WBZ & WBZA's Tribute Page

On September 15, 1921, Westinghouse was issued a Limited Commercial license^[10] with the randomly assigned call sign WBZ.^[11] The new station transmitted on a wavelength of 360 meters (833 kHz) with a power of 100 watts.^[12] It was located at the company's East Springfield facility on Page Boulevard. WBZ's inaugural program on September 19 was a remote broadcast originating from the Eastern States Exposition in West Springfield.^[13]

When WBZ began operations, there were no specific government standards for what constituted a broadcasting station. A small number of stations were already providing regularly scheduled entertainment broadcasts, most of which operated under Amateur or Experimental licenses. (A prime example was the American Radio & Research Corporation's experimental station, 1XE in Medford Hillside, Massachusetts near Boston, which was relicensed in early 1922 as WGI.) Effective December 1, 1921, the U.S. government formally established regulations to define a broadcasting station, by setting aside two wavelengths — 360 meters for entertainment, and 485 meters (619 kHz) for official weather and other government reports — and requiring the stations to hold a Limited Commercial license.^[14]

WBZ was one of a handful of stations which already met the new standard, and in fact its initial license had been the first Limited Commercial license that had specified broadcasting on the 360-meter wavelength that would be formally designated by the December 1st regulations. By some interpretations, this made WBZ America's first broadcasting station, and in 1923 the Department of Commerce, referring to WBZ, stated that "The first broadcasting license was issued in September, 1921".

By early 1922, WBZ's studios were set up at the luxurious Hotel Kimball in Metro Center Springfield.^[13] Programs consisted of general entertainment and information, including live music (often classical and opera), sports, farm reports, special events, and public affairs programming.^[13] Despite being housed in Springfield's top hotel, the station's location in a mid-sized city rendered it somewhat difficult to attract top-flight artists.^[12] That prompted Westinghouse to open a remote studio on February 24, 1924, at the Hotel Brunswick in Boston.^[13] WBZ expanded its news programming via a partnership with the Boston Herald and Traveler newspapers,^[13] and carried pro and college sports broadcasts, including Boston Bruins hockey, Boston Braves baseball, and Harvard Crimson football.^[13] Because of its wide reach, the station often referred to itself as "WBZ New England", as opposed to associating itself solely with Springfield or Boston.^[13]

WBZ increased its transmitter power to 2,000 watts by April 1925.^[18] But the station still had difficulty reaching Boston listeners.^[12] This led Westinghouse to inaugurate, on August 20, 1925, a 250-watt relay station, WBZA, located in Boston and transmitting on 1240 kHz.^[13][19] Efforts were soon made to change WBZA to a synchronous repeater, transmitting on the same frequency as WBZ, 900 kHz, but the process proved difficult, as the two transmitters often interfered with each other, even in Boston. For nearly a year, while the technology was being perfected, WBZA shifted between the two transmitting frequencies, before finally going to full-time synchronous operation in June 1926.^[12]

The power of the WBZ transmitter in East Springfield continued to be boosted. On March 31, 1926, it was granted permission to operate with 5,000 watts.^[19] By 1927, it was operating with 15,000 watts.^[20] Meanwhile, a combination of WBZ's growth and continued difficulties with the WBZA signal led the station to move its Boston studio to the Statler Hotel (now the Boston Park Plaza) on June 1, 1927,^[19] and activate a new WBZA transmitter on June 9.^[13] On November 11, 1928, under the provisions of the Federal Radio Commission's (FRC) General Order 40, WBZ and WBZA were assigned exclusive national use of a "clear channel" frequency, 990 kHz.^[19]

Amidst the technical changes, WBZ also began sharing its programs by network with other radio stations. By 1925, it often shared programs with WJZ in New York City (which was transferred from Westinghouse to the Radio Corporation of America in May 1923) and a WBZ program commemorating the 150th anniversary of Paul Revere's "Midnight Ride" was also fed to WRC in Washington, D.C. and WGY in Schenectady, New York.^[13] This paved the way for the station to become a charter affiliate of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) on November 15, 1926, carrying the WJZ-originated NBC Blue Network beginning on January 1, 1927.^[19][21] With this change the station also began running commercials for the first time. Previously Westinghouse had financed its stations through the profits from radio receiver sales.

Fast foward to November 5th, 2011 ... a bittersweet day ... I saw something fascinating but saw a huge piece of broadcast history come crashing down. As they make way for a new factory on Page Boulevard in East Springfield the original WBZ towers that sat atop the Westinghouse Building since 1921 had to be removed ... this was orchestrated by my friend Kurt Jackson.  But Kurt wouldn't let them go down before they served one last time. After stringing a long wire, as it once was, Special Station W1Z went on the air on 75 meters from the legendary towers a little after 10AM on 11/5/2011.  They worked over 75 stations from as far away as central Vermont and South Carolina.  A little after 2PM W1Z signed off.

Before demolition of the towers, though, I had a chance to tour what was left of the site atop the Westinghouse Building. Mike Fitzpatrick put together a GREAT page showing videos of the broadcast on W1Z and the ultimate demolition of the towers.