© Mark Ollig
Witnessing the 60th presidential inauguration this past Monday, it is worth reflecting on a related historical moment from nearly a century ago.
Republican President Calvin Coolidge’s second inauguration March 4, 1925, marked the first nationwide live radio broadcast of a presidential inauguration, using the nation’s growing telephone network.
Although telegraph transmission lines still played a role at that time, commercial radio stations would use the expanding reach of the telephone network infrastructure to broadcast the inauguration live across the country.
The Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company, the local Bell Operating Company serving Washington, DC, oversaw the local audio pickup from the inauguration stand on the grounds of the US Capitol building.
The AT&T Long Lines network distributed the inaugural audio transmission to a 21-station network across the country.
This network was composed of long-distance copper lines, mainly open-wire pairs supplemented with loaded coils and vacuum tube repeaters to preserve audio signal strength.
AT&T-owned radio stations, WEAF in New York City and WCAP in Washington, DC, served as central hubs within this network, broadcasting locally and also feeding their inauguration audio to other connected stations.
Engineers and technicians from AT&T, its Bell System subsidiaries, and independent telephone companies worked together to install and test the telephone lines and equipment, to ensure reliable transmission for the radio broadcast.
RCA and General Electric, major manufacturers in the radio broadcasting industry, provided equipment for both radio stations and consumers.
In 1925, Minnesota radio station WCCO was broadcasting at 830 kc/s (kilocycles per second).
Radio frequencies were measured in kilocycles per second back then; today, we use the term kilohertz (kHz), with one hertz equal to one cycle per second.
WCCO radio would air the presidential inaugural March 4, 1925, as per the Minneapolis Morning Tribune report Feb. 20, 1925, that “WCCO will have a telephone hookup with WEAF, New York.”
In 1925, many people listened to the radio using simple crystal sets that required no batteries and relied on the power of radio waves. However, these sets were limited in their receiving range and sound quality.
Earlier in the same year, radios with improved reception, extended listening range, and enhanced sound quality were being sold – but they were pricy.
A Feb. 21, 1925, Minneapolis Star newspaper ad featured a five-tube Neutrodyne radio set by Stromberg-Carlson in a mahogany cabinet, “complete with tubes, storage battery, ‘B’ Batts, loud speaker . . . $124.25,” equivalent to $2,280 today.
The “B” batteries, typically zinc-carbon dry cells, provided the higher voltages necessary for early radio vacuum tube plate circuits.
In 1925, AT&T Long Distance Lines managed and operated the network of telephone cables and infrastructure used to connect long-distance telephone calls across the U.S.
The landscape of commercial radio in 1925 was still in its beginnings, with approximately 600 stations operating across the country.
Before the ceremony, the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company equipped the inaugural platform with a network of loudspeakers and microphones, managed from a control room beneath the Capitol.
A radio announcer’s booth was also set up, from which the audio was broadcast to an estimated 23 million listeners across the country.
Calvin Coolidge was sworn in for his second term as President of the United States March 4, 1925. Chief Justice and former President William Howard Taft administered the oath of office.
Radio station WEAF, broadcasting at 610 kc/s, offered live commentary during the inaugural ceremonies, with announcer Graham McNamee at the microphone.
From the April 1925 issue of the ‘Bell System Technical Journal (Vol. IV, No. 2)’: “The broadcast was a complete success, and everywhere the reports were that the President’s address and the other features of the program came through with remarkable clearness and freedom from extraneous noise. The arrangements included . . . a special network of telephone circuits more than 5,000 miles in length.”
The Brainerd Daily Dispatch newspaper wrote March 4, 1925, “In his address, delivered in the traditional place before the great dome of the capitol, but by the magic of the radio, carried far beyond the thousands who had gathered to hear him, to millions throughout the country.”
The Brainerd newspaper also mentioned, “The inaugural address was received in Brainerd very clearly through the new high-power 5,000-watt WCCO station of Minneapolis St. Paul.”
Analog copper telephone lines remained the standard used for remote radio broadcasts decades after Coolidge’s inauguration.
In 1979, I experienced it firsthand at Winsted Telephone Company, where we installed a dedicated analog copper telephone line for radio use from the company’s central office to the local football field.
This telephone line connected to the radio broadcast console in the announcer’s booth near the 50-yard line.
Before the game, the radio announcer called the Hutchinson radio studio and was patched into the main transmitter to broadcast his audio over the air.
In the late 1980s and 1990s, telephony ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) emerged, offering higher bandwidth for data transmission up to 128 kbps.
ISDN reduced audio noise and distortion, improving voice quality. It also supported enhanced audio stream management, making it compatible with modern digital radio broadcasting equipment.
Today, fiber optic lines, high-bandwidth data circuits, the internet, cellular networks (4G and 5G), satellites, and microwave links are commonly used for remote broadcasts.
The comparison between the copper telephone network at Coolidge’s 1925 inauguration and today’s modern transmission technologies highlights a century of progress.
