Great Lakes

Photo of a large lake freighter in a lock

The new Steamship Clarence B. Randall at the new Sault Ste.
Marie MacArthur Lock - About 1943 or 44 USACE Photo

Great Lakes history would be incomplete without recognition of the important role of the commercial radio communications stations that served the bulk-carrier (iron ore, coal, petroleum, cement and limestone) boats and freighters on the Great Lakes. This service started with CW (Morse code) operations on the medium and long-wave bands as early as 1910. WBL and predecessors of station WLC in Rogers City, MI and a number of now long-gone stations were the pioneers. The use of CW began to decline late 1930s when HF radiotelephone service promoted by station WMI in Lorain, OH took hold.

The Early CW era is covered in more detail on the CW Page.

A report of early radio interference on the lakes : SHIPS RADIO IN 1938 ON THE GREAT LAKES .

During the period from the mid 1940s to the mid 1970s AM (amplitude modulated) and by the early 1980s SSB (single sideband) ship-to-shore radiotelephone communications were the norm for Great Lakes vessels. By the 1950s only WBL and WLC were still using CW. There were as many as 9 shore stations providing radiotelephone service for a few years during this period. The FCC authorized frequencies in the 2, 4 and 8 MHz bands for this service. The 4 and 8 MHz frequencies were duplex pairs which allowed longer-range, telephone-like service through the shore stations access to the land-line telephone network.

These stations' communications services to the boats included: 1) Various daily "Schedules" with all the boats of a given company's fleet where the boats reported in with their positions and other details of their operation and received "orders" from the home office, 2) "Phone-patches" to land-line telephones for both business and personal calls, and 3) Weather broadcasts. The weather and lake condition broadcasts ( LAWEB and MAFOR ) were an important, though non-revenue-producing, service provided by the stations. Here is a 1964 four page Weather Bureau bulletin detailing the MAFOR code system and broadcast schedule: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4.

The Great Lakes can be just as dangerous as the high seas when the weather is stormy, and the reports of serious and sometimes fatal incidents "crackled" over the air-ways at times. Though the Coast Guard is the normal marine emergency communications agency, these commercial stations also handled a share of this type of traffic.

Six of the 9 stations that served the Great Lakes were authorized to operate on the 2, 4 and 8 MHz bands and thus were able to provide longer-range communications than the 3 stations that were only allowed to operate in the 2 MHz band. Each of the 6 stations (WAD, WAS, WAY, WBL, WLC & WMI) are, or will be covered in detail, as suitable material is found. According to the 1971-2 AT&T map, the two stations in Detroit, WFR and WFS, and one station in Port Huron, WFV were restricted to the 2MHz band and thus provided only short-range service. The June 30, 1941 FCC Annual Report indicates that stations were authorized at Detroit, Port Huron and Houghton, MI (Call Letters ?). Information about these MF stations will not be actively sought but posting of any information about them that is received will be considered.

Image of a frequency table from a magazine

The FCC in its 1941 Annual Report indicates that frequencies above 3 MHz were assigned to the 5 Great Lakes stations licensed at that time (plus WBL?), but the FCC was very stingy with the allocations. All of the 6 longer-range stations shared three 2 MHz frequencies, two 4 MHz frequency pairs and one 8 MHz frequency pair. Later when the number of stations had diminished the sharing of the three 2 MHz channels continued, but each of the two remaining stations (WLC and WMI) had two exclusive 4 MHz and 8 MHz channel pairs - shared only with stations on the coasts or Caribbean.

The sharing of 2182 KHz between the rivers and the lakes was a problem. At night the ships on the Great Lakes were constantly hearing traffic from the towboats on the Ohio and Mississippi on 2182. Much of this traffic was associated with locking operations, but to the unhappy Great Lakes captains it appeared that 2182 was the frequency that the towboats used for all of their communications.

This table is from the winter 1971 Comm. World Magazine - Courtesy of Max Summerville, W8MMS

Here's another list of channels from Charles C. Reynolds, a former Lorain Electronics employee: The eight channels in Lorain gear were 51 - 2182 KHz - Calling and Distress, 52 - 2003 KHz, 56 - 2670 KHz - Coast Guard liaison, 57 & 58 - semi-duplex 2 MHz band ship-to-shore telephone channels, 82 & 83 - semi-duplex 4 MHz band ship-to-shore telephone channels, and 96 was a semi-duplex 8 Mhz ship-to-shore telephone channel.

Shortwave propagation is less than 100% reliable and, in addition, communications are often subject to static degradation caused by the summer thunderstorms that occur during very season when Great Lakes shipping is at its yearly peak. This fact plus the availability of VHF-FM marine communications equipment starting in the late 1940s led to the slow evolution from HF to VHF. The first VHF-FM stations had a range of 20-30 miles. However, (WFS ?) Detroit put a VHF antenna at a high point hoping to capture traffic from Port Huron to Toledo but there were lots of dead spots. With time VHF-FM equipment improved and the development (in the late 1960s, early1970s ?) of networks of remotely controlled VHF-FM stations by both WLC and WMI greatly expanded the coverage. The quality of the communications over these new networks was vastly superior to shortwave SSB and its use diminished greatly once the VHF-FM networks were in place.

Two decades later satellite and cell-phone communications displaced the VHF-FM networks, and voice communications via the Great Lakes stations ended when WLC ceased voice operations in 1997.

WAD-WAS-WAY-WBL-WCM-WFN-WGK-WJG-WLC-WMI --- WAD-WAS-WAY-WBL-WCM-WFN-WGK-WJG-WLC-WMI

Some old Great Lakes FCC ship callsign listings are reproduced here:

US - FCC: 1931 4-Letter (Dept. of Commerce list) 1982 1992 Canadian: 1992

Does anyone have more of the older 4-letter ship callsigns? This quote from the 1944 FCC Annual Report gives one hope that there are old Great Lakes ship frequency lists out there to be found.

Here's a mid-1980s listing of the US and Canadian Great Lakes VHF marine Shore Stations.

WAD-WAS-WAY-WBL-WCM-WFN-WGK-WJG-WLC-WMI --- WAD-WAS-WAY-WBL-WCM-WFN-WGK-WJG-WLC-WMI

The Coast Guard once maintained these low-frequency radio beacon navigation aids along the Great Lakes.

WAD-WAS-WAY-WBL-WCM-WFN-WGK-WJG-WLC-WMI --- WAD-WAS-WAY-WBL-WCM-WFN-WGK-WJG-WLC-WMI

More non-station-specific material about Great Lakes communications is requested.

Corrections to the times mentioned on this page are requested.

WAD-WAS-WAY-WBL-WCM-WFN-WGK-WJG-WLC-WMI --- WAD-WAS-WAY-WBL-WCM-WFN-WGK-WJG-WLC-WMI

Missing Key Words: Erie, Ontario, Michigan, Superior, Huron,