Editing History of radio (section)

== Licensed commercial public radio stations ==
[[File:Brox (Sisters) LCCN2014717186.jpg|thumb|Around 1920, radio broadcasting started to get popular. The [[Brox Sisters]], a popular singing group, gathered around the radio at the time.]]
The question of the 'first' publicly targeted licensed radio station in the U.S. has more than one answer and depends on semantics. Settlement of this 'first' question may hang largely upon what constitutes 'regular' programming
* It is commonly attributed to [[KDKA (AM)|KDKA]] in [[Pittsburgh]], [[Pennsylvania]], which in October 1920 received its license and went on the air as the first US licensed commercial broadcasting station on November 2, 1920, with the presidential election results as its inaugural show, but was not broadcasting daily until 1921. (Their engineer [[Frank Conrad]] had been broadcasting from on the two call sign signals of 8XK and 8YK since 1916.) Technically, KDKA was the first of several already-extant stations to receive a 'limited commercial' license.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Pennsylvania Center for the Book – KDKA|url=http://pabook2.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/KDKA.html|website=pabook2.libraries.psu.edu|access-date=2020-05-28|archive-date=2020-08-01|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200801143557/http://pabook2.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/KDKA.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>
* On February 17, 1919, station 9XM at the [[University of Wisconsin–Madison|University of Wisconsin]] in [[Madison, Wisconsin|Madison]] broadcast human speech to the public at large. 9XM was first experimentally licensed in 1914, began regular [[Morse code]] transmissions in 1916, and its first music broadcast in 1917. Regularly scheduled broadcasts of voice and music began in January 1921. That station is still on the air today as [[WHA (AM)|WHA]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Sterling|first=Christopher|title=The Concise Encyclopedia of American Radio|publisher=Sterling|year=2009|isbn=978-0415995337|page=847}}</ref>
* On August 20, 1920, 8MK, began broadcasting daily and was later claimed by famed inventor [[Lee de Forest]] as the first commercial station. 8MK was licensed to a teenager, Michael DeLisle Lyons, and financed by [[E. W. Scripps]]. In 1921 8MK changed to WBL and then to [[WWJ (AM)|WWJ]] in 1922, in [[Detroit]]. It has carried a regular schedule of programming to the present and also broadcast the 1920 presidential election returns just as KDKA did.<ref>''A Tower in Babel'' by Eric Barnouw, 1966, pp. 62–64</ref>  Inventor Lee de Forest claims to have been present during 8MK's earliest broadcasts, since the station was using a transmitter sold by his company.<ref>Larry Wolters, "Radio Illusions Dispelled By DeForest."  ''Chicago Tribune'', 13 September 1936, p. SW 7</ref>
* The first station to receive a commercial license was [[WBZ (AM)|WBZ]], then in [[Springfield, Massachusetts]].  Lists provided to the ''[[Boston Globe]]'' by the [[U.S. Department of Commerce]] showed that WBZ received its commercial license on 15 September 1921; another Westinghouse station, [[WABC (AM)|WJZ]], then in [[Newark, New Jersey]], received its commercial license on November 7, the same day as KDKA did.<ref>"Radio's Anniversary," ''Boston Globe'', 30 September 1928, p. B27.</ref> What separates WJZ and WBZ from KDKA is the fact that neither of the former stations remain in their original city of license, whereas KDKA has remained in Pittsburgh for its entire existence.
* [[2XG]]: Launched by Lee de Forest in the [[High Bridge (New York City)|Highbridge]] section of New York City, that station began daily broadcasts in 1916.<ref>{{cite web|title=Highbridge Station Reports (1917)|url=https://earlyradiohistory.us/1917df.htm|work=earlyradiohistory.us}}</ref> Like most experimental radio stations, however, it had to go off the air when the U.S. entered World War I in 1917, and did not return to the air.
* [[WGI (radio station)|1XE]]: Launched by Harold J. Power in [[Medford, Massachusetts]], 1XE was an experimental station that started broadcasting in 1917. It had to go off the air during World War I, but started up again after the war, and began regular voice and music broadcasts in 1919.  However, the station did not receive its commercial license, becoming [[WGI (radio station)|WGI]], until 1922.<ref>{{cite web|title=The Rise and Fall of WGI|url=http://www.bostonradio.org/essays/wgi.html|author=Donna L. Halper|date=2001-01-02|work=The Boston Radio Archives (bostonradio.org)}}</ref>
* [[WWV (radio station)|WWV]], the U.S. Government time service, which was believed to have started 6 months before KDKA in Washington, D.C. but in 1966 was transferred to Ft. Collins, Colorado.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=NIST Time and Frequency Division History|url=https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/time-services/nist-time-and-frequency-division-history|last=lombardi|date=2010-05-11|journal=NIST|language=en|access-date=2020-05-28}}</ref>
* [[WRUC]], the Wireless Radio Union College, located on [[Union College]] in [[Schenectady, New York]]; was launched as W2XQ <ref>{{Cite web|url=https://libguides.union.edu/ArchivesandSpecialCollections/WRUC|title=Subject Research, Course Guides, Documentation: Archives & Special Collections: WRUC (Union College Radio Station)|first=Sarah|last=Schmidt|website=libguides.union.edu|access-date=2020-05-28|archive-date=2020-08-01|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200801143726/https://libguides.union.edu/ArchivesandSpecialCollections/WRUC|url-status=dead}}</ref>
* [[KQV]], one of Pittsburgh's five original AM stations, signed on as amateur station "8ZAE" on November 19, 1919, but did not receive a commercial license until January 9, 1922.