Great
Lakes - Early Wireless - Spark-Morse Code-CW
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 Morse Code 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.
LINKS:
The very
extensive Early
Radio History site provides some information about the
beginnings and early use of radio 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: This site has an excellent built-in search engine
and entering "Great Lakes" in it will produce a cornucopia of information.
An article Reporting Yacht Races by Wireless Telephony details
De Forest's 1907 wireless telephone to report on the progress of a yacht
race from the radio equipped yacht Thelma. Not code but voice, and many years ahead of its time.
The Early Radio History page Clark Space-telegraph System
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.
United begins commercial
CW Operation on the Great Lakes: Early Great Lakes CW
The NY Times had many articles about United Wireless Telegraph
Co. in the 1907 to 1913 time period.
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.
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.
One
of the early (1906) CW stations on the lakes was 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
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.
This FCC website page 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. SOME EXAMPLES: The January 1915 Bulletin gives a long list of
ship stations under the Change to Existing category. Radio
Service Bulletin, April 1, 1924, No 84 shows Marine Weather bing transmitted by
WTK Cleveland 706 meters and by WHT Rogers, MI on 600 and 706 meters and lists Great Lakes Ships
that have been equipped with Vacuum tube receivers by RCA
Radio Marine. The May 1, 1924 Bulletin (No. 85) lists the Great Lake ships that are operated by RCA
Marine. Radio Service
Bulletin, June 1, 1925 (FCC) states that a new license was granted to
WMI Cleveland for operation of 600 and 875 meters. The owner
was Great Lakes Radio Telegraph Compamy providing continuous
Service. This same bulletin states that starting July 15, 1925
that 300, 600, and 706 meters will no longer be used
by ship and land stations in the Great Lakes. In place, 715
and 875 meters will be used. In
1940 the GL calling frequency was changed from 410 to 500 kHz.
The Marine Review of 1932/05/01 has this:
Great Lakes Radio Service -
Over-ruling the exceptions filed by the Midwest Wireless Co. charging the
Radiomarine Corp. was trying to create a monopoly for Great Lakes radio
service, the Federal Radio commission handed down a decision stating that
the Radiomarine Corp. will provide radio service for Great Lakes shipping
interests in the future.
Sustaining Examiner Elmer W. Pratt, the commission granted the applications
of the Radiomarine Corp. for installation of additional point-to-
point communication facilities in the Great Lakes area and denied the
application of the Midwest Wireless Co. which asked to erect new stations for
this service.
The decision authorizes the Radio-marine Corp. to operate stations WCY,
Cleveland; WGO, Chicago; WRL, Dulluth; and WBL. Buffalo in point-to-
point communication service with station WLC, Rogers City, Mich.
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 my FCC Timeline
page.
In
the 1941 Alpena, MI Telephone Directory I recently discovered
a listing for a "Michigan Wireless Tel Co.
Park Place
---------675" Its call letters were WGI. I lived in Alpena until I was
9 and
remember the tower for what was likely this station as there were no
broadcast stations in Alpena at that time. However, it could have been
for police radio. Early in WW2 I remember someone
telling my dad that the feds (Navy or FCC?) shut it down for the war duration
for security reasons. A little more about the station's purpose
and the shutdown is in the left hand column on page 10 here and about the
station's finances on PDF_page 21 here
A 15 page article describing RMCA's 1932 radiotelegraph operations. Mostly High-Seas, but includes 4 Great Lakes stations.
There are several sources of callsign information for the early Great lakes Morse Code stations including these: (1) Early Radio Station Lists Issued by the U.S.
Government: Finding early radio station lists Several early station lists here.
(2) Here's my list of the 1928 lakes and rivers radiotelegraph stations 1928 CW - extracted from one of the nationwide lists.
(3) Here's a copy of the 1924-27
"Commercial and Government Radio Stations of the United States"
publication on-line. (4) From SOWP we have this list 1910 Great Lakes callsigns
FCC's early radio history page:
FCC's Radio History Documents
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.
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. WLC was still using CW in 1935.
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 link is to
images of the article's four pages.
MAARC Great Lakes Wireless Article .
The 1935
"Radio Operator's Manual" by RCA shows the following RCA CW
stations and their frequencies on the Great Lakes: 161
KHz WBL Buffalo, NY - 167
kHz WGO Chicago, IL - WRL
Duluth, MN - 177
KHz WBL Buffalo, NY - 177
KHz WCY
West Dover (Cleveland), OH
410 KHz (Distress frequency), 425, 3106, 3120,
4140, 4790, 6330, 6210, 11205 KHz All
Stations. Here's a 1946 RCA
Calendar showing both WCY and WBL in service at that time.
World Radio History has preserved several of the RCA Employee Newsletters. Here are two from 1930: RMCA Great Lakes employee news This 1930 article states that WAA was under construction in Detour, MI which is on the upper peninsula at the head of Lake Huron. This is the only mention that I have ever seen of this station.
W8TP who served as an operator on the Georgian Bay line's
SS
North American, SS South American and the SS Alabama prior to WW2
reported that WGO was on top of the Congress Hotel in Chicago and one
of the Operators was ??? McCartney.
Here's the story of Martin Williams who managed all RCA regional operations from WGO - Chicago
Some photos of WCY at George
Thompson's memorial site
Here's a 1912
Map of Great Lakes Canadian Radio-Telegraph Stations
The Wayback Machine captured this Telegraph Office Wireless Photo Gallery page. Some nice photos of ancient CW
.
Society
of Wireless Pioneers, Inc. (SOWP)
The Society
of Wireless Pioneers Publications Page.
The Internet Archive DLARC has preserved the newsletters of SOWP and 131 items are found by a Society
of Wireless Pioneers DLARC search.
This Sparks Journal is a Historical Edition - Early Days Wireless on the Great Lakes. It's filled with Great Lakes articles.
See pages 25 and 25 of this Sparks Journal for two Great Lakes stories.
See page 4 of this Sparks Journal for a Great Lakes Coast Guard story.
See pages 24 and 25 of this Sparks Journal for two stories about dangerous weather on theGreat Lakes.
See pages 7-9 of this World Wireless Beacon for an article about Chicago Station WGO in the 1930s.
See pages 11 and 12 of this Ports O' Call for an article about a 1916-1921 Great Lakes operator's experiences.
These two links and the two pictures come
from the SOWP Sparks Journal, Volume 7, No. 1, October 1984 -
Great Lakes Edition - Used with permission. 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. --- On this page there is a photo of another Grand Haven station. |
 WTK installed in
Room 1070 of the Hotel Cleveland
in Cleveland - 1925 |
|
|
|
CW Equipment:
The
widespread use of vacuum tube electronics did not start until the early
1920s. Prior to that time, spark gap and alternators were the
transmitters. Coherers and crystal sets were the receivers.
With no amplification at the receiver, the transmitters were required
to operate at high power levels. All use of spark
transmitters were prohibited for US licensees after Jan. 1, 1940.
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.
After the spark era the 500 KHz CW
equipment was really modulated CW (MCW). That is a 400 Hertz
AM signal that was turned on and off. The transmitter (500
watts) had a VFO and the frequency was determined by zero beating with
the super regenerative receiver. A typical receiver had 4
bands and covered from about 10KHz to about 600 KHz.
Around 1918? (seems too early) the
distress signal was changed to key down for 4 seconds, key up for 1
second, etc for around a minute
to trigger automatic alarm systems. If a ship was equipped
with an automatic alarm receiver, then 1 operator for cargo and 2
operators for passenger were required. However, the wireless
operators had to monitor traffic lists, sleep near equipment,
etc. A special clock was required in the radio room
to assist the wireless operator with the timing required to send the
distress signal. The clock also showed the Morse and the
voice quiet times.
On the ocean, 2182 receivers
require 2 tones to activate the receiver. The purpose is to
keep receiver quiet except for emergency situations.
Otherwise, the receiver picks up 2182 communications from all over the
world. It is equivalent to turning on an AM receiver night
and hearing pure interference from several stations on the same
frequency.
Here's a 1942 ad
for a Scott marine receiver designed to have very low local oscillator
radiation to thwart the detection of the ship via the enemy's use of
radio direction finding gear. Ocean going ships got
the priority for these receivers, but some were probably used on Great
lakes vessels later on.
