[CW] How was message routing done?

[George]

For USNS (Navy chartered) ships, the ship would send a message to whichever communication station they thought would be the one they would be copying messages from, say NDT for Japan. That communication station would then receive their messages & hold them. For USS ships (Navy), all Communication Stations in the area would broadcast messages for all ships in the area (encrypted, of course).
George N0GM (former RM)

Sent from my iPhone

> On Apr 23, 2019, at 3:47 PM, Richard Knoppow <1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> 
>    I've researched this as far as I can on the web.
>    I learned code partly from copying commercial maritime stations and to some extent ships. Probably at the time a phone book would have suggested the answer but, alas, I can't find any on line.
>    Stations broadcast traffic lists periodically. These were lists of call letter of ships for which the station held messages. After these broadcasts I would often hear ships calling in for their messages. Now what did not puzzle me then but does now is did each shore station have a separate traffic list? How did a ship station know which stations to listen for? Assuming ships of U.S. registry there were something like nine shore stations in the U.S. surely the ships did not have to copy traffic lists from all of them.
>   So, I would like to know the routine for sending a message to a ship. Lets assume these are ships of U.S. registry. Suppose I have a friend who is traveling on the SS Neuresthenic, a large passenger ship. Lets further specify its in the Pacific somewhere. Suppose also that I live someplace there is not a shore station, say Las Vegas. How did I go about sending a radiogram? I had assumed that one just called Western Union and sent it but would I have to have called one of the radio companies from LV? Also, would I have to have known which company the ship contracted with? I have an extremely vague memory of seeing an ad in the Los Angeles yellow pages for RCA soliciting radiograms via RCA. Maybe I am imagining it. Presumably the message went to a message center and then to the appropriate station.
>    I have become totally shameless in my old age in attempting to satisfy my curiosity. If this is a really stupid question, so be it, I want to know.
> 
> -- 
> Richard Knoppow
> 1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com
> WB6KBL
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