WCBS-TV's history dates back to CBS' opening of experimental station W2XAB on July 21, 1931, using the mechanical television system that had been more-or-less perfected in the late 1920s.[2][3] Its first broadcast featured New York Mayor Jimmy Walker, Kate Smith, and George Gershwin.[4] The station had the first regular seven-day broadcasting schedule in American television, broadcasting 28 hours a week. Among its early programming were Harriet Lee (1931), The Television Ghost (1931–1933), Helen Haynes (1931–1932), and Piano Lessons (1931–1932). Because W2XAB was broadcasting its video on 2750 kc and audio separately on W2XE at 6120 kc in the shortwave band in 1931,[5] the experimental station's signal could be received in nearby states beyond the New York metropolitan area, as far away as Boston and Baltimore.[2][3] In Allentown, Pennsylvania, some 80 miles (130 km) distant, the local newspaper even listed W2XAB's daily program schedules, for example, as did the Ithaca Journal in upstate New York, 175 miles (282 km) northwest.[5][6]