WQXR; WQXR History; WQXR.
- Collection
- WQXR
- Series
- WQXR History
- Episode
- WQXR.
- Contributing Organization
- WNYC (New York, New York)
- AAPB ID
- cpb-aacip/80-31qfvhtr
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- Episode Description
- Entry from: Jaker, Bill; Sulek, Frank; Kanze, Peter. _The airwaves of New York_ : Illisutrated histories of 156 AM stattions in the metropolitan area, 1921-1996. Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland, 1998.
- Description
- 169 THE METROPOLITAN AM RADIO STATIONS WQXR (W2XR, 26 MARCH 1929-6 DECEMBER 1936) (WQXR, 6 DECEMBER 1936-DECEMBER 1992) 1929 2100kc and 1550kc (W2XR) 50w. 1934 1550kc 250w. 1936 1550kc (WQXR) l,000w. 1941 1560kc 10,000w. 1956 1560kc 50,000w. Of the many individuals who labored to develop radio, one in particular had a decisive impact on both technology and programmingthat is, on both the science and the art of broadcasting. John V. L. Hogan began his career as a teenage assistant to Dr. Lee De Forest. Hogan's father was one of De Forest's backers; young Jack got a job in return for the financial support and thus had a hand in radiotelephone experiments as early as 1908. Another of Hogan's tasks in 1908 was the installation of a receiving station atop the New York Times building. In 1910 Hogan managed the experimental transatlantic station built by wireless telephony pioneer Reginald Fessenden at Brant Rock, Mass. Hogan's most important technical innovation was combining variable capacitors on a shaft to create "single-dial control," freeing listeners from the need to adjust each stage of tuning. Hogan also invented the detector-heterodyne circuit and an improved antenna, all of which made radio easy to use and enjoy. He pursued many experiments in his Radio Inventions Laboratory at 140 Nassau Street in Manhattan and later at 31-04 Northern Boulevard, above a Ford garage in Long Island Citypeople using the wrong door often walked in looking for the parts department. By the late 1920s, Hogan had joined the parade of technical experts and tinkerers trying to send mechanically scanned images through the air. Radio Pictures Inc. received a license in 1929 for an experimental "visual broadcasting station" with the call sign W2XR, the number signifying the Second Call Zone (New York and New lersey) and the letter X indicating an experimental transmitter. Hogan's television and facsimile pictures were broadcast at frequencies of 2100kc and above. In 1933, the Radio Commission authorized double-wide 20kc channels at 1530, 1550, and 1570 kilocycles, just past the top of the broadcast band at that time. Hogan decided to accompany his television pictures with classical records on 1550kc. Classical music, live and recorded, was already heard on the radio, but W2XR seemed to have a broader selection as well as superior audio. Many of the better radios could tune the frequency, and Hogan began to win an audience unaware of, or uninterested in, video. The fruitless TV experiments were soon abandoned in favor of achieving high-fidelity audio transmission. This would evolve into one of the nation's premier classical music stations, and make WQXR the only radio station in New York to have begun life on television. Hogan and engineer Al Barber got special transcriptions from Western Electric and World Broadcasting Company. Each transcription disk carried an indication of which filter to use, so two "extended range" turntables were modified with equalizing filters. A small studio was equipped with Brush crystal microphones. Hogan's secretary, Arthur Huntington, was the first announcer and pianist. Starting in July 1934, W2XR was on the air a few hours each day. The antenna was on the roof of the Ford garage. Even during its experimental period, the "Scientific Broadcasting Station" took itself seriously. W2XR published a program guide and solicited listeners' reports on its technical tests, including such details as the proper balance between a speaker's voice and the background music. Hogan even designed a special radio to receive W2XR, though few were manufactured. W2XR-Friday, 11 September 1936 10:00 A.M. Morning Musicale 10:45 Press Radio News 10:50 Behind the Front Page 11:15 Musical Varieties Off at 12:00 noon 5:00 P.M. Dance Music 5:30 The Monitor Views the News 5:45 Light Classics 6:45 Press Radio News 6:50 Piano Classics 7:00 HaydnSymphony No. 4, GlazounovViolin Concerto 8:00 Chamber Music: Dvorak, Mendelssohn, Brahms WQXR 170 In 1936, Hogan joined with publicist Elliott Sanger to form the Interstate Broadcasting Company and turn W2XR into a commercial operation. At that time the organization had only six employees. Their hope was to attract advertisers to a "quality audience," delivering messages consistent with the sound of Bach or Schubert. This required the station to be selective in its choice of sponsorsa curious commercial twist. On Thursday, 3 December 1936, W2XR became WQXR, the new call letters chosen to resemble the old. The station succeeded. Yet Elliott Sanger wrote in his book Rebel in Radio, "It is literally true that we rejected enough advertising to run another station profitably." Making a serious effort to avoid the obnoxious, WQXR earned a niche as "the radio station for people who hate radio" (a slogan others in the industry found offensive). Since WQXR was a commercial venture beyond the range of many radio receivers, early in 1937 Hogan sent engineers Russell Valentine and Bob Cobaugh to visit businesses in the Long Island City area and charge a dollar to adjust sets whose dials stopped short of 1550 kilocycles. With its new upscale commercial status, WQXR moved its studio from Long Island City to 730 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. But the lab remained busy, working to extend radio's audio range to 30-16,000 cycles (double the capability of most transmitters of the time) and improving on such devices as the phonograph pickup. On 1 September 1938, WQXR broadcast the first tape-recorded program heard in American radio, act one of Carmen, recorded in London. The "Millerfilm" process had been used in Europe and utilized 7-mm. tape engraved by a sapphire stylus. The device never caught on but did demonstrate WQXR's openness to technical innovation. Nearly all the equipment at WQXR during its first decade and a half, including the transmitters that progressed from 50 to 10,000 watts, was built in the Long Island City shop by "Val" Valentine, working for Hogan's firm, Radio Inventions Inc. With each advance in output quality, Valentine would look over the rest of the station to see what could still be improved, down to the switches on the audio-control board. So it was obvious to WQXR staff and listeners that "standard broadcast" sound had physical limitations. When an amazing new form of radio transmission was demonstrated to the press and public on 18 July 1939, it was fitting that Edwin Howard Armstrong's frequency modulation was modulating WQXR's audio. On 26 November 1939, W2XQR began broadcasting on FM at 42.3 megacycles. The next day it presented a special concert by the NBC Symphony. It then became W59NY at 45.9Mc. The transmitter was moved from Long Island City in December 1941 to the fifty-fourth floor of the Chanin Building at Lexington and Forty-second streets. W59NY was changed to WQXQ and in 1945 made the switch to the new FM band at 97.7Mc. WQXR's schedule also embraced a number of nonmusical programs, including "Author Meets the Critics" and regular poetry broadcasts. The great radio writer Norman Corwin produced his first work in New York on WQXR, a 1937-38 series called "Poetic License." Some of the earliest news programs were prepared by the respected Christian Science Monitor. In the package with the Monitor broadcasts was Rex Keith Benware, an early WHN announcer who had had a brief career in western movies and became one of the most familiar voices on WQXR. In the early 1940s, the New York Post negotiated to buy WQXR, an offer Elliott Sanger said he wished had come from the Times. As a result of his offhand lament the Times soon made a $1 million offer to Hogan and Sanger, and on 25 July 1944 the city's most prestigious paper took control of the Interstate Broadcasting Company, keeping the existing staff and management. It seemed like a natural arrangement, although some staffers would miss the days when Elliot and Eleanor Sanger had run WQXR as a "mom and pop" operation. There was also one immediate and serious complication. Since December 1941, the Times had been providing news to WMCA, which refused to terminate the contract. So "The Radio Station of the New York Times" did n
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WNYC-FM
Identifier: 71560.1 (WNYC Media Archive Label)
Format: application/pdf
Color: B&W
Duration: 4 p.
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WNYC-FM
Identifier: 71560.2 (WNYC Media Archive Label)
Format: application/pdf
Color: B&W
Duration: 3 p.
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- Citations
- Chicago: “WQXR; WQXR History; WQXR.,” WNYC, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed April 26, 2025, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-80-31qfvhtr.
- MLA: “WQXR; WQXR History; WQXR..” WNYC, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. April 26, 2025. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-80-31qfvhtr>.
- APA: WQXR; WQXR History; WQXR.. Boston, MA: WNYC, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-80-31qfvhtr