Early KMJ
Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 1:25 pm
In the early 1920’s, Fresno’s first radio station, KMJ, was designed and built by my father, Norman Douglas Webster. He and my mother had met in the Radio Club at Fresno High. My mother liked to tell this story: In 1927, there was tremendous public interest concerning the Dempsey-Tunney fight, to take place in Chicago on Sept. 22nd. Radios were still scarce, so Station KMJ arranged for loud speakers to broadcast the fight at Courthouse Park in downtown Fresno.
A huge throng gathered for the event, including my mother. She was cutting it close because I was born the next day, Sept. 23, 1927.
In the early 1930's, the radio was on all the time at our house, tuned to KMJ, Fresno’s only station at the time. Programming was loose and unscheduled. At times there were long periods of silence, broken by anybody who wandered into the studio and wanted to sing a song or read a poem.
I remember listening every weekday to what had to be one of the first soap operas, “Marie, the Little French Princess.” Sometimes I heard my father’s voice. Although he worked as the station’s engineer, he occasionally substituted as announcer. Mother sometimes came to the station and read the news.
Called a radio pioneer, my father went on to become chief engineer for McClatchy Broadcasting Company.He designed and built the first radio stations in Merced, Modesto, Sacramento and Reno. Until KARM arrived in 1936, KMJ was the only radio station in Fresno.
A huge throng gathered for the event, including my mother. She was cutting it close because I was born the next day, Sept. 23, 1927.
In the early 1930's, the radio was on all the time at our house, tuned to KMJ, Fresno’s only station at the time. Programming was loose and unscheduled. At times there were long periods of silence, broken by anybody who wandered into the studio and wanted to sing a song or read a poem.
I remember listening every weekday to what had to be one of the first soap operas, “Marie, the Little French Princess.” Sometimes I heard my father’s voice. Although he worked as the station’s engineer, he occasionally substituted as announcer. Mother sometimes came to the station and read the news.
Called a radio pioneer, my father went on to become chief engineer for McClatchy Broadcasting Company.He designed and built the first radio stations in Merced, Modesto, Sacramento and Reno. Until KARM arrived in 1936, KMJ was the only radio station in Fresno.