[CW] (no subject)

[D.J.J. Ring, Jr.]

Coast stations were usually two letter call signs before 1917, ships three,
when letters were added, at first they were "operating company"
identification, M for Marconi, D for Debeg (I think), thus Chatham,
Massachusetts was at first, CC then with Marconi prefix, MCC, then national
prefixes came out and it became WCC.

W for Coast stations and ships registered East of the Mississippi River, K
for those West of the Mississippi, except for Alaska Territory which was
W.  Hawai'i Territory was K as were the rest of the Pacific Islands, the
Atlantic islands were W in Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.  Their three
letter call signs added the national letter.   CC became MCC then WCC.
Ships like MGA had to add a national prefix. United Kingdom still has the M
prefix.

There is a wonderful article about WGI the Medford Hillside Station near
Tufts.
https://www.bostonradio.org/essays/wgi.html

Years ago when I was a new ham I met Eunice Randall who was an engineer and
announcer there and I watched "Big Brother" Bob Emory on WBZ TV who used to
be on WGI when I was 10 years old, but that was 40 years after his WGI
show.  Arlene Francis was another announcer who came to early television
from WGI.

So KDKA certainly was a freak assignment.

73

DR


On Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 23:42 Richard Knoppow <1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com> wrote:

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