Kansas State University, founded in 1863, is the first state land-grant college in the US, meaning that its mission was focused on agriculture, science, military science, and engineering. More than a little Ag school, K-State has been at the forefront of technology, science, and agricultural research since its earliest days, when the institution operated on a slim budget due to scarce funding.
In 1901 the KSU Physics Department got a Technical and Training School license from the US Department of Commerce and began exploring radio science and broadcasting technology. KSU had an unlicensed radio station in 1909 to teach students with, but could not get it licensed to serve the public. Before 1912, only ships or amateurs could get their transmitters licensed.
In 1912 the law changed and KSU got permission to establish a special land station, which was assigned the call letters 9YV. (Y denoted a Technical & Training School station, X denoted an Experimental or amateur radio station). See: (
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Soon after, the KSU Physics Department began broadcasting a daily weather report at 9am in Morse code to anyone who might be out there listening -- the first daily weather broadcast in the US. This service was very popular, and K State physics students were soon running around the plains of KS trying to figure out how far their weather broadcast could be heard. It turns out these broadcasts had a very wide reach: several hundred miles in most directions, due to so few other stations being on the air. The Morse code weather broadcasts began at 915am, and were repeated several times, each time with the Morse code being sent more slowly.
All amateur and commercial broadcasting in the US was paused by the Government during WWI, but afterwards the popularity of radio exploded, and KSU was right there at the forefront of the technology, growing radio station 9YV.
We found excerpts of a 1972 University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism master’s thesis by Richard Ridgway on the Route56.com website. Ridgeway detailed much of the 1913-1924 history of 9YV, which became WTG in 1922, before finally being licensed as KSAC in 1925. From Route56.com: (
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". . . Ridgway’s thesis was a history of the station, then known as KSAC. Some highlights of KKSU’s history as outlined in the thesis:
The physics department of the Kansas State Agricultural College obtained a license of station 9YV in 1912, beginning a daily weather broadcast in Morse code at 9 a.m. According to Ridgway, “this is believed to have been the first fixed schedule of radio transmission of weather reports in the United States.” Moreover, “except during World War I, there has been a daily weather broadcast from Kansas State College continuously since 1913.”
In 1921, physics instructor Eric R. Lyon was placed in charge of 9YV, obtaining a broadcast license for the station as WTG, a “100-watt radio telephone station.” The official license date for WTG was April 6, 1922. WTG was later discontinued.
The physics department quickly wanted a higher-power station. To demonstrate the desirability of such a facility, it turned over programming responsibilities to K-State’s extension division and made arrangements with Dr. John R. Brinkley’s KFKB in Milford, 25 miles west of Manhattan to begin broadcasts. “These first broadcasts from KFKB met with almost instantaneous response from the people of the state. So favorable was the reaction, that plans were made to expand the number of programs,” wrote Ridgway.
[BMB Note:
It's pretty funny that KSU, a scientific institution, partnered with Dr. Brinkley, see: (visit link) Brinkley was a complete and utter quack - but KFKB was a very powerful station, and until Brinkley was discredited and run out of KS when he lost his radio station's license AND his medical license), the partnership probably worked well for both parties.
KFKB was licensed in 1923 and owned was owned by Dr. John Brinkley, the infamous 1920s-30s "goat gland" doctor, who used KFKB's powerful signal to draw impotent men to his Milford KS clinic where he implanted goat testicles in them.
Denounced as a quack and under several state and federal investigations over his medical credentials and practices, as well as the operation of his radio station KFKB, Brinkley knew his days in KS were numbered but he would not leave Kansas quietly. He ran a very close but unsuccessful race for KS Governor in 1930, but left KS in 1931 after the Federal government terminated his license for KFKB and the State of Kansas stripped him of his medical license.
Undeterred, he surfaced in Del Rio TX, and began the scam anew with a brand-new 6-story modern hospital and clinic, filled with clients coaxed into his clutches by his new, more powerful radio station from across the border, the 500,000-watt "Border Blaster" XER (later XERA).
XER was 10 times as powerful as the strongest US "clear channel" radio station, and could be heard across much of the US in the daytime and into Canada at night. Signals of any radio station operating near XER's frequency were blown out by the sheer power of XER, a problem that persisted until 1984. See: (
visit link) -- BMB]
In cooperation with KFKB, the physics department decided to experiment with remote-control operation. Beginning February 11, 1924, remote broadcasts over long-distance lines from Manhattan to Milford began. Three station employees chipped in the $150 deposit needed for the phone line. Sometimes, crosstalk on the lines would cause “‘many of our programs [to be] interrupted by impromptu bits of farmer’s-wife-to-farmer’s-wife information upon canning, chicken raising, and child care. It may be that this, too, helped show the legislature the value of broadcasting programs upon the problems of agriculture and domestic arts,'” according to then-station manager Lyon.
The success of the KFKB programs induced the Kansas Legislature to approve the purchase of a 500-watt Western Electric transmitter and twin towers “built by a windmill company” for $29,000. KSAC began broadcasting December 1, 1924 by special permission of the Department of Commerce. The station’s official license date was January 27, 1925."
These windmill-company-built towers are the ones still standing today, and are listed in the US National Register of Historic Places. From the City of Manhattan KS: (
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"KSAC Radio Towers
The KSAC radio towers on the Kansas State University campus are an excellent example of early radio towers built in the United States. At the time of their construction in 1924, they represented the finest available radio technology. The original towers remain intact, the only remaining towers of their type in Kansas, and among a very few left in the U.S.
. . .
On August 20, 1924, construction of a new 500-watt radio station began with call letters KSAC (Kansas State Agricultural College). The towers operated until the radio signal generated by KSAC was modernized in 1947 and a new 424-foot antenna was built on Denison Avenue. In 1974, the north tower of the original KSAC Radio towers was pressed into service once again, and has been used to
microwave the studio signal on campus to the transmitter on Denison Ave. since that time."
We are also going to put this in our waymark, since we are unsure about how long the internet archive will last: (
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"78 years of KKSU-AM 580
When KKSU went on the air December 1, 1924, it was the first educational broadcasting station in Kansas and a pioneer radio voice in the United States. Radio at Kansas State Picture of old microphone began with experiments as early as 1901, long before most people became familiar with the word "radio." In 1912, the physics department installed a transmitter with 100 watts of power. The station was licensed 9YV and was the first weather broadcasting station of its kind west of the Mississippi. Eventually it was converted into a 100-watt radio telephone station from which the first broadcasts of spoken word and music were sent from Kansas State Agricultural College.
During the next few years interest grew in educational radio, but the cost of full-time operation seemed prohibitive. Then KFKB, one of the state's first commercial stations, went on the air in Milford, about 12 miles west of Manhattan. K-State physics professor Eric Lyon conceived the idea of using KFKB for college broadcasts by sending programs via long distance telephone from K-State. Lyon proposed his idea with two others, Samuel Pickard, extension editor, and Louis Williams, extension horticulturist. Convinced that radio would be a great educational medium, they chipped in $50 each to make up the deposit necessary to guarantee the first telephone tolls from K-State to Milford.
KFKB proved so successful an experiment that Kansas State College secured its own broadcast station. December 1, 1924, KSAC went on the air with 500 watts of power at 880 kilocycles. KSAC was heard coast-to-coast on that first broadcast because there were very few radio stations and little interference. In 1928 KSAC received permission from the Federal Radio Commission to change from 880 kilocycles to 580 kilocycles. In 1929 Capper Publications of Topeka asked to be part of the frequency for their commercial station, WIBW-AM.
In 1947, KSAC increased its power to 5,000 watts. The twin radio towers which supported the first KSAC antenna back in 1924 are still located on the KSU campus, and since 1983 have been listed in the National Register of Historic Places. At the base of the north tower is a fountain, built by the Kansas Association of Broadcasters, as a memorial to KSAC's role as a pioneer in broadcasting.
KKSU-AM may be the only station in the country to have three different sets of call letters in one week. In 1984 the KSAC call letters were bought from K-State by a Sacramento, California station. The first choice for new call letters was KKSU, to represent K-State's status as a university. However, KKSU was assigned to a "mothballed" merchant marine ship which was reluctant to release them. The FCC granted the station the call letters KEXT (for Kansas Extension) with an effective date of July 26, 1984, but efforts continued to acquire KKSU, which were approved for use by K-State on July 30, 1984. So between July 25 and July 30, 1984, KKSU existed under three sets of call letters.
KKSU left the air on November 27, 2002. K-State gave up its license as part of a legal settlement with Morris Communications, owner of WIBW-AM. The former KKSU staff continue to operate a new, expanded K-State Radio Network while exploring other broadcast possibilities."
A comprehensive history of KKSU-AM and its predecessors can be found on Wikipedia: (
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