Famous Pittsburgh Inventor (You Probably Haven’t Heard Of) Celebrates 150th Birthday

Frank Conrad isn’t a household name like Thomas Edison or Alexander Graham Bell, and the National Museum of Broadcasting is hoping to change that. 

In honor of Conrad’s 150th birthday, the museum is hosting a fundraiser on May 4 at the newly renovated Wilkinsburg Train Station. The museum aims to open an exhibition hall in a vacant Mellon Bank building in East Pittsburgh. Museum supporters are working to purchase the Mellon building and are seeking investors from local corporations and organizations to help get the project off the ground.

Their goal? Getting students involved in media by housing several recording studios as well as documenting the history of broadcasting, which Conrad and the city of Pittsburgh are foundational parts of. 

Beyond holding more than 200 patents, Conrad’s innovations in radio transmission changed how people thought about the technology and directly led to the formation of KDKA and radio broadcasting.

In his off time from working as an engineer at Westinghouse Electrical and Manufacturing Company, Conrad transmitted signals to other amateur radio enthusiasts out of his garage in Wilkinsburg. At the time, radio was mainly seen as a form of one-to-one communication. But as more and more listeners tuned in, Conrad began holding scheduled broadcasts several nights a week where he would share news and play music from his record collection. 

As he began to run out of records, Conrad made a deal with a local music store — he could play their music if he told listeners where the records could be purchased. This caught the attention of Horne’s, a department store chain based out of Pittsburgh at the time, which ran an ad mentioning an “air concert” caught by their employees on a newly installed wireless receiver. 

When Westinghouse saw the business potential in this new style of communication, it created KDKA, the first radio station, whose inaugural broadcast near its East Pittsburgh plant covered the results of the Harding-Cox presidential election in 1920. The broadcast reached 1,000 people. 

The May 4 fundraiser will host a panel discussion at 2 p.m. that will include several past and present names in Pittsburgh broadcasting like WQED-FM’s Jim Cunningham, former KDKA morning host Jack Bogut, retired WTAE TV anchorwoman Sally Wiggin and Bill Flanagan, host of WPXI-TV’s “Our Region’s Business.”

Additionally, there will be a silent auction, displays of broadcast artifacts and entertainment by DJ Sims. 

Conrad’s great grandson, Jamie Conrad, will also be in attendance to talk about his great grandfather and present the first Frank Conrad Award for Broadcast and Electronic Media Innovation to a Pittsburgher whose work resembles Conrad’s “creativity and fortitude.”

The Wilkinsburg Train Station is at 901 Hay St., and the event will run from 1 to 4 p.m. Admission is free, but registration is required by April 29.