Sidelight of the Election Interesting (1920)

Most of this article is a reprint of one which appeared in the November 4, 1920 Pittsburgh Sun, with one added sentence: "The Boy Scouts of Indiana received the returns at their Jamboree in Odd Fellows Hall."

Indiana (Pennsylvania) Evening Gazette, November 6, 1920, pages 1-2:
SIDELIGHT OF THE ELECTION INTERESTING _______

Complete Success of Wireless Telephone Demonstrated in Sending and Receiving of the Election Returns.

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DEVELOPMENTS _______
    One of the interesting sidelights of the election this year was the complete success of the wireless telephone broadcasting the returns. So convincing were the results obtained that it is predicted that four years hence the radio method of sending news of the election at that time will be almost universally used. This year the returns were received from press association wires by telephone communication and were sent out by wireless telephone from the station of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, and its subsidiary, the International Radio Telegraph Company, at East Pittsburgh. Wireless operators within the vicinity of several hundred miles were able to obtain the news very quickly, and in many cases the results were known some time before they were heard by means of telegraph communication.
    The Boy Scouts of Indiana received the returns at their Jamboree in Odd Fellows Hall.
    In Vandergrift, Pa., the returns were received and bulletined in the street for the benefit of hundreds of persons there, the news being shown from ten minutes to a half hour before they were received by means of a special telegraph wire between Vandergrift and Pittsburgh. In addition, the wireless set was connected by means of a cable with the local telephone exchange, and the wire chief sent the news directly to subscribers who had arranged beforehand for the service, and also gave the results to any one making inquiries.
    At Latrobe the messages were utilized in a similar manner, thus enabling large crowds to get the messages early.
    At Irwin a large hall was filled to its capacity to hear the results of the election, motion pictures being shown throughout the entire evening.
    Not only in the immediate vicinity of Pittsburgh were the returns as sent from the Westinghouse plant heard, but throughout Ohio and West Virginia they were heard with equal clearness.
    Also in Pittsburgh the radio method of sending returns were utilized in two ways. Persons having simple sets did not need to leave their homes to receive the returns, and by means of sets installed in a number of clubs throughout the city, large assemblages were able to have social functions at the same time as receiving the returns. At the Edgewood Club in particular a loud sounding horn was in use, and people could hear all over the large ballroom the voice of the speaker at East Pittsburgh as transmitted through the radio apparatus.
    In addition to the phonograph music, banjo duet selections were played at intervals of the election returns. The clear tone and loudness of all the music greatly astonished the gatherings which heard it.