A Rooftop Antenna That Outlasted Every Rival

Three men started praying for a radio frequency in 1923: Mr. Olson, Mr. Gaylord and Henry Coleman Crowell, an engineer trained at Yale whose technical judgment would give the station its edge. It took until July 28, 1926, for the prayer to be answered. That evening at 7:30, a singer stepped up to a microphone in a new studio at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and WMBI signed on with the words, I want you to know Him. Crowell's engineering background paid off immediately: WMBI's signal was noticeably cleaner than its competitors, and the station drew on a deep bench of talented Moody Bible Institute students for live programming, among them a sixteen year old violinist named Bob Cook, who would later serve as president of the National Religious Broadcasters from 1985 to 1988, an organization Moody had helped found in 1944. Within its first year WMBI was already broadcasting in seven languages and receiving mail from as far away as Brazil, New Zealand and India.

WMBI holds a claim no other American religious station can: it is the oldest religious radio station in the United States to have stayed under continuous ownership since it signed on. Moody Radio has grown into a network of dozens of full power stations and translators nationwide, folded today into the wider Moody Global Media operation, a full century of broadcasting traced back to a single rooftop antenna and a two hour dedication program in 1926.