KQW Radio Station, San José, CA 1913
unknown photographer
Perham Collection of Early Electronics
History San José Collection

In 1909 in downtown San José, ‘Doc’ Charles David Herrold and his students made broadcast history by utilizing ‘radiotelephony’ to speak into a microphone and air the first radio broadcast. Within a couple of years “This is San José Calling” became the first regularly scheduled music and news broadcasts.

“Its a little known fact that broadcast radio as we know it today began in San José,” said Sarah Puckitt, Collections Curator of History San José. In typical Silicon Valley fashion Doc Herrold exemplifies innate curiosity, tenacious spirit and creative genius which today is so common among Silicon Valley innovators.

News radio was then born in 1968, when KQW, now known as KCBS, became the first all news station in Northern California. It remains one of the top-rated radio stations in the Bay Area, serving more than a million listeners each week.

As part of the exhibition at San José City Hall, History San José is able to exhibit some artifacts from the Collection. As part of the Perham Collection of Early Electronics are items unseen since the 1980’s include a water-cooled microphone that was invented by Doc Herrold.

KCBS news studio in the Palace Hotel,
San Francisco, c. 1968.
Clancy Cassell, Don Klein & Don Mozley. Al Helmso and Bob Donnelly in the background.

In 1921 Herrold received a license as KQW and in 1949 KQW became KCBS in San Francisco. Since 1968 KCBS broadcasts All News Radio 740 AM and 106.9 FM and celebrates 100 years of news, information, and innovation as the world’s first broadcasting. Recently a plaque was dedicated commemorating where it all began on the corner of First and San Fernando in San José, California in the Fairmont Plaza.

Exhibition sponsor: KCBS