Station KDYL went on the air AM radio in 1921. KDYL was a luck-of-the–draw government assigned call. The complete company was sold in about 1953 with the television call changing to KTVT, KCPX, and KTVX TV. The AM / FM was divested along the way. During the time I was Chief Engineer of KTVX TV (1983 – 1998), I had possession of a collection of memorabilia dating from 1921 through the television days. This included scrapbooks, news clippings and thousands of photos.  

This history of KDYL-TV is my interpretation from this material.

There are hundreds of stories relating to KDYL Television. The owner of KDYL was a man by the name of Sid Fox. He was a gambler and promoter and KDYL AM Radio and Television was one of his tools. Sid obtained his AM radio license from a newspaper that couldn’t figure out what to do with it and was on the air in 1921 sharing a wavelength with two other commercial stations in Salt Lake City, Utah. There was no FCC at the time and several stations shared a “wavelength” by going on and off at pre arranged times. Radio receivers were wavelength not frequency orientated.  

Advertising was Fox’s future and when a business advertised on his station the station went to the business. Signs were posted in the store windows pointing out that this was credible because it was on KDYL.

Fox employed a professional photographer early on. Through the thousands of pictures and scrapbooks he kept during the time he was the sole owner of KDYL, (1921 to 1953) we can read the early history of radio and television. Click for photos of KDYL radio.

By the late 1930’s KDYL had become a huge AM radio empire. They were the NBC radio affiliate and soon NBC TV.

In 1939, RCA did the now famous introduction of television at the 1939 Worlds Fair (“The World of the Future”) and apparently did a smaller version in several (5?) cities across the US including Salt Lake City. Industrial design / Art Deco was at its peak. The world was about to change. The “Modern Miracle” was out of the lab.

One KDYL Scrapbook contained clips of full page news paper ads from several US cities. They all used the same layout except for the name of the store who appeared to be a big Radio dealer. Other correspondence indicates RCA was attempting to comfort their radio dealers that television would not hurt their business. I believe the date of this clip was October 1939. It was first demonstrated at the Paris Company store downtown Salt Lake City.  It appeared to be in operation at The Paris Co. for several weeks in October of 39.  

1939 Salt Lake City newspaper clip announcing the Paris Co display

The exhibit appears to have consisted of at least three TRK-12 TV sets and One Iconoscope camera with the modified TRK-12 control console.

Three TRK-12s in display formation

Iconoscope camera and either TRK-12 or the CCU (notice the industrial cabinet finish) may have been in the Paris Co demonstration

 

The equipment ended up in the possession of KDYL where they continued to promote television at local events such as State Fairs throughout the 1940’s. 

This poster promoted the continuing life of the 1939 exhibit

Records indicate KDYL had attempted to obtain an experimental television license as early as 1944 and finally succeeded in about 1947; going on the air as an experimental station (W6XIS) in early summer 1948 on channel 2.

The studio equipment consisted of the 1939 exhibit equipment. They also had a slick new RCA remote truck equipped with three Image Orthicon cameras and a microwave link and they televised every happening in the city. Parades, boxing, store openings, talent shows, live local news; everything was fair game.

Days of '47 Parade,  July 24, 1948 in downtown Salt Lake City

Emmett the Clown in front of mobile van

On the air with 100 Watts W6XIS / KDYL was ready to sell advertising and had a published rate card

The 1939 equipment as used in the studio, including two of the 1939 Iconoscope cameras that started with a gun sight type viewfinder and evolved to a periscope affair over the top of the camera head. It may be that they constructed one of the cameras and that RCA may have sold in kit form. I had possession of some other RCA equipment that had been built by the station engineers but appeared to be a perfect copy of a factory built model. 

Remote broadcast. Note the U. S. Television projection set

1947 W6XIS, 100 Watt TV transmitter was located at the Walker Bank Building in downtown Salt Lake City

Rear view of the 100 watt transmitter.

The original transmit tower was on the top of the Walker Bank building, downtown Salt Lake City.  By 1953 A transmitter site was constructed on an 8,000 foot peak west of Salt Lake City they named Mount Vision (still used as a backup transmitter site to this day).

Sid Fox wanted to know where the peak was so the engineers left a spot light on one night during construction. Fox seized the publicity value and had it lit permanently.

The first Mount Vision TV transmitter was an RCA TT-5 which is still installed at the site.

The old Walker building tower remained on into the 1990’s and was illuminated with neon. It changed color to reflect the predicted weather. After the final caretaker of the weather lighting died the tower was finally removed. 

KDYL/W6XIS moved from channel 2 to 4 early in its history

During the 1960’s a friend of mine had spotted the sole remaining TRK-12 in the lunch room at the KDYL studio then KCPX-TV, abandoned in the corner with a dim picture tube. He acquired the set and a spare TRK chassis set from the station. In 1973 he joined the military and gave me the TRK-12 to keep or pass on. Stupidly I passed it on. The chassis won a contest sponsored by RCA in the 1970’s to find the oldest surviving RCA TV set; I believe the complete TRK came in second.

All the pictures are from the KDYL collection.