Conrad first became interested in radio in 1913, the result of a bet with a co-worker over whose watch was more accurate. Conrad won the bet, in part because he secretly replaced his cheap watch's internal components with the mechanism from a more expensive watch. While conducting the time comparisons, Conrad began to doubt the accuracy of time signals provided by a Western Union telegraph service, so he built a simple radio receiver to pick up the official Naval Observatory time signals, broadcast nightly by station NAA in Arlington, Virginia. With this receiver he also overheard transmissions being made by a neighbor, John Coleman, so Conrad built a transmitter in order to communicate with Coleman and other local amateur radio operators. After moving from Swissvale to Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, he installed a radio station on the top floor of a two-story garage adjacent to his home. In the summer of 1916 this station was issued an Experimental license, with the call sign 8XK. At this time the station employed a spark-transmitter, thus could only be used for Morse code transmissions.