San Jose Mercury Herald, December 26, 1916, page 1:
Concert by Wireless Heard by 300 People
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Music Clear and Distinct, States Man Who Was on "Wireless."
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Edward Bellamy's prophecy in "Looking Backward" that some day people would turn a button and listen to music played and sung at a central plant, came true yesterday in San Jose when the wireless operators of the city and beyond in a radius of almost 1000 miles listened to a program of Christmas music while sitting in their homes. It was made possible by connecting their own wireless apparatuses with the central apparatus of the Herrold-Portal aerial system of telephony.
One of the local families which had the benefit of listening to this program was that of Mr. J. O. Hestwood, 239 Sixth street.
Mr. Hestwood said in speaking of the program, which was heard through the wireless apparatus of his son, James G. Hestwood: "It was as clear and sweet and beautiful as if it had been played in the next room. The sounds came in distinctly. There was no disturbing noise and we listened to the whole of the program, which lasted about 20 minutes without the slightest difficulty." Mr. James Hestwood has been working with wireless apparatus for the past five or six years.
Prof. Charles Herrold, who has perfected the system to its present most efficient state, said last night that there were about 300 owners of wireless within the radius reached by his machine. One of the great advantages of his system as explained by Prof. Herrold was the fact that operators could break into the middle of the word and start again without disarranging the sentences in a tenth of a second. With other systems it takes from two to five minutes to be "on" and "off."