Steve and this Steve were both right. KYW originally moved from Chicago to
Philly in 1933. IN the 1950's, they swapped calls with Cleveland, but recovered
KYW in 1965. A link with history of the station is at:
http://www.broadcastpioneers.com/kywstory.html
In June 1924, the KYW frequency was changed to 1020 kc and the results were
disastrous. In many places in Chicago, the KYW signal could not be received,
fortunately the station was permitted to change back to a lower frequency, 570
kc.
In 1925 KYW moved to the roof of the Congress Hotel and a high powered (20 Kw)
transmitter was installed. This was the first water cooled transmitter in the
mid-west area.
In 1923, Westinghouse had installed a transmitter with call letters KFKX in
Hasting, Nebraska to relay KDKA programs and also to originate some programs for
the local area. In 1927, KFKX operations in Hastings were discontinued and the
license moved to Chicago where KYW and KFKX shared time. (The move of KFKX to
Chicago was made in anticipation of the upcoming 1928 frequency reallocation).
Finally the Commission is effect said "quit kidding yourselves, which license do
you want?" So the KFKX license was deleted.
In the November 11, 1928 frequency reallocation, KYW was again assigned to 1020
kc with the same disastrous effect on the station's coverage in Chicago.
To improve coverage in the Chicago area, a 500 watt synchronized booster station
KYWA was installed on the roof of the Edgewater Beach Hotel. This improved
the coverage in the North Side area but did not help the main problem so plans
were made to move KYW to a new site out in the country, near Wheaton, Illinois,
and at the same time the studios were moved to the Strauss Building and
arrangements made for the Chicago Herald and Examiner to take over the program
and sales operations of the station.
The 1020 kc frequency assigned to KYW in the 1928 frequency reallocation had
been, in the Davis amendment (the Davis amendment divided the country into five
zones with all available broadcast frequencies divided equally among the five
zones) assigned to the third zone, as well as new applicants applied for the
1020 kc frequency creating an almost continuous legal battle for KYW to protect
its frequency assignment.
Finally, in 1932, KYW applied to the Commission to move to Philadelphia. The
application was granted on October 27, 1933 for the facilities at this site.
The new KYW transmitter for the Whitemarsh location was the first all AC
operated high powered transmitter, no rotating equipment except water pumps for
circulating cooling water for the power tubes (now even the power tubes are air
cooled). The antenna, a four tower array consisting of steel poles mounted
on wood sub-bases was the first directional antenna designed to suppress
sky-wave radiation while providing the required horizontal directional pattern.
As part of the move of KYW from Chicago to Philadelphia, arrangements had been
for WCAU personnel to handle the program and sales operations of KYW and
for Westinghouse personnel to take care of all technical operations. The KYW
studios were located in the WCAU building on Chestnut Street. I worked with
Jack Leitch, then Chief Engineer of WCAU on the layout and design of the studios
for KYW. Jack was certainly a fine man to work with during the daytime
but it was awfully tough trying to keep up with him at night.
In May, 1938, KYW studios were moved into the KYW Building at 1619 Walnut Street
and NBC took over the programming and sales operations. This arrangement
with NBC continued until July, 1940 when Westinghouse resumed the programming
and sales operations of all the Westinghouse stations.
About the move out of the WCAU Building, some KYW personnel commented that KYW
had gotten a divorce from WCAU on the ground of incompatibility.
On January 16, 1941, the power of KYW was increased from 10 kw to 50 kw and
March 29, 1941 there was a frequency reallocation in which KYW's frequency was
changed from 1020 kc to 1060 kc.
In 1949, the present directional antenna system consisting of two IDECO 450 foot
steel towers which had better radiation efficiency than the shorter steel
poles, was installed.
In January, 1956, Westinghouse and the National Broadcasting Company swapped
their Philadelphia and Cleveland stations and KYW moved to Cleveland. On June
19, 1965, by action of the Department of Justice and by order of the Federal
Communications Commission, the swap was reversed and KYW moved back to
Philadelphia
where we still are.
In 1965, KYW changed its programming to a 24 hour all news operation which, in a
way, would be repeating the very successful 1922 "World Crier" news operation
but on a much more highly sophisticated basis.
Steve, K8SP
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