WIAR was Paducah, Kentucky's first radio broadcasting station. It was initially licensed in July 1922, ceased making regular broadcasts in May 1923, and was formally deleted in early 1924. History Establishment Effective December 1, 1921 the U.S. Department of Commerce, which regulated radio communication at this time, adopted regulations to formally establish a broadcast service category, which set aside the wavelength of 360 meters (833 kHz) for "entertainment" broadcasting, and 485 meters (619 kHz) for "market and weather reports". By mid-1922 hundreds of radio stations had been licensed. However Kentucky was one of the last states to get a station, and when the Louisville Courier-Journal received a license for WHAS on July 13, 1922, it was 45th out of the then-48 states to join the broadcasting ranks. A few days later WIAR became the second licensed Kentucky station, when J. A. Rudy and Sons, a department store located at 115 South Third Street in Paducah, was issued a license "during the week beginning 17 July 1922". WIAR was authorized to transmit on the 833 kHz "entertainment" frequency, and its call letters were randomly assigned from an alphabetical list. There is little information about WIAR's programming when it was operated by Rudy's, although it was common during this era for department stores to establish stations in order to boost sales of radio receivers. In late November the Paducah Evening Sun, a daily newspaper owned by Paducah's Paxton family, began taking responsibility for the station's programming, and effective January 1, 1923 assumed full ownership. The transmitter room and small studio were located on the second floor of the Sun'''s plant on South 3rd Street. The Sun heavily promoted the station, and the paper, which previously had only sparingly run stories about radio, now carried several features daily about the station and radio in general. A technical series reviewed receiving circuits, including schematics and detailed instructions on how readers could build sets, and the newspaper ran a full-page list of all the stations in the United States. One front page article detailed how a Paducah man received WIAR with a crystal receiver created by wrapping a wire around a lead pencil and attaching this to a doorknob and ground connection. Programming Under the Sun's oversight WIAR generally broadcast from 7-8p.m. Monday through Saturday, and would often also present an afternoon sports broadcast. As was nearly universally true for this era, WIAR's programming was