[Boatanchors] 1937

[Richard Knoppow]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "LARRY D GODEK" <telegrapher at q.com>
To: <boatanchors at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2010 1:50 PM
Subject: [Boatanchors] 1937


>
> Found an old 1937 Call book. Really amazed at what they 
> listed in there.  Everything from hams to press wireless, 
> high frequency wireless, police station call signs and 
> more.  As an example, the US hams only occupied 9 call 
> districts.  the 10th was known as W10.  some of the 
> listings are:  W10XAA for airplane NC-417-H licensed to 
> Bell Labs which was one of several.  W10XFO was licensed 
> to Northwestern Airlines airplane NC-303-N.  W10XI was 
> licensed to Aircraft Radio Corp., Rockaway Valley Airport, 
> Boonton, N.J.  W10XCY was Harvey Radio Labs in Boston.
>
> W1AW F.E. Handy was also known as WLMK.
>
> It appears that most of the police stations licensed at 
> the time in the USA were operating between 2344 Kc (KSW) 
> in Berkley, Ca. and 2490 Kc which was KGZD, the San Diego 
> Police Dept.
>
> Also listed were military ships and stations around the 
> world, Maritime shore stations and the frequencies they 
> operated on.  Was surprised to see so many of them 
> operated not only on HF but MF and LF as well.   From 
> looking at the frequencies listed and the number of 
> stations, anyone with a decent receiver would have the 
> world at their fingertips.  What a great information find. 
> Didn't know it existed.
>
> Need something looked up, drop me a note and i'll see what 
> i can find for you.  Weren't many DX or foreign amateurs 
> out there in the world at that time.
>
> Larry
> W0OGH
>
     What a find! Does it have the traditional picture of 
the flying horse and lightning bolts on the cover?
     F.E. Handy was the custodian of the ARRL official 
station. This was originally licensed as W1MK but on the 
death of Hiram Percy Maxim, founder of the ARRL the station 
was allowed to have his call, W1AW, as it has continued to 
use to this day. F.E.Handy's personal call was W1BDI.
     The police used a couple of bands, one was just above 
the broadcast band, and, in fact, is part of it now. Another 
was in the vicinity of 2 to 3 mhz. The Los Angeles Police 
used 1730 for many years for the metropolitan area and 
around 2.3 mhz for the San Fernando Valley and another in 
the same band for the San Pedro harbor area. These were 
continued after the department switched to VHF frequencies 
because it thought they were good public relations. The use 
ended during the Watts riots of 1965. 1730 could be received 
on many broadcast receivers and had some utility for 
notifying motorcycle officers about weather conditions (they 
rode in cars if it was raining) and hot weather uniform code 
for all officers. The Pasadena police also used a frequency 
in the MW range.
     Its interesting that the zero call area did not come 
into existance until around the late 1930's, I no longer 
remember the date. Expermimental stations had calls much 
like ham calls except the first letter of the call was 
always an X, for example W2XR, an experiment in 
high-fidelity AM broadcasting in NYC, which later was 
commercialized as WQXR, the Q looking like the old 2. 
Another example is the famous W6XAO, an experimental 
television station in Los Angeles operated by Don Lee 
Broadcasting. This station was comercialized as KTSL and is 
now KCBS-TV.
     I would love to have a list of coastal telegraph 
stations. I think at the time each transmitter had to have a 
separate call, for instance, the RCA station at Cape Cod had 
both WCC and WIM. It would also be interesting to see if a 
couple of friends and mentors of my youth are in there, W6VX 
for instance.