Attention Radio History Geeks

And you know WHO you are!

The other day, I was at the FCC AM radio query page and noticed something new – it was offering up a PDF file of the “history cards”

For instance, this is the one for legendary KDKA in Pittsburgh (may take a bit to load)

At the very end is the explanation of what these are and why they exist. I ran this by Tom Taylor who didn’t know about this and he ran it by an FCC type lawyer in DC (I think) who hadn’t heard about it.

1978 is when the FCC first started using computers to track licenses. The original system ran on a DEC machine – no attempt was made to enter history into the database.

In 1990, the FCC moved to a new building and migrated to the current computer system. they had a decision to make – the pre-1978 history information of radio stations was kept on index cards maintained using a typewriter. The cards were put on microfiche, a type of microfilm popular at the time made on film about the size of an index card, but with 100s of pages on each one and hopefully more durable than paper. They typically have indexes to make it easier to find stuff than if it were on a roll of microfilm.

With the index cards now safely on one copy of microfiche, the original paper index cards were destroyed. The index cards go back to 1920 when AM radio licensing was done by the Department of Commerce. That function was transferred to the Federal Radio Commission in 1927 as Herbert Hoover worked to sort out this new thing called radio. The function was moved to the newly created FCC in 1934 – the FCC had a broader mandate than just radio.

Through some miracle, the only copy of that microfiche has survived, been digitized and now put online. Enjoy!