[BC] call letters and what they stand for

[RON DOT'O SR.]

An interesting sidelight on KFWB:  

KFWB was the Warner Bros. station in LA with a full staff of engineers.  A very dear friend of mine, Cal Applegate, was one of the engineers.  He was a Pioneer Broadcast Engineer and started with WB around 1926.  One day the movie division called the radio division and told them to send a radio engineer over there as they were hatching a scheme to produce some "talkies" using transcription disks and a theater PA system, so they sent Cal and he became the first soundman on "The Jazz Singer" starring Al Jolson.
Back then they didn't get credits in the films like they do now so he's not listed on the film.  I have pictures of him with the original Rin Tin Tin on location.  Cal was a great engineer and a great man and I was very honored to know and work with him.  He passed away in August of '88 and I still miss him.

Cal was the inventor of the parabolic mic.  The first one was carved out of laminated walnut boards with a carbon mic mounted at the focal point and worked fine until they used it on stage.  They wanted it to look nice so they varnished the wood to a high sheen and the stage and spot lights reflected their heat to the focal point and burned up the mic.  It was then painted flat black and worked fine.

Ron Dot'o
Salem, OR.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Scott Fybush<mailto:scott at fybush.com> 
  To: Broadcast Radio Mailing List<mailto:broadcast at radiolists.net> 
  Sent: Friday, September 30, 2005 11:52
  Subject: Re: [BC] call letters and what they stand for


  At 09:19 AM 9/30/2005 -0500, you wrote:
  >WSBC---World Storage Battery Corp.  Same calls since 1928.  Except for 
  >WGN, longest running station with the same calls in Chicago.

  Not to knock WSBC's long and interesting history, but I'm looking at the 
  1925 Dept. of Commerce station list on Barry's oldradio.com site, and WBBM 
  was WBBM even then. (I want to say that those calls went into use in 1924, 
  but my WBBM history book is literally buried under two big piles of "stuff" 
  that I'm afraid to move over in the corner of the mess that used to be my 
  office...)

  WLS also goes back that far.

  But since the WMAQ calls disappeared from radio, I'd say WSBC is good for 
  #4, which is nothing to sneeze at! Heck, in New York City, once you get 
  past the four vintage calls that remain from the twenties (WMCA, WOR, WNYC 
  and WWRL), you're looking at nothing else that dates back earlier than the 
  forties (WPAT). Same for Los Angeles - KFI, KFWB, KNX are all vintage 
  twenties, with KHJ as an honorable mention, and the oldest call after those 
  has got to be KLAC, which went into use about 1950.

  s


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