This photo shows us how far we’ve come in technology. These days, of course, we can broadcast from pretty much anywhere using a cell phone that’s no bigger than the palm of our hand. But back in the late 1920s, it took a whole van rigged up with speakers bigger than the one grandma used to have on her old Victrola. The call letters, KEJK were for the radio station of the MacMillan Petroleum Co. of Beverly Hills, whose owner and chief engineer was Freeman Lang. Although why a gasoline company would need or want a radio station is beyond me.
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A brief history of KEJK/KMPC can be seen here :http://www.710kmpc.com/history.htm
Freeman Lang was a very busy man in early Los Angeles radio.
“Finally, it was time to go on the air. The inaugural and dedicatory program of KFVD took place Saturday night June 13, 1925 and lasted from 8 p.m. until 3 a.m. Sunday morning. The announcer and MC for KFVD’s first broadcast was Los Angeles announcer Freeman Lang, described in the newspaper stories as “right hand man and understudy of the famous Uncle John Daggett of KHJ.” Lang had one career as a radio station engineer for various stations and in 1927, he would found the station which evolved into 710/KMPC. Lang also had become a glib radio announcer and would often be heard over the next few years hosting broadcasts of movie premieres and other big events on L.A. radio. In the early 1930s, Freeman Lang ran a busy recording studio in Hollywood, which produced many early syndicated radio shows of the Depression years and early radio commericals. ”
http://www.radioheritage.net/Story28.asp
It looks like he may have done some work for the movie studios too.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0485751/
Oh my! He was a busy man, wasn’t he?!??!
I wrote the above KFVD history, with Freeman Lang the MC of the first broadcast. Between 1925-1935, Freeman Lang was the first well know Southern California radio announcer to specialize in broadcasting movie premieres for Hollywood films. After starting KRLO in 1927, Lang moved the station to Beverly Hills for Ernest J. Krause. The call letters became KEJK. Lang stayed as engineer but later left for free lance announcer and engineer jobs. After two months, Krause sold KEJK for the R.S. Macmillan Petroleum Company. Lang used the KEJK truck for remote broadcasts and also set up the P.A. system so crowds on the street could hear the movie premiere or other broadcasts Lang was hosting. He announced the movie premieres for most of the Los Angeles and Hollywood stations and got his own sponsors. About 1932, he started the Freeman Lang recording studio in Hollywood. Lang became a producer of radio transcription recordings, such as dance bands, soap operas, children’s shows, comedy and variety shows. He would syndicate the records to radio stations around the country. But, a messy divorce and to escape alimony, Lang left Hollywood and moved to the Territory of Hawaii. He was a radio engineer on the islands, for an airline and later was a yacht broker. He was an avid ham radio operator. Lang died in 1976 at age 79. My friend Marvin Collins, retired KFI engineer knew Lang on amateur radio and visited him in Hawaii a few times. I’m still researching a lot of old papers on Lang’s radio days. He had built similar remote broadcast tricks for KFWB and other stations, and set up the P.A. system for the Los Angeles radio shows in the 1920s. He demonstrated two way radio systems to the LAPD in 1930, but I don’t know if they used his system. A fascinating character from the early days of radio.
Thanks, James. That fills in a lot of blanks.