Early radio, television broadcast stations in Maine, the history lesson.
In the beginning Maine news spread by neatly folded bundles of papers. Everything was black and white with a crease to open wide and read read read. Top to bottom. Side to side. The news print reporting happening weekly, maybe daily. The news and information always delivered in small intermittent installments.
Radio broadcasting started with crystal sets and eventually changed all that.
I remember my Dad sharing tales about his childhood experimenting with radio sets and searching for air wave broadcasts.
Experimenting with early radio receivers overhead the milk house on the Aroostook County Maine farm.
Building radio sets, learning about the antennae array that worked best for shortwave radio frequency reception. I developed the same fascination with certain combinations of signal frequencies, power and antennae height. And how they all affect the broadcast radiation output and reception of AM, FM and TV signals in Maine.
By the 1920’s, fifteen Maine radio stations went on the air.
By the end of the decade only three in the group remained live and broadcasting a signal. Auburn Maine radio station WMB was the first in the state. At the time, nationwide, only twenty four federally licensed radio stations broadcast over the not so well regulated pioneer airwaves.
Early radio broadcasts in Maine came before television.
Had to transmit the latest government reports, weather forecasts, farm crop prices across the state and nation. Local doctors providing tips on better health happened too. Making house calls over the Maine transmitter frequency airwaves. Local Maine bankers would share the importance of thrift. Area music community orchestras would provide live programming for early broadcasts.
No tape recorders, no CD burners or other hard drive devices were available for programming early Maine broadcasting.
78 RPM records could be cued up. Storage “save it for later” broadcast options just were not around to be later broadcast transmitted as prerecorded events. It was live, on a record and that’s all she wrote. Live and local without editing options meant here you go. Ready or not, like it or not. Take it or leave it. Not Hi Fi, not digital and crystal clear but static, pops, drop outs as the frequency signal drifted in and out depending on the weather.
Broadcasting was not so polished and anything goes transmitting the live radio broadcast programing in Maine happened.
Licensed to the Androscoggin Electrical Company in 1922, Maine’s first radio station WMB broadcast baseball scores.
Pretty much the correct time and local news happenings only went out over the airwaves. Live and local and limited. Early radio broadcasters in Maine not allowed to sell advertising or play records in the beginning. The radio transmitter broadcasts were nightly. The frequency signals dark and stations off air during the day. It was hit or miss catching a broadcast with so few and the lots of “dead air”. (more…)