KDKA in Photographs: From a Garage Station to the Radio Studio

Conrad’s amateur station 8XK grew out of workshop experimentation. The photograph is identified as showing his equipment in July 1920; the source used for this reproduction is a 1958 magazine. Keeping those dates separate prevents a later publication date from becoming the date of the scene.

A small room holds the announcer and receiving operators. This photograph was published in a 1922 guide to radio and is cataloged as an early KDKA transmission room, circa 1921. It belongs to the station’s first years, rather than serving as proof of who stood where on election night.

A magazine announced this new studio at the Westinghouse main works in December 1922. The photograph records an expanding operation with a continuing schedule. By then the station’s purpose extended well beyond a single night’s election returns, and its working environment was developing with it.

The newspaper caption identifies Pirates manager Bill McKechnie singing at KDKA shortly after his team won the National League pennant. Radio brought familiar local figures into a different setting. This was a studio appearance, not a photograph of a play-by-play broadcast from the ballpark.

Fred C. Reed poses with the microphone at the Smithsonian in 1938. The museum identifies it as the instrument used for the November 2, 1920 election bulletins. The photograph documents its preservation eighteen years later; the object’s age and the photograph’s date are different pieces of information.

The roadside marker points back to Conrad’s experimental station and the broadcasting venture that followed. This is a modern photograph of commemoration, included at the end of the sequence. It is evidence of how the episode is remembered locally, not a surviving view of the 1920 workshop.