"Finally, I would like to say that in the dark days before Montgomery's breakthrough at Alamein, when it was quite on the cards that General Rommel might take Cairo, Mr Joly and I were sent to Jerusalem to make arrangements for the foreign language broadcasts to be continued from there. Fortunately the situation changed and we were recalled to Cairo, where we arrived just in time for me to broadcast the historic communique announcing the victory at Alamein, which marked the turning point of the war in the Middle East. CHAPTER NINE MISCELLANY 1. The first broadcasting stations of the world. Speech was first transmitted for reception by the general public from Washington D.C. in 1915 when Europe was still at war. During 1916 the first 'broadcasting' station in the world began regular transmissions from a New York suburb. In 1919 Dr. Frank Conrad, then Assistant Chief Engineer of the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company, set up, in his own garage in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, a 75-watt transmitter (8XK) from which he broadcast musical entertainment for other radio enthusiasts. This was the first continued scheduled broadcasting in history. The Westinghouse Company realised the potential value of Conrad's work and built KDKA, the first regular commercial broadcasting station in the world, which began its career by announcing the results of the Harding-Cox election returns on the November 2nd 1920. The first broadcasting station in Europe was PCGG which began transmitting on November 6th 1919 from the Hague in Holland. Hanso Steringa Idzerda, a 35 year old engineer, obtained the first licence granted in Europe for the transmission of music and speech for general reception, as opposed to the wireless telegraphy stations which had been operating point to point services. From the end of 1919 to 1924 this station transmitted a series of musical programmes three times a week called 'The Hague Concerts'. The original wavelength of 670 metres was later changed to 1,150 metres. At that time most of the people who heard these concerts would have been using headphones and they would not have been very critical about the quality of the sounds they were hearing compared to the magical novelty of snatching voices and music apparently out of thin air. This historic transmitter can be seen in the museum of the Dutch Postal Services in the Hague. The first transmissions of speech and music in England were made from Chelmsford, Essex, when a 15kW transmitter of the Marconi Company began regular transmissions in February of 1920.