at the time—the La Salle Hotel on West Washington street in the West Loop. With a new location and new frequency of 670 kilohertz, WMAQ went on the air July 2, 1923. The new frequency however, was not at first clear channel. WMAQ had to share its schedule with another local station, WQJ, which was jointly owned by the Calumet Baking Powder Company and the Rainbo Gardens Ballroom on North Clark Street. Rainbo was one of the country's top ballrooms and Calumet's broadcasts brought the company much publicity for its products. The Daily News was not able to buy out WQJ until 1927 to make the 670 frequency exclusively available for WMAQ. Within four weeks after its move, WMAQ obtained the exclusive Chicago rights from American Telephone & Telegraph to broadcast President Warren Harding's address from San Francisco. It also had the rights for his memorial services on August 10, 1923. At the time, it was AT&T's policy to sell the exclusive broadcasting rights for an event to one radio station per city. Shortly before the special event, AT&T would send telegrams to all radio stations, informing them of what event was to take place. The first radio station to respond was then granted the exclusive broadcast rights in that city. WMAQ later broadcast both the 1924 Republican and Democratic conventions by this same arrangement. By 1924, the station took an active interest in broadcasting sporting events, airing the 1924 World Series and convincing William Wrigley to carry all Chicago Cubs home games from Wrigley Field in 1925, the first time one station aired an entire season of Cubs games. Hal Totten, a Daily News sportswriter, was WMAQ's first sportscaster. Beginning in the fall of 1925, college football games from the University of Chicago were also broadcast. WMAQ was the first to carry an intercollegate football game in the United States. WMAQ became a network affiliate of the NBC Red Network in January 1927. In September 1927, it severed its ties with NBC and joined the new Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) as a charter affiliate. It was one of the 16 stations that aired the first CBS network program on September 18, 1927. Wanting to expand its coverage area, WMAQ needed a new stronger transmitter. A site for it was purchased outside of the city. In 1928, the new station transmitter was constructed in Elmhurst. It was also time to