What, in 1921,Modesto had TWO radio stations? KOQ and KXD looked like this:
Most early ’20s stations were owned by newspaper companies, which wanted to sell more newspapers, or by department stores that wanted to sell radios. The above photo is of KJQ, Stockton. What happened?
The government put stations on The Same Frequency and forced them to share broadcast time. KOQ and KXD were allowed to be on the air for just 30 minutes a day. Within six months, they went bankrupt, as did almost all those other ’20s stations. That’s why so few “Three-call letter” stations exist today. How many mistakes can one government make? We have the story right here.
The Modesto Radio Museum tracks all these broadcasting adventures.
