1924 Transcontinental Broadcast

1924AprSciInvA hundred years ago this month, the April 1924 issue of Science and Invention reported on a transcontinental radio broadcast which took place on February 8. At the Congress Hotel in Chicago,  General John J. Carty, the Vice President of Bell Telephone Company delivered an address at a banquet. It was transmitted by land and submarine telephone wire to points as far east as New York, as far south as Havana, and as far west as San Francisco. The magazine noted that the submarine cable to Cuba was a mile below sea level, and the telephone lines in Denver were a mile above sea level.

The voices of telephone managers in each city were carried as well, each hearing the other, and with millions of radio listeners hearing as well from the seven stations carrying the broadcast.

A thousand telephone employees were standing by along the line, including scores of men at work near Winnemucca, Nevada, keeping the lines in repair while a severe blizzard was raging.



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