Here's an intersting story that local historian George F. Tillitson furnished:
KUY El Monte, CA
"Coast Radio Broadcasting Station"
Licensed: April 25, 1922
First Broadcast: July 14, 1922
Last Broadcast: ??
Deleted: Sept. 29, 1924
This early radio station was owned by the Coast Radio Company in El Monte, 12 miles east of Los Angeles. Ex shipboard wireless operator and amateur G. S. Corpe, along with his brother and Cecil R. Parker, owned KUY. Goodspeed Sam Corpe had very early radio experience as the operator of coastal wireless station PJ at San Pedro, CA in 1911 when he was 18 years old. He also spent 3 years traveling the world as a wireless operator on various ships.
KUY was located at 517 W. Main Street (now Valley Mall) on the north side of Main and west of Granada Street. Corpe's company made and sold radios, headphones, radio parts, etc. The 50 watt station was a "home brew" (self built, as most stations were in the early and mid 20s) and had a regular schedule of live programs. When KUY shared time on 360 meters, it was usually on the air for one half hour three times a week. But a schedule for the week of August 7, 1922 shows KUY on the air Monday through Saturday at 4:00 to 4:45 PM each day with a lecture on radio, plus two nights a week from 8:00 to 9:00 PM with musical entertainment, such as the Chamley Brothers Hawaiian String Quartette. Phongraph records were seldom heard. Some of KUY's performers included the Odd Fellows' Band under the direction of Mr. S. C. Setchell, and piano recitals by Florence Jones Cawood, along with other local talent from El Monte.
An eucalyptus tree more than 140 feet high was a landmark in the El Monte area, and it was this tree that held one end of KUY's wire transmitting antenna. Though Department of Commerce records indicate that KUY's power was 50 watts, Corpe wrote in the El Monte Historical Society newsletter in the 1970s, that the station's power was 100 watts. A Coast Radio flyer from the time KUY was on states that it had been heard "from Mexico to Canada and as far east as Denver". Stating his memories of KUY in the historical society's newsletter, he added: "KUY brought reports of reception from vast distances, including all of the United States, South America, Australia, China, etc".
The station lasted from 4/25/22 (first air date was July 14th) until it was deleted 9/29/24. In August of 1923, the Department of Commerce moved KUY from 360 meters (1200 kilocycles - gft) to share time on 1170 kilocycles with station KNV in Los Angeles.
G.S. Corpe took KUY off the air for unknown reasons in 1924 and worked as a land developer until he moved to Wrightwood, northeast of L. A. at the 6,000 foot level of the San Gabriel Mountains. He ran the Wrightwood Lodge for a few years, living in a mountain cabin.
A member of the American Radio Relay League, Corpe was on the ham bands every day as W6LM, the call sign he was granted by the government in 1919 (6LM at first). However, unlike KUY, which had sent out music and talks to the radio audience of Southern California and beyond in the early 1920s, Corpe transmitted only in telegraphic code when operating as an amateur radio operator from his home. G.S. Corpe, radio pioneer, died at Wrightwood, CA on December 11, 1978 at the age of 84.
