[CW] How message handling was done?

[Richard Knoppow]

     Interesting. Being in a fixed location in Los Angeles I 
heard all of these stations in the U.S. Of course, I was on the 
back side of WPA. KLC, the MacKay station in Galveston was 
extremely strong here almost regardless of conditions.
     In the earliest days of wireless the companies, for instance 
Marconi, insisted that their ships communicate only with their 
land stations and none other. After the Titanic disaster one 
major change in the treaty rules was that all stations, coast or 
ship, had to communicate with all others. This is why Dollar 
Radio became Globe Wireless. It was originally created by the 
Robert Dollar line to communicate exclusively with their ships. 
Tropical was owned by United Fruit. It is one of the oldest 
companies but I am not sure from the historical material if it 
was originally an exclusive service for United. United Fruit also 
operated the largest terrestrial telephone and telegraph network 
in central America.  It seems to have had three stations in the 
U.S. WBF in Boston (its headquarters), WAX in Miami (shown as 
Hialeah in old books) and WNU in New Orleans. WBF seems to have 
gone off the air about the WW-2 period. Prior to WW-2 RCA also 
operated a station in Galveston, WGV. This seems to have been 
replaced by KLC, a MacKay station not shown in the older books.
    RCA also had a station near Miami, WOE, listed in older books 
as being in Palm Beach and later ones as Lantana. Perhaps RCA 
counted on it to compensate for WPA. RCA also had a station in 
Savanna Ga, WSV, shown in a calandar for 1948 I found on-line. 
This was off the air by the time I was listening in the early 
1960s. I suspect there was just not enough traffic to justify 
some of these stations, but that brings up WLO, an independent 
station that seems to have been founded after about 1945. Older 
books show it belonging to Mobile Marine Radio but it was 
acquired later by Globe. The larger stations, like KPH, KFS, WCC, 
WSL must have been very expensive to maintain.
    Your remarks about WPA are interesting in light of what I saw 
the couple of times I went by KSE. KSE had a big flat top on two 
self supporting towers (painted black BTW) and what appeared to 
be HF antennas which were supported on wooden poles, not very 
high. The poles appeared to be made of plain lumber. Looked like 
someone's ham antenna. I never went by KOK but had the feeling it 
was a more sophisticated installation.
    I was in my late teens at the time.

On 4/24/2019 6:09 AM, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. wrote:
> Unfortunately, "Ships in geographical regions had specific shore
> stations that they communicated with." wasn't true as soon as ships
> were outfitted with HF equipment.  At the beginning of ship radio,
> that was the case because the only frequencies were medium wave - 410
> to 512 kc/s band.  At first ships with Dollar Radio only would
> communicate with that companies radio stations, or RCA ships with RCA
> stations, or ITT/Mackay with ITT/Mackay stations.  This changed by the
> 1950s.
> 
> Sending position reports wasn't required by law, and many stations
> just threw them in the trash after receiving them, that was the
> standing order by management at Tuckerton Radio, NJ / WSC under the
> new owners around 1985 to 1990.  Even AMVER was voluntary, but USMER -
> United States MERchant Ship Vessel Locator Reporting System was
> mandatory but only for USA ships.  I'm sure that somehow the
> information contained in the AMVER and USMER messages got put in some
> location file, but it wasn't strictly legal because it was not a
> message to the coast station.  Same thing with noon position reports
> sent as a MSG to the company or charterers.  TR's were only sent
> entering port or leaving port, and mostly leaving port.  I've never
> heard or received a TR from a ship in mid voyage either on ship or
> while working at a coast station.  That doesn't mean it was never
> done, but it was rarely done, I probably did it myself when in the
> middle of the Pacific to a far away station I heard, just to give the
> equipment a test.  TR ship name coming from departure port bound for
> destination port.
> 
> The only charterer who mandated a station to use was EXXON which
> ordered you to keep a watch on Port Arthur Radio (RCA), WPA.
> Unfortunately, if you got out of the area of USA, you could never work
> them because they had very poor antennas.  You would barely hear them
> in the Gulf of Mexico. Their antenna was about 100 feet long and up
> perhaps 15 feet for 418 kHz and 500 kHz.  Their HF antennas were
> equally as poor.  So no matter what they said, if you went away from
> the USA you couldn't copy them and would have to ask WCC or KPH for
> them to get the traffic from WPA (or WOE, Lantana, FL) which they did
> for free.
> 
> As Jim Kennedy states the ship radio station operating company -
> usually ITT/Mackay or RCA, or later Radio-Holland, was required by FCC
> Part 80 and ITU treaties to maintain a full set of ITU publications
> which contained a list of ship stations and a list of coast stations,
> the coast station list book had traffic list times and frequencies.
> 
> I have had owners send me a last minute diversion message - say
> through a smaller station like Baltimore Radio / WMH and I just on a
> lark copied their traffic list, I saw I was on the list - we weren't
> bound for Baltmore, but it was a diversion message from New Jersey to
> Boston.  We would have arrived at NJ during the night and if I hadn't
> gotten the message, their would be a lot of confusion when the Captain
> called the pilots to dock in NJ.  Fortunately I got the diversion
> message.  It's always good to follow the radio officers headwatch
> notice in the noon position report message rather than think the
> office secretary knows anything about Baltimore radio (very weak
> station) but physically nearer than Mobile, AL Radio / WLO (very
> strong station) which was my Headwatch.
> 
> But I got the message and the Captain was pleased and I was relieved I
> had lucked out and listened to WMH which I only did once a day if
> that.  I never got messages via WMH.
> 
> 73
> DR
> N1EA


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