[CW] (no subject)

[Richard Knoppow]

    Thank you for linking this. It takes a little getting used to 
but I could read it pretty well after a couple of minutes. I am 
always envious of people who have had wonderful adventures.
   A story, which I think is true, is how KDKA Pittsburgh, the 
first commercial broadcast license issued by the Department of 
Commerce got a four letter K call. Turns out the DOC thought it 
was a ship station. A land station should have gotten a three 
letter call at the time (end of 1920) and east of the Mississippi 
it should have started with a W. East coast registered ship 
stations started with a K so KDKA got a ship's call. 
Westinghouse, who owned it, also got four other early calls, WBZ, 
Boston, WJZ, New York, and KYA originally issued to Chicago. I am 
not certain when the Federal Radio Commission began to issue 
broadcast stations with four letter calls and abide by the land 
station rule that east coast stations began with W and west coast 
stations with K but it must have been in the early to mid 1920s.

On 6/16/2018 8:09 PM, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. wrote:
> W5PEH, Pete, just announced he has two Blue Racers from 1913 or 
> so for Dave.
> 
> Lovely, keys, and speaking of old Blue Racers, W0BMU, Tex had 
> one, and he scratched the name of his barge on the base. Ships 
> and I learned barges also had four letter call signs, aircraft 
> had five letter call signs and land stations in Morse had three 
> letter call signs.  Ships, barges and broadcast stations all 
> shared the four letter call sign pool.
> 
> W0BMU, Tex, was radio officer on a barge!  On a barge on the Eire 
> Canal in 1916, he used to say he had a LES, a Lake Erie Swing 
> (LES), but I always corrected him and told him he had a Lake Erie 
> CANAL Swing!  He loved hearing that, he'd laugh and laugh. The 
> barge call was carved into the key.  He was 16 years old when he 
> was Sparks.
> 
> Here's some short recordings of Tex and his LES bug fist, the 
> gang didn't understand how important these recordings would be, 
> they're short and the others got impatient waiting for Tex to 
> finish sending.
> 
> https://archive.org/details/W0bmuHowardtexHarveyW0bmu
> 
> 73
> 
> DR
> N1EA
> 
> 
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> =30=
> 

-- 
Richard Knoppow
1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com
WB6KBL