[CW] KLB in Seattle

Thu Feb 14 22:10:52 EST 2019

    I perhaps did not make it clear, if so sorry. KLB was a 
coatal telegraph station. I also used to hear many distant 
broadcast stations, especially in the days before the FCC, in 
their infinite wisdom, decided not to have daytime licenses any 
more.
    I don't know when the "Clear Channel Service" ended, note 
this is not the Clear Channel broadcasting company who now 
operates something like a thousand radio and TV stations in this 
country, but rather 25 stations on frequencies which were 
unduplicated at night. They ran 50KW mostly non-directional, to 
provide radio service to rural areas which did not have local 
stations. The FCC decided to elminate protected frequencies and 
to expand the number of stations at a time when AM broadcasting 
was considered a license to print money. There are far too many 
now and very few provide anything like a public service. Not all 
had three-letter calls but many did.
     The coastal telegraph stations provided radio-telegraph 
service to ships at sea (there was another group for the great 
lakes and other inland waterways). They also kept watch for 
distress messages.
     KLB was one of the stations I could hear every day and night 
in Los Angeles. It was in Seattle but none of the lists of 
stations I've seen tell who owned it.
     Most of the coastal stations in the U.S. were owned or 
affiliated with four companies, RCA (AKA Radiomarine), MacKay 
Radio-Telegraph, Globe Wireless and Tropical Radio-Telegraph Co. 
but there were a few who were privately owned. The total in the 
days I heard them and practiced my code by copying them and the 
ships they talked to, was about twenty.
    This is a service which no longer exists although a couple of 
the old calls are still heard from time to time due to the group 
that has preserved the former RCA site at Bolinas Point, near San 
Francisco, once the site of a pioneer station established by 
Marconi and now part of a national park.
    A good site to learn more is
http://www.radiomarine.org/
    There are many former ship and land station operators on this 
list (but I am alas not one of them).
     > Many of the three letter stations have gone away.  They 
were clear channel stations with high power transmitters, and 
could be heard almost coast to coast.  Much like KSL Salt Lake 
city and a few others today, still can be heard.  But many small 
cities and town wanted radio stations, and there was just so much 
AM frequency spectrum.  As more and more of this spectrum was 
used, some of these stations had to give up their clear channel 
designation (cut back on power, so the frequencies could be 
shared with other smaller stations).  I have moved too much, and 
lost some of my books and paperwork on these stations and memory 
has become as short as my....ears. So, no longer remember what 
the call signs were. I remember KOB, I think, but others have 
gone out of sight, out of mind.   I worked temporarily at KCAN , 
Canyon, Texas, Listened to KPAN, Pampa, Texas, KGNC Amarillo, 
Texas, and several others in the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles, 
and listened to several clear channel stations
>   , around the country, until I left there in the late 1950s.
> 
>   FYI I was a short-wave listener in the 40s and 50s, and belonged to the "International Short Wave Listeners" group, and had well over 120 or so countries confirmed by QSL cards, from commercial and military broadcast stations. I was number two in that organizations countries list.   I got the ham itch, and essentially stopped listening, and started talking with the 340 countries I now have confirmed. I still tool around the SWBC bands now and then but things have really changed, and many of them no longer exist.
> 
> N7DC at ARRL.NET
> Ex WN5QMX,WA5UKR,ET2US,ET3USA,SV0WPP,VS6DD,N7DC/YV5/G5CTB
> QSL Bureau, DIRECT, LOTW Preferred, eQSL used but upload at a courtesy only, as do not use the system for awards.
> 
> 
>> On February 14, 2019 at 7:41 PM Richard Knoppow <1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>      I used to hear KLB in Los Angeles, very strong. Its listed on
>> the Maritime Historical Society list of coast stations but no
>> clue as to who owned it. Someone must know.
>>      I am also curious about both KLB and KLC as well as WLO.
>> These stations do not appear on pre-1945 lists of stations so I
>> wonder when they were put on the air. There were other stations
>> in Seattle and vicinity and in Galveston so I wonder if perhaps
>> those stations went CL and others took their places.
>> -- 
>> Richard Knoppow
>> 1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com
>> WB6KBL
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-- 
Richard Knoppow
1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com
WB6KBL