station operated under a standard amateur radio license, with the call sign 8MK. William E. Scripps was very enthusiastic about the project, and kept close track as the equipment was being tested. However, the work was done with very limited publicity, and there are reports that some at the newspaper worried that a radio station might adversely affect paper sales, thus measures were taken to hide the direct involvement of the Scripps family, including originally licensing 8MK in Michael DeLisle Lyons' name. Scripps' original proposal had envisioned operating on an uncongested frequency somewhere within the 600 to 1600 meter (500 to 187.5 kHz) band normally reserved for government stations. However, as an amateur station 8MK was required to transmit on the standard — thus interference-prone — amateur wavelength of 200 meters (1500 kHz), although contemporary newspaper accounts stated that it sometimes operated on other, less congested, wavelengths. In addition, the OT-10 transmitter was only rated for 20 watts, far less than the 3,000 watts contemplated in Scripps' original proposal. Debut 8MK began nightly trial broadcasts on August 20, 1920, in order to check if the equipment was ready for regular service. However, because the station was still unpublicized the original audience consisted only of a small number of interested local amateur radio enthusiasts. The test programs proved satisfactory, so on August 31, 1920, the Detroit News announced on its front page that, starting that evening, nightly (except Sunday) broadcasts would be transmitted by the "Detroit News Radiophone" service. That evening's debut program featured regularly updated returns for a primary election held that day, plus vocal performances by Lois Johnson. Malcolm Bingay, managing director of the Detroit News, was the broadcast's master of ceremonies. The front page of the next day's News contained enthusiastic reports attesting to the success of the election night broadcast, which had begun "promptly at 8:10 p. m.", with the newspaper declaring: "The sending of the election returns by The Detroit News Radiophone Tuesday night was fraught with romance and must go down in the history of man's conquest of the elements as a gigantic step in his progress." The paper also reported receiving "numberless telephone calls to The News office asking for details of the apparatus". Daily broadcasts, most commonly between 7 and 8 p.m., continued through September. Although the initial programs consisted mostly of phonograph records interspersed with news announcements, programming also included fight results