WLC - Rogers City, MI

WLC originally came on the air in 1922 as private low-frequency spark-emission marine shore station WCAF.  The station was planned by C. R. Fisher, Chief Electrical Engineer, and was put into operation by Robert F. Crittendon who remained with the station until 1962.  In 1923 the station was re-licensed as a public station WHT providing service to all ships.  In late 1924 the call letters were changed to WLC for "World Limestone Center."   The first vacuum tube transmitter was installed late in 1922.  Barry Heinzel, KB8DSL supplied this 11-30-1922 newspaper clipping. showing that there were some egaer radio listeners in the Rogers City area at the time. 

WLC - Ca. 1947 - Unknown Source Click on the image for a  view showing the towers at their full height.

The first ship-to-shore radio- telephone operation on the Great Lakes was pioneered by WLC in the 1922-24 period.  However, the Great Lakes freighter & bulk-carrier owners were not ready for radiotelephone, and WLC reverted to exclusively CW operation until 1941.

In 1932 a license was granted for the station to operate a radiotelegraph transmitter on HF. The operation was very successful in com- municating with Buffalo, Cleveland, Chicago and Duluth, as well as with ships who were also licensed to work on the high frequencies.  WLF was the assigned call. 

Radiotelephone frequency allocations above 3 MHz were approved by the FCC during the fiscal year that ended June 30, 1941, and radiotelephone privileges were added to the WLF license that year.  Sometime (after 1947?) the licensing was unified under the WLC call.  Does anyone know when this happened?

Between 1930 and 1941 the station was moved several times before settling in at it's final site just on the edge of Calcite Harbor as shown in the photo on the left and on the map above.  Information about the previous locations and images of the station prior to 1990 are needed as we either have none or they are not of good quality. This photo  shows WLC's final home under construction with the left tower only partly complete.  It was taken on April 9, 1941 by a Rogers City amateur photographer, 18 year-old Charles L. Heinzel . Thanks to his brother Barry for sending it.

The June 30, 1941 FCC Annual Report states that the Coastal-Harbor station at Mackinac Island was moved to Rogers City, but curiously there is no mention of this in the rather extensive WLC history article that Station Manager, Robert Crittendon wrote in 1947.   It is very fortunate that Randy Martens, the last operator of WLC, has a copy of this article and furnished it (and much other WLC material/photos) to us.  It appears that the article was for a magazine but the publication is unknown.  Some material on this page and several of the older photographs are from this article, and it's a "must-read" for those interested in more detail about WLC's history.

The Historical Collections of the Great Lakes at Bowling Green State University has some information on the early years of the station.  Unfortunately, information on the web-site about the station is minimal and the main part of the page is devoted to listing the contents of 22 boxes of WLC daily log-books from 1923 to 1930.

WLC is shown on all of the AT&T maps.  See the Map Index page.

WLC 1947 Operating Positions ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Things had only changed slightly at the time of the 1958 photo on the right.             Joseph Hassett in the rear? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Does anyone have better versions of these photos  or know the names of the operators?  The sources of these photos are unknown. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The WLC Crew in 1953 L to R Rear:  Bob Crittendon - Joe Hassett - Jay Seymour - Tom Curtis - Jack Fanning --- Foreground:  Daryl Stath ? - Frank Sager - Harvey Peltz Click on the image for larger, and more, 1953 Crew photos

WLC's 1953 LF CW Transmitter  -  500KHz & 476? KHz

Two banks of WLC Wilcox AM Transmitters - 1953 All of the 1953 photos are from Tom Curtis

 

Tom Curtis Operating WLC in 1958  -  This photo accompanied a short article about the Mayday message sent by the sinking Carl D. Bradley.                Unknown Source

WLC Main Building & Towers - Taken from the Base of the Channel 26 Tower - Probably taken in the 1970s               Unknown Source

This WLC article in the Presque Isle County Advance-Centennial Issue of July 30. 1971 is the source of the two photos below.  It repeats some of the information in Robert Crittendon's  WLC history article mentioned above, but it also provides an abbreviated update to 1971. 

Here's how Central Radio's Communication center looked a number of years back (1950s or 60s ) when Bob Crittendon,  (standing) was manager. Harvey Peltz is the operator in the  foreground.  Both of these photos are from the PRESQUE ISLE COUNTY ADVANCE-CENTENNIAL ISSUE-July 30. 1971

Frank Sager, (standing) oversees the operations as manager of Central Radio Telegraph.  Others in the photo (L to R) are operators William Pettee, Robert Mix and Ray Heimberger. Bigger version with expanded caption

Tom Curtis reports that CW was still in use when he left in Sept. of 1962 and no VHF FM facilities had been installed at that time.

Other than this 1968 WLC QSL card , contributed by Jeff Yates, we have little information about the station from about 1960 to the mid 1980s so the next images are from the mid/late 1990s, the last years of WLC's operation.  Can anyone provide more detail about the stations history during the 50s to 80s time period?  Some of the questions are:  When was CW discontinued?  When was the first VHF-FM station installed?  When was the VHF-FM station network put in service? 

WLC Main Operating Position in 1997                 Photo by Joe Olig

Another WLC Operating Position View from the late 1990s Photo by Joe Olig

Randall (Randy) Martens was hired at WLC in 1980, became a supervisor in 1982 and replaced the retiring Harvey Peltz as manager in 1987.  This short article details the 1991 purchase of the station (from United States Steel when they were breaking up the corporation) by Martens and a partner, Susan Rutledge, USS's WLC bookkeeper.  During the 1980s SITOR service was started.  This copy of the draft material for a 1985 WLC Brochure gives details on the operation of the station at that time with emphasis on the advantages of the new SITOR service.

About 1990 the 4-station VHF-FM network was expanded via WLC's purchase of some of the former Lorain Electronics VHF system stations that WJG-Maritel had purchased, operated and then shut down in 1990 for lack of traffic.  The following FM stations were purchased from WJG-Maritel: Duluth, Ontonagon, Copper Harbor, Grand Marais, Pickford, Alpena, Harbor Beach, and Chicago.  After running these a few years the ones that had the least amount of traffic were dropped,  By the time of the closure in 1997 Pickford, Harbor Beach, and Chicago had been closed.  Here are maps of the VHF-FM system in 1985 and in the mid 1990s.  Did the Cleveland station also come from WJG-Maritel?  Does anyone have any pictures of any of these remote stations? 

Some of the WLC HF Tranceivers in 1997          Photo by Joe Olig

The HF Power Amp at WLC in 1997                    Photo by Joe Olig

The WLC HF Antenna Tuner in 1997              Photo by Joe Olig

Owner Randy Martens Operating in 1997         Photo by Joe Olig

Denise Roeske at the Controls - 1990s                  Photo by Jim Leow --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jim Leow submitted the photo at the right showing him at the WLC controls during the last days of the station's operation.  --------------------------------------------------------------

Jim Leow sent me these four scenic photos which are typical of the great views that the WLC crew often enjoyed from the station's location right on the Lake Huron shore.

Bob Ballantine, W8SU took this shot showing most of the WLC antenna farm just prior to the station's closing in 1997.  The view looks toward Lake Huron

Jim Leow took this photo on a dreary November 28, 1997 when WLC, the last of the Public Coastal Stations serving  the Great Lakes, went quiet - SK

Here's the Schedule for the operation of the station during the 1997 season.

Here's the SITOR (?) morning traffic list for Nov. 25, 1997, just a few days before the station's closing.

Here are two short video clips of the captain of the M/V Burns Harbor, WQZ-7049, talking to WLC, one of them on WLC's last day of operation.   They will play on any of the common media players.  The video versions are multi-megabyte files and even with a high-speed connection they may take a minute or so to download depending on the connection speed.  Dial-up users can choose the much-smaller MP3 audio versions to substantially reduce the download time.  Who was on the mic. at WLC in early morning on 11/28/96?  

Terry Miliczky, KB9IHU supplied this 8 minute MP3 recording of  WLC talking with a number of boats on Channel 405 on a late fall day in the mid-1980s.  The weather was rough that evening on the lakes because of a fall storm.  The clearer voices are the WLC operator and a company dispatcher who is on the phone line. The weaker audio is from the boats, but as heard at, and repeated by, WLC.

Weather information was very important to the boats and WLC tried hard to fill the need with both weather reports and faxed weather maps. Here's a portion of a typical Lakes weather report.

WLC had very nice watermarked stationery.

It seems that WLC was a leaner operation than WMI and thus was able to offer lower rates, and this undoubtedly contributed to it's longevity vs. its Ohio competitor.  Randy and Sue ran WLC until 1997 when it became apparent that the competition from satellite and cellular was too much, and it was no longer feasible to keep a 24 hour manned station on the air.  As the caption for the picture above indicates WLC's last full season of service to the lakers ended in 1997.

The WLC building (and towers?) still exists, and just a couple of years ago Randy tried a SSB e-mail system.  It worked well, but the shipping companies felt going back to SSB was stepping back, and instead they use a satellite email system.  So WLC is off the air again, but it's FCC license does not expire until 2013.

Can anyone contribute more information about this station?

Ex-operators report that in its later years WLC was an informal operation - the operators were known by name to the boat captains. 

Some of the WLC crew and their recollections.

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