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The SS South American was one of the last Great lakes ships to use CW
Photo courtesy of Tom Drake

Since the focus of this site is on the history of the 10 HF radiotelephone stations that served the Great Lakes and the inland rivers system the subject of early CW operation will not be covered in detail.  Therefore, the emphasis of this page will be on presenting links to information at other sites and showing information which is otherwise not likely to be found on the Internet.  

This page continues to be very much under construction.  Please excuse it's roughness and disorganization.  Some things are here because I do not have a better place for them at this time.  Eventually, some of it will likely be put elsewhere. 

Originally this page was home to information about the SS South American.  This information has now been updated and transferred to the new Georgian Bay Line Page.

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CW LINKS:

The very extensive Early Radio History site provides some information about the beginnings and early use of CW on the Great Lakes. If there are conflicts between information on this page and information on the Early Radio History Site the latter is more likely to be correct. The following pages on that site may be of interest to those interested in this aspect of marine radio history:

The Early Radio History page http://earlyradiohistory.us/1903clrk.htm and the book "Tower in Babel, Volume 1", by Erik Barnouw indicate perhaps the  earliest beginnings of Great Lakes wireless pioneered by  Thomas E.  Clark.  He began experiments in the Detroit area in 1899 and soon formed Clark Wireless and equipped the Garland, Sappho and Promise Steamers.    By 1903 his company was called the Thomas E. Clark Wireless Telegraph and Telephone Co. and began experiments with voice transmission.  He  built transmitters in a number of port cities on the lakes, equipped more steamers and in 1906 broadcast election returns to them.  The Early Radio history article has three pictures of the Clark Wireless installation in Detroit. By 1909 Clark had 7 US stations and one Canadian station operating and two more US stations under construction - all of these in the Great Lakes area. However, Clark Wireless was forced out of business by (and/or sold to) United Wireless Telegraph Company.   Information is needed about the time and circumstances of the demise or (sale to United) of the Clark company.

These words from the book, "Empire of the Air," by Tom Lewis may explain why Clark could not compete with United: "The reason for its success (United's) may not be attributed to superiority of the system, however; United Wireless rarely charged for equipment or the messages it sent. Instead it depended of ever-expanding stock sales to keep it afloat." The 1909 station list shows United with 19 stations on the Great Lakes, and the Lewis book indicates that: "At its apex in 1910 United Wireless boasted 70 stations in communication with 400 ships sailing on the Atlantic Ocean and Great Lakes, far more than its competitors."  Some sources indicate that Thomas Clark alerted the authorities to the United Wireless scheme, and on June 15, 1910 the government raided the company's offices in NY. Subsequent investigation found the company to be insolvent - the principle officers had siphoned off much of the money received from the sale of stock.  Five company officers went to prison as a result.

Another article http://earlyradiohistory.us/1907yht.htm details the 1907 use of wireless telephony to report on the progress of a yacht race from the radio equipped yacht Thelma. 

Commercial CW Operation Begins on the Great Lakes: http://earlyradiohistory.us/1909uwgl.htm
Early Radio Station Lists Issued by the U.S. Government:  http://earlyradiohistory.us/statlist.htm

The second link above is to a page which contains links to several early station lists. Here's my list of the 1928 lakes & rivers radiotelegraph stations - extracted from one of these nationwide lists.

The Early Radio History site also has an excellent built-in search engine and entering "Great Lakes" in it will produce a cornucopia of information.

These newspaper quotes (1909 and 1911-12) provide information on the early use of wireless on the Great Lakes. This information is from issues of  The Detroit Marine Historian, the Journal of the Marine Historical Society of Detroit , and are used with its permission.

This Google search will turn up twenty-some NY Times articles about United Wireless Telegraph Co. in the 1907 to 1913 time period.

One of the early (1906) CW stations on the lakes was one owned by Marconi and located in the Elberta Frankfort, MI area.  It was installed for the Ann Arbor RR to provide communication with its car ferrys on Lake Michigan.  It initially used the call FK which later became WFK.

In 1911 the Marconi Co. sued the United for patent infringement. The Marconi case was very strong, and the then-bankrupt United was in no condition to wage a long court battle.  In 1912, the lawsuit was decided in Marconi's favor, and it resulted in the merger of the two companies.  Marconi acquired United's 70 land stations and over 500 ship-board installations.  It was the primary communications provider to Great Lakes shipping until after WW1.

In 1919 the government assisted by GE engineered the formation of RCA to take over the American interests of the Marconi Company.  At its inception GE owned at least 80% of the stock in the new company with the Marconi owning the remainder.  The new RCA was initially a communications company, though broadcasting and the manufacturing of tubes and broadcast equipment soon over-shadowed the communications operations.   According to George C. Oslin's book The Story of Telecommunications RCA's Radiomarine Corporation of America was formed in 1927.  It would be one of the prime providers  of marine communications equipment and services for more than 40 years.

A 1947 WLC Article received with other WLC documents was written by one of the founders of the station and has considerable information about the early years of the station and Great Lakes CW in general. The CW operation of WLC started in 1922.  The station has also been known as WHT and WCAF. 

The following FCC website documents the operation of the Department of Commerce, Bureau of Navigation and later Radio Division from January 1915 to June 1932. (The FCC did not come into existence until 1934.) There is a bulletin for each month and each bulletin listed new stations and alterations to existing coast and ship stations often listing call letters. The January 1915 Bulletin gives a long list of ship stations under the Change to Existing category.

https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/radio-service-bulletins

Here are a few selected Great Lakes related excerpts from the Bulletins:

1960s Great Lakes Wireless Article

Many thanks to the Mid-Atlantic Antique Radio Club which graciously granted us permission to copy and display their article "Wireless on the Great Lakes - Recollections by Levon R. McDonald" which was printed in the October 2006 issue of their publication Radio Age.  The links are to images of the article's pages.           Page 1        Page 2        Page 3        Page 4

Society of Wireless Pioneers, Inc. (SOWP)

Here's their list of 1910 Callsigns.                                       And their list of 1915-23 Callsigns.

Early CW Station WGH - Grand Haven, MI Photo by SOWP member R.H.G. Mathews

WTK installed in Room 1070 of the Hotel Cleveland in Cleveland - 1925

Here's a copy of the 1924-27 "Commercial and Government Radio Stations of the United States" publication on-line.  

FCC's early radio history page:  https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/radio-history-documents

Some ship owner managed their own systems.  However, many owners contracted wireless service from either Marconi or RCA Radiomarine (RMCA).  The service supplied the hardware, provided the licensing, and often provided the operators.  Licensing required a specification of the hardware.  Any change in wireless hardware or wireless service required an update to the license and these changes were handled by Marconi or RMCA.  If a wireless station charged for this service, then the charges were part of the license.  All radio calls were published by the international bureau at Berne and were brought up to date on any change.

Around 1939 the adoption of radio telephone on Great Lakes made the Morse operator optional on the freighters.   The Morse operator was extra cost and did not satisfy the need for rapid communications between ships in river channels, etc.  The WW2 Navy restrictions on any unnecessary ship radio telegraph traffic resulted in a vast decrease in traffic and thus resulted in the demise of many radio telegraph shore stations.  This can be clearly seen on the FCC Timeline page. 

CW Equipment:

120 Volt DC was the main power supply on the ships.  Large motor generator units were used to increase the voltage to acceptable levels to operate the tubes in the transmitter.  The receivers B+ was connected directly to ship's 120 Volt supply.

 

Miscellaneous

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