It was said to be the closest thing to actually being in the grand stand at Forbes Field for the Pittsburgh Pirates attempt to unseat the reigning champion Washington Senators.
“Today is probably one of the most exciting World Series ever played. Throughout the series, the Simpkins hardware store has entertained a goodly portion of the baseball fans in Ticonderoga with a running account of the games by that most marvelous invention, the radio,” The Ticonderoga Sentinel reported on Oct. 15, 1925. “Seats have been installed for the convenience of listeners.”
In other 1925 radio news collected from northern New York historic newspapers:
“Golf instructions by radio! This is the latest stunt announced by ROA, Rockey Mountain Broadcasting station, of this city [Denver, Colorado],” The Glens Falls Times reported on July 2.
“Twelve radio sets have been installed in the House of Parliament in Vienna, according to messages from that city. They will be at the disposal of members keen on
radio,” The Glens Falls Times reported on July 8.
“Orrie Gould of Ticonderoga had his radio at the home of his uncle, George Wilson, Saturday evening and a few neighbors were invited to listen in,” the Crown Point and Hammonds Corners correspondent reported in The Ticonderoga Sentinel on Nov. 12.
“It would be impossible to enumerate the different stations received as they were so numerous. While the night was anything but appropriate for radio reception, yet some very good selections were heard,” the paper reported.
“I. Rothschild has presented a fine radio to the Elks Club, which has set up last Saturday evening,” The Ticonderoga Sentinel reported on Dec. 17.
“The Aerodyn 5-tube receiving set on display at the Dolbeck Leach Accessory Company’s Store broke all known local records for distance Saturday night when KKJ, Los Angeles, was heard on a loud speaker with astonishing clearness and audibility,” operated by one of our customers, the retailer advertised in The Ticonderoga Sentinel on Dec. 17.
“The time is not far distant when the King of England [George V] will be able to speak to all the lands under the British flag through a single broadcasting station, Marconi [Guglielmo Marconi. 1874-1937], the wireless expert, predicts,” The Glens Falls Times reported on July 18.
“E. F. W. Alexanderson, radio expert of the General Electric Company, who yesterday arrived on the [steamship] Leviathan from from a European trip, has announced that he has a plan by which to eliminate static and fading, the two bugaboos of radio reception,” The Glens Falls Times reported on July 21. “Mr. Alexanderson expects to try his method at at WGY, the Schenectady station of the General Electric Company.”
Swedish-American electrical engineer and inventor Ernst Frederick Werner Alexanderson (1878-1975) invented the Alexanderson alternator for long-wave long distance radio transmissions, used from 1906 into the 1930s.
“E. F. W. Alexanderson, consulting engineer of the General Electric Company and inventor of a high frequency alternator that made transoceanic radio communications possible, was decorated by King Gustav V of Sweden with the Order of the North Star,” The Glens Falls Times reported on Aug. 8.
“Youngsters should tune in at Station WGPS every Thursday evening at 5:30, eastern standard time. That’s when the Hebrew Orphan Harmonia Band broadcasts. There are 25 mouth organ players in this band,” The Glens Falls Times reported July 22nd.
“Predicting an expenditure of $450,000,000 for radio by the ‘fans’ of the nation, experts have estimated that by 1930, there will be 10,000,000 receiving sets in operation in the country,” The Post-Star of Glens Falls reported on July 27.
“In 1923, there were 145,350 sets in use on the forums, and one year later that number has more than doubled,” the paper said.
Patrick Boyle, Ethel Dillon, and Ethyl Dillon Boyle established the Carillon Radio Co. to manufacture radio parts at a factory at Essex [in Essex County, NY], The Glens Falls Times reported on July 27.
“Daily radio programs of news, sports and music being broadcast for the American fleet in Australian waters by station KDKA of Pittsburgh are being received with unusual clarity,” The Post-Star reported on July 30. Earlier that year KDKA had broadcast Lowell Thomas for the first time.
“The radio set which was offered by the Excelsior grocery store, Main Street [in Whitehall], in connection with the purchase of merchandise was won Monday by John Gordon,” the Whitehall correspondent reported in The Glens Falls Times on Aug. 8.
“Each purchaser of a certain amount of merchandise was given a key, and after all the keys were given out, the one holding the key to lock which was in a sealed jar
was given the radio,” according to the paper.
Read more about New York Radio History.
Illustration: A man tuning a Grebe Synchrophase vacuum tube tuned radio frequency (TRF) receiver in 1925, made by the A.H. Grebe Company.
