Wartime usage and broadcasting experimentation
 

The military importance of radio was immediately apparent. In August, 1914, the Belgians had to completely destroy a major international communications station located near Brussels, in order to keep it from falling into the hands of the advancing German army. Directing the War by Wireless, written by George F. Worts reviewed the multiple applications of radio in both short and ling distance wartime communication. A British overview of various uses by Great Britain and its primary foe, Germany, appeared in the 1916 edition of the annual The Yearbook of Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony. In the May, 1917 Popular Science Monthly, reviewed radiotelegraph operations at the British front lines, where operators with portable transmitters proved invaluable, for "If a gas attack is coming, it is he who sends the warning to the men behind to put their gas helmets on." During the war, the Germans used radio transmissions to help airships navigate to their bombing run targets. However, the French would employ counter measures, as an article in the November, 1919 Electrical Experimenter reported how a special station had been used to confuse a group of enemy airships by transmitting phony signals, which put "another dent in Fritz's wild war dream" when Seven Zeppelins Were Lured to Death by Radio. In the July 15, 1917 issue of Journal of Electricity, outlined research efforts by AT&T, including one key development, two-way voice communication with airplanes, which would be quickly achieved, meaning that "squadron formations of all sorts could be maintained in the air as easily as infantry units on the ground". Although before the war ocean-going radio had generally been limited to passenger vessels, submarine warfare spurred merchant ships to add radio operators.
While radio remained off-limits for the general public during the war, there were occasional hints of what lay ahead. Wireless Music for Wounded Soldiers from the April, 1918 The Wireless Age reviewed a low-power transmitter that could be used to entertain hospitalized soldiers with music and news. And between the cessation of hostilities in November, 1918, and the end of the civilian radio restrictions in 1919, there were scattered reports of military personnel firing up transmitters in order to broadcast entertainment to the troops -- for example a February 2, 1919 "Moonlight Witches Dance" transmitted from off the coast of San Diego, California by the battleship Marblehead. A few months later, the U.S.S. George Washington was outfitted with a vacuum-tube transmitter for a transatlantic voyage, in order to test long-range radiotelephony, and during these tests the experimenters found time to broadcast occasional concerts. One of the passengers was U.S. president Woodrow Wilson, and it was also announced that the president's Independence Day speech would be broadcast from aboard ship. However, the president's speech actually went unheard, because he stood too far from the microphone. The George Washington transmissions were widely heard -- the January, 1920 QST carried a report, that James B. Corum had heard the George Washington in Derring, North Dakota. Another Navy effort, a radio concert transmitted from the destroyer Blakely, located at Albany.