When is a birthday party not a birthday party? The answer is—when WBT, Charlotte, North Carolina, broadcasts its birthday party on April 7 with a brilliant array of artists in parade before the microphone. Why the opening question? Well—it is true that April 7 , will be the tenth birthday of the awarding of the call letters WBT to the Charlotte station; but it is equally true that the station actually went into operation in February, 1921, under experimental call letters, on a regular broadcasting schedule.
WBT, therefore, will be more than eleven years old at its tenth birthday celebration. The station's slogan, "Pioneer Radio Station of the South" is well founded, for it was the first broadcasting station to be placed in operation in the entire South; it then had an operating power of 250 watts.
Has Interesting History
The station was operated by one of the pioneer radio distributors of radio receivers and parts until that concern discontinued business. Ownership then passed into the hands of C. C. Coddington, Inc., Buick distributors for North and South Carolina. Mr. Coddington purchased the station largely as a matter of civic pride, and on his death it was reorganized as a corporation receiving its charter to conduct its business under the name of Station WBT, Incorporated. The entire stock is owned at the present time by the Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc.
The operating power of WBT has shown a consistent increase; in 1926 it was increased to 500 watts; then to 1,000 watts in August. 1927. Its present operating power of 5,000 watts went into operation in November, 1928, at which time the station had the distinction of installing the first manufactured transmitter in the country using screen grid transmitting tubes. The equipment was of the crystal controlled type, of RCA construction.
Coincident with the use of the 5,000 watts power, transmitter and studios were divorced for the first time—a thirteen-acre tract located eight miles south of the city was purchased and the new transmitting equipment installed in a modern brick structure especially erected for the purpose.
25,000 Watts Soon
WBT's birthday party will have added significance to both the staff and the listening audience. The special celebration broadcasts will coincide with the beginning of the work of installing equipment which, when completed, will start the station on a new era of broader service to the South. For WBT has been awarded a new operating power of 25,000 watts by the Federal Radio commission, and it is the plan of the engineers to go on the air on the new power basis by July 1.
When WBT starts its 25,000 watts plant broadcasting, it is pointed out, will be the most powerful transmitter located between Baltimore and Atlanta. It also has the distinction of being Southern key station of the Dixie Network of the Columbia Broadcasting System.
Birthday Party Program
The gala birthday event on April 7 will embrace practically every sustaining program scheduled for that date. The artists find features that will be on the air are, in the main, well known to the entire Southern radio audience; they have been heard frequently over stations of the Dixie network on programs originating in the Charlotte studios. Artists and features to be heard during WBT's birthday party will include the Dixie Mammoth Minstrels, the second oldest radio minstrel act on the air, with Clair Shadwell as Interlocutor, Eefraim Lee and. Sluefoot Lockman as end men, and a splendid quartet adding variety with vocal numbers; Bob Mitchell and Bill Elliott, organ-tenor team which has the added distinction of being RCA-Victor recording artists; Bo Buford, WBT's girl blues singer; Billy Hamilton's dance orchestra, and Michael Wise's Dixie Concert orchestra, both staff organizations; Joan Mars, soprano, and Grace Kohn Johnston, soprano.
The program schedule for the big day will be one of the longest ever broadcast from WBT, since it will start at 7 A. M. on the morning of April 7 and continue without a break until 4 o'clock the following morning.
Possibly the brightest spot in the entire makeup of the programs will be that which will go on the air between 8 P. M. and 8:30 P. M. when the microphones in the Charlotte studios feed the entertainment and festivities to a large group of stations on the Dixie network.
A novel note will be introduced in the gaieties of the occasion when the first phonograph record that was broadcast from the Charlotte station is placed on the turntable of the same phonograph that was used at that time, and facing a modern condenser microphone, is put on the air. Both record and phonograph have been carefully preserved as souvenirs of the station's first broadcast.
A general Invitation will be extended by officials of the station to the public to visit WBT's studios at any time during the birthday party with the assurance of a cordial welcome. The entire personnel of the station, including artists and executives, will greet visitors.