurated.

Throughout 1921 Britain lay under the
Post Office’s almost total ban on radio-
telephony broadcasts.

Post Office closed the Chelmsford
transmitter; it was said to cause interference.

The spring of 1922 brought a dramatic
change in official attitude, when public
opinion forced the Postmaster General
to reconsider, the company was granted
a licence for regular, albeit restricted, live
broadcasting, under the auspices of the
Radio Society of Great Britain.

On 14 Febuary 1922, the new station,
call sign 2MT was launched from an ex-
army hut beside the company,s laboratories
at Writtle near Chelmsford.

The presenter, producer, actor-manager and writer was P. P. Eckersley, a company engineer. Using the phonetic language of the armed services, he announced;“ This is Two Emma Toc, Writtle testing, Writtle testing”, becoming in short time Britain’s first radio star. He was also, however, a serious engineer, and had joined the Marconi company after taking a degree, doing an industrial apprenticeship and serving in the Royal Flying Corps.

The company also persuaded the Post
Office to grant a second licence,
allowing broadcast for an hour a day in
London from the roof of Marconi House,
using the call-sign 2L0. Run by Arthur
Burrows and using a transmitter of 100
watts designed by H.J. Round. This
opened in May 1922 and with its sober,
self conscious style of presentation, was
mocked by Eckersley for taking itself too
seriously.

Arthur Burrows describes how when the
station ‘2LO’ began, he was with Marconi
Wireless Telegraph Company. Marconi was
anxious to obtain British Government views
and permission to establish broadcasting
stations in the UK as in America.
The government however were cautious.
An experimental service containing no
music was eventually agreed.

In June 1922, however, ‘2LO’ was
permitted to radiate its first concert and
Stanton Jefferies was given charge of
musical programmes. Occasional
broadcasts took place from Marconi House
with an initial range of 30/40 miles. Later
on the range was increased and the
broadcasts reached an audience of 30.000.

Spring 1922
Company sets up Marconiphone Dept
11 May 2LO goes on air
15 November 2ZY opens Manchester
16 November 51T opens Birmingham

Within a week of 2LO’s launch in May
1922 the Postmaster General intervened.
His desk was strewn with applications for licences to broadcast and his advice to manufacturers of wireless equipment was to
form a single consortium.

In mid-October, agreement was reached between the Post Office and the ‘big six’
manufacturers-led by the Marconi
company which would be paid royalties for
use of its patents and was to provide six of
the first eight transmitters.

The consortium would be called the British
Broadcasting Company, which would invite smaller businesses in the industry to become shareholding members, paying it a tariff on every receiver they sold. Of each listener’s annual licence fee of 10 shillings, the BBC would also receive 50 per cent. Its operating licence would run until the end of 1926.

J.C.W Reith

By mid December 1922- when It appointed its first general manager, John Reith, to head its headquarters staff of four- the BBC had taken over the 2LO transmitter and opened stations in Manchester and Birmingham. Construction of further regional stations was supervised by P.P.Eckersley, who joined as chief engineer when 2MT closed a month later.

By September 1924, the number of receiving licences had reached 400.000.

MARCONIPHONE & 2LO

After Eckersley went on the air in Febuary 1922, the numbers wanting to listen grew so fast that, the Company set up a department to supply them with ready-made valve and crystal sets under the, label ‘Marconiphone’.

Within a year Marconiphone and its sub-contractors were employing 1,500 people to meet the demand for receivers, mainly crystal sets.

‘ THE NEW 2LO ‘
Press release informs of the new 2LO station, replacing the one at Marconi House. It states that the initial 2LO station was a temporary station ‘installed at a time when the art of broadcasting was in its infancy’. with the creation of the BBC and the success of broadcasting a more powerful transmitter was needed. The new 2LO transmitter, which was installed in the Selfridges building rather than in Marconi House. was designed by Marconi engineers on behalf of the BBC.

The apparatus was based on the successful and established ‘Q’ type station. As well as the increased power of the apparatus and inclusion of ‘very latest improvements’, the station range would be increased through the use of larger Aerial, which was possible at the new location.

Accordingly, an experimental station, working on 1600 metres, was established in July 1924 at the Chelmsford works of the Marconi Company, the power being approximately 15 kW in aerial.

There was soon no doubt of the success of this experiment, and the Chelmsford Station was replaced in July 1925 by a permanent long-wave high-power station, known as 5XX, at Borough Hill, near Daventry. This station employed the same wave-length, with a power in the aerial of 25 kW.

In the meanwhile it had been decided to serve Northern Ireland by a ninth main station, working on medium wave and a power of 1 kW; this was situated in Belfast , and was opened in September 1924.

In April 1925, the London Station was moved from Marconi House to the roof of Selfridge's store in Oxford Street , and the power increased to 2 kW.

Thus at the end of 1925 the service was given by eight main stations of 1 kW, and one of 2 kW, eleven relay stations of approximately .12 kW, and a long wave high-power station of 25 kW.

On May 1 st 1923 , the British Broadcasting Company moved its 2LO studio to new premises a few hundred yards away at the Institute of Electrical Engineers ' building in Savoy Hill, while the original transmitter and aerial were kept in position at the top of Marconi House with a Post Office line connecting the two buildings. This move permitted the gradual construction of several additional studios at Savoy Hill and by the time these had been superseded by the new purpose-built Broadcasting House in May 1932, nine studios were completed the largest of which (the concert hall) measured 45ft. x 26ft.

By 1925 the Dance Band Days had arrived.

Up to November 1925 the only dance bands regularly broadcast from outside the studio were those from the Savoy Hotel on three days a week. Towards the end of 1925 it was considered that steps should be taken to introduce greater variety, with the result that in November of that year listeners were introduced by wireless to dance bands from the Kit Cat Club, the Midnight Follies at the Hotel Metropole, and the Carlton, Piccadilly, and the New Princes Hotels

Thereafter, fresh blood was introduced from the original six to the twelve or thirteen which are now heard (1928) In this period practically all well-known London Bands have been included, with Isham Jones (Kit-Cat-Club) and Lou Raderman (Embassy Club) as examples of American methods of the moment.

It may be interesting to listeners to know the names of these bands. They are Jay Whidden's ( Midnight Follies and Carlton Hotel); Ray Starita's, one of Jack Hylton's many bands (Ambassador Club); Teddy Brown's and the Lyricals (Café de Paris); Bert Firman's (Carlton Hotel);

Sidney Firman's (Cavour – before the days of the London Radio Dance Band);

Jack Payne's and the Cecilians (Hotel Cecil); Jean Lensen's and Debroy Somers', latterly with Ramon Newton conducting (Ciro's Club; Jack Howard's Leon Abbey's and Herman Darewski's (Convent Garden and Olympia); Ronnie Munro's (Florida Club); George Fisher's (Kit-Cat Restaurant); Kettner's Five (Kettner's); Ambros',s ( once of Embassy fame-now at the May Fair); Alfredo's and Hal Swain's (New Princes); Van Straten's and others (Riviera Club); Nat Lewin's (New .Verrey's); Frank Ashworth's (Park Lane); and of course, the Savoy Bands.

Apart from the Savoy Bands, an unbroken record of three years' broadcasting has been achieved by one band only- Alfredo's.

The year 1927 saw the passing of the old Savoy Bands, and the arrival in their place on the floor and in the ether of the Orpheans, under Reggie Batten, Elizalde, with his curious and interesting orchestrations, and new tango band.

Considering that dance music is relayed from places of entertainment where spirits are high, and that the microphone is, as it were, let loose in a ballroom, cases of members of the public having taken the opportunity of communicating with their listening friends have been almost negligible whereas in 1925 dance bands in general showed no particular keenness to broadcast , 1927 and 1928 saw a radical change, and there is now a long waiting list.

The broadcasting station at Writtle 1922.

2LO the transmitter at Marconi House - The Strand, London 1922.

5XX The Chelmsford high-power long-wave station, later moved to Daventry with increased power, this took over the 5XX call-sign and aquired the call-sign.

5GB Chelmsford continued to operate on high power but on the medium waveband and on experimental basis 1924.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE BROADCASTING TRANSMITTER

The original experimental transmitter at Marconi House   

The Chelmsford skyline with the New Street works and aerials visable

The Marconi Works at New Street were designed and erected in 1912 . It was built to replace the works at Hall Street, which had become inadequate for the needs of the growing Company. New Street was the first purpose-built radio factory in the world and ultimately became the Marconi Company headquarters.

The famous ex-army hut, was the location of the first regular public broadcast. The Company began a restricted service in February 1922. The station closed on 17 January 1923 with full honours.

1904. With the Wireless Telegraphy Act becoming law on August 15 th , the operation of British Wireless telegraphy stations on both land and sea was now subject to Post Office licence control.

1905. The first official printed licences for amateurs were issued by the Post Office. They were available free of charge to amateur enthusiasts wishing to conduct transmitting or receiving experiments in wireless telegraphy.

May 1913. The Post Office imposed a charge of £ 1.1s.0d on all new experimental licences in an attempt to dissuade non bona-fide experimenters from applying and also to cover the cost of administering the licence documents and inspecting domestic wireless installations. By then, there were 405 amateurs licensed to transmit, and 360 licensed to receive.

August 1 st 1914. With the imminent outbreak of World War One, the Post Master General ordered all experimental wireless apparatus to be dismantled and the aerial wires removed. No new wireless licences were issued until after the war.

July 5 th 1919. All amateur experimental licences issued before the war were cancelled.

October 21 st 1919. The ‘Experimenters Licence' was introduced at 10s.0d, a year for use with receiving apparatus only. Applicants had to be British nationality (and able to produce a birth certificate to that effect), were required to submit a description of the apparatus they proposed to install (plus a detailed circuit diagram if they wanted to use valves), and give the name of the manufacturer if they intended to use a completed factory-built receiver. Aerials were limited to 140ft s/s 100ft m/s.

August 1920. The transmitting license (below) was introduced for amateur experimenters.

November 1922. The ‘Broadcast Licence' was introduced at 10s.0. a year, some two weeks before official broadcasting commenced with the opening of the British Broadcasting Company's first station, 2LO London. Holders of the licence were legally bound to use it only in conjunction with British factory-built equipment which had been made by member firms of the British Broadcasting Company.

October 1923. The ‘Constructor's Licence was introduced at 15s.0. a year for amateurs wishing to construct their own receivers using British-made components only.

July 1924. The Constructor's Licence was abolished.

January 1925 The ‘Receiving Licence' was introduced at 10s.0 a year and all previous forms of licences were abolished.

Under this new licence, wireless receivers and valve amplifiers could be purchased from any manufacturer, and not solely from one who was a member of the BBC.

The new Brookman's Park Station is designed as a twin-wave station as such, and the requisite two transmitters are housed in the same building. The completion of the whole scheme will take some time owing to the necessity of accumulating funds from revenue. The London twin-wave transmitter started in service in the autumn of 1929 on a single-wave basis. At the time it was impossible to give a forecast of time taken for completion, but it is fair to give 2 1/2 years more before everything is as it is planned to be.

The Regional Stations of Daventry, London, and Manchester will cover 75 per cent, of the population of the British Isles with a service of alternative programmes. The Scottish Regional station based on Edinburgh and Glasgow

and the West Regional Station, based on Cardiff, Swansea and Bristol, cover the remaining 25 per cent.

David Hughes – who as early as 1879 actually built and demonstrated the world's first radio transmitter and receiver, parts of which are pictured.

And the great many, Physicists Scientists Amateurs Manufacturers and Others who contributed to radio as we know it today throughout the world.

Hughes was a Professor of Music but he was also very keen on telegraphy and science, and had several inventions to his credit including an efficient printing telegraph and the carbon microphone. While working in his laboratory, Hughes noticed that his microphone was picking up sounds from a faulty circuit in his induction balance while being completely unconnected to it by wires.

To investigate further, he made a simple automatic spark transmitter consisting of a battery, an induction coil and a clockwork breaker to interrupt the current passing through the coil and so send signals in short bursts.

Although he thought he was transmitting “aerial electric waves”. With his transmitter running, he was able to take his receiver consisting of a battery, a telephone earpiece and his microphone: a steel needle lightly touching a small piece of coke which acted as a detector, down Great Portland Street and receive good signals up to a distance of about 60 yards, after which they began to fade until at about 500 yards they disappeared altogether.