a manager. Strong knew a young woman with some ad agency experience named Judith C. Waller. He called her and said, “I’ve just bought a radio station; come down and run it.” Waller protested that she didn't know anything about running a station. Strong replied “neither do I, but come down and we’ll find out.” Waller was hired in February 1922. She went on to have a long and distinguished career in broadcasting. There are questions as to whether anyone actually heard the station's initial half-hour broadcast, as technical problems forced WGU to shut down the following day. It remained off the air while a new transmitter was ordered. One of the problems with reception of the station was the interference of tall buildings in the area and that it had only about 100 watts of power. The City of Chicago also operated its own radio station with similar call letters, WBU, sharing a frequency with Westinghouse's KYW, which began in Chicago the year before. In an attempt to avoid confusion with the city's station, WGU was assigned the new call letters WMAQ, and to improve reception, its power was increased to 500 watts and it was assigned the clear channel frequency of 750 kilocycles. WMAQ's call letters were first broadcast October 2, 1922, with the inaugural show featuring comedian Ed Wynn. The station's longtime motto "We Must Answer Questions," was derived from this call sign. Early 1923 records show there were 20 radio stations on the air in Chicago alone. Most of these smaller radio stations faded out because of money issues. The Chicago stations that are or had been on the dial for many years usually had a store, newspaper or organization behind them which was willing and able to weather the early times when many radio stations did not make a profit. WMAQ had the financial backing of the Chicago Daily News and a very capable general manager in Judith Waller. Waller remained in charge of the station until it was purchased by NBC. At that point she became the director of public affairs programming for NBC's central division, holding that title until her retirement in 1957. By early 1923, the Daily News was convinced enough in the power of radio to buy out the Fair Store's 51% interest in the station. The Daily News moved the station and its transmitter to the tallest building in Chicago