[CW] Don Wallace, W6AM (b. 1898- d. 1985)

Sun Jul 21 16:47:59 EDT 2024

He used to travel  up to New Hampshire and Maine and I'd work him as he
passed through Boston - even driving over the Mystic River Bridge (Tobin
Bridge).  He had an FM transmitter in his Buick, and it was 250 watts - I
worked him on the Boston Repeater 146.31/146.91 WA1NJR almost until
Portsmouth, NH.

I'd often work him on 20 meters, he was very active on the FOC watering
hole around 14,025 kHz.  Funny thing, he wasn't a member but he was
definitely a first-class CW operator and had many FOC friends - me included.

73

DR
W6AM - May 25, 1985
------------------------------
[image: W6AM - Donald C. 'Don' Wallace] Donald C. 'Don' Wallace
Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

QCWA # 631
First Call: *6OC* in 1913
Other Call(s): *6LN, 9BU, 9DR, 9TT, 9ZT, 9XAX, U9DR, U9TT, U9ZT, nu9DR,
nu9TT, nu9ZT, nu9XAX, nu6AM, nu6MA, W6AM, W6MA, W6ZZA, nu7MB & W7MB*

Radio Pioneer Don C. Wallace, 86, Dies
Don C. Wallace, a pioneer in radio communications and dean of the country´s
long-distance amateur radio operators, died Saturday in Long Beach after
suffering a stroke. He was 86.

>From his "antenna ranch" atop a ridge on the Palos Verdes Peninsula,
Wallace had been in touch with more people in more countries than any other
ham operator in the world since 1955, colleagues said Sunday.

"He was the No. 1 man, No. 1 in the world," said Lloyd Colvin of Richmond,
Calif., a director of YASME, a worldwide ham organization. "We have nearly
two million people in the world who have amateur radio as a hobby, and I´d
say a very high percentage either knew of Don or had talked with him over
the years."

A licensed radio operator by 1912, Wallace was chief radio operator for
President Woodrow Wilson at the Versailles peace conference after World War
I. In 1923, he received a silver cup from then-Secretary of Commerce
Herbert Hoover for operating "the best all-around radio station" in the
country.

Over the years, Wallace, a Long Beach resident since 1906, became famous
for his designs and experimentation in amateur radio stations, Colvin said.
In 1945 he bought the old Press Wireless communications facility at Palos
Verdes.

>From there, he became perennial champion "collector of countries"--reaching
365 places classified as nations by the American Radio Relay League by
1980. His overseas contacts and those of others competing for top honors
were verified by the League.

"It's like being a world champion golfer for 25 years or the world's top
runner for that long," he said in a 1980 interview. The antennas, whose
designs he was constantly improving, were the key to his success, he said.

His 24-acre ranch is dotted with poles, 75 to 140 feet high and strung with
1,000-foot-long lateral antennas. Despite his age, Wallace climbed the
towers to do maintenance until about five years ago, said his son, William
Wallace of Long Beach. Also surviving are a son, Don C. Jr. of Long Beach
and a daughter, Betty Jean Green of Alexander Valley, Calif.

"His forte was maintaining the best amateur radio station possible," said
William Wallace. "The building here is 100 feet long and it's just full of
equipment. And he has a full setup in his car. He could talk around the
world from his car."

Wallace spent Friday morning at his radio, his son said, and was stricken
that afternoon at his regular card game at the Virginia Country Club.

On a typical day, Wallace, who is better known internationally by his W6AM
call sign, would contact such far-flung locations as Antarctica, Saudi
Arabia and the Soviet Union. But he would never talk politics or religion,
he once said. "Amateur radio operators have a code of ethics," he explained.

(Source: Los Angeles Times, May 27, 1985)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Jan, N6AW, reports Don was first licensed in 1913 as 6OC, and he first
appears in Radio Stations of the US, supplement 3 to the first edition,
spring 1914. (1st ed. published in 1913). He received 6AM in 1926, W6AM in
1928.

(Source: N6AW via AC6V.com/history)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Transcription of a brief autobiography, typed by Donald C. Wallace when he
was 19 years old:

January 29, 1918.

Donald Clare Wallace was born at Belview, Redwood County, Minnesota, July
10, 1898 and was graduated from Long Beach Poly High in 1916. The fall of
that year he entered the Alma Mater of his father, William H. Wallace,
Hamline University, St. Paul, Minn. and throughout the season played center
in a victorious football team, not missing a minute of any game.

In the spring in St. Paul, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy but was not called
from his studies, the call coming the day after commencement. He went
immediately to Goat Island, San Francisco, where he was put to work as
wireless operator, where he has been ever since, being promoted step by
step until on January 5TH, 1918, at the age of 19 years, he was made first
class petty officer [being discharged as chief petty officer the following
year].

By his own study and practice wile in the high school here he became an
expert electrician and radio operator, constructing his own plant at his
home and helping to pay his school expenses by manufacturing apparatus for
other amateur operators, winding armatures, coils, etc. As an expert
electrician he has been called from his work at Goat Island at different
times for special work, having at one time spent two weeks on a Government
light tender out in the ocean reconstructing the wireless plant and having
spent several weeks at Marshall, Marin County, which is at the terminus of
the oriental cable.

(Source: www.ffish.com/family_trees/pedigrees)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Luxury Homes Proposed for Famed Radio Site : W6AM Is Over, May Soon Be Out

RANCHO PALOS VERDES . The past and the future are bumping heads on 24 open
hilltop acres long famous for radios and farming.

When it was the Wallace Ranch, the property on Highridge Road was a window
on the world for Don C. Wallace, who spent 40 years talking to hundreds of
thousands of amateur radio buffs worldwide from W6AM, his ham radio
station. The land is still farmed, the most recent crop being hay.

Now, just a year after Wallace´s death at 86, a partnership headed by
developer Ronald Florance, who is also a Palos Verdes Estates city
councilman, has purchased the property for an undisclosed price. The group
plans to build 83 homes in what Florance´s architect has described as an
elegant style reminiscent of the Italian coastal resorts of Portofino and
Amalfi.

Radio and history buffs, however, want a corner of the property set aside
as a historic site preserving Wallace´s ranch house and radio equipment,
and this has put them at odds with Florance, who says that the run-down
building and Italianate luxury homes would not mix.

Study Ordered

After a public hearing last week, the Planning Commission directed its
staff to conduct an environmental study focused solely on whether the ranch
warrants designation and preservation as a historic site. That study could
take several weeks, according to the planning staff. Earlier, the staff
concluded that Florance´s development would have no significant
environmental impact warranting formal study.

The commission is considering the tract map for the project, and the city
has directed that nothing on the property be demolished until the
historical issue has been resolved.

Florance, who plans to call his development Wallace Ranch and commemorate
its radio era with a plaque at the entrance, has offered to move the ranch
house to other locations, such as the city´s Point Vicente Interpretive
Center museum or the Civic Center.

But radio advocates say the historic value of the Wallace Ranch lies in the
ham station as Wallace created it, and in the site itself. Wallace
personally selected it as the best location for radio transmission on the
West Coast when he was scouting sites in the 1920s for Press Wireless, an
overseas radio communications company. Wallace bought the property, as well
as additional land that he later sold, in 1945. When he died, his son,
William Wallace, said, "There are 2 million ham operators in the world and
dad knew a million of them."

World Famous Station

Jay Holiday, vice president of the American Radio Relay League, told the
commission that W6AM "was one of the most famous radio stations in the
world."

Calling the ranch a "major World War II communications link," Ken Dyda of
the Rancho de los Palos Verdes Historical Society said the property is of
"major historical significance for the United States." Dyda and others said
a small piece of land should be set aside on an outer corner of the
development for the building and radio equipment.

Sarah Grimes, whose husband, Elmer, has been farming the land for 13 years,
said vintage farm equipment, and perhaps a small simulated field, also
should be preserved so school children can understand the Peninsula´s
agricultural heritage.

"Four generations of a family of farmers have worked that land," she said.

Florance, however, took another view of what is left of Wallace´s legacy.
He said the ranch house, with its long veranda, was put together with "spit
and glue" and is dilapidated.

Equipment Donated

He said that the building and radio equipment belong to the Wallace family,
not his partnership. Some of the equipment has been donated--to the Queen
Mary and California State University Northridge, among others--and the rest
is in storage and will be donated, Florance said. He said the family also
plans to remove the forest of wooden antenna poles, some as high as 140
feet, which have been landmarks for decades.

In an interview, Florance said people in the neighborhood have called him
and said they hope the antenna poles and the commercial radio towers still
in use will be removed. "The station interferes with telephones and
television," he said.

Florance said he is willing to build a park or pay park fees to the city,
as required by state law for new developments. But he does not want to
preserve the Wallace radio station on his property, nor is that a desire of
the Wallace family, he said.

He said the building already has been broken into twice and hay has been
burned in the field.

Additional Complaints

Other speakers at the hearing were critical of the proposed development,
citing increased traffic and objecting to an outer wall, which they said
will isolate the homes from the neighborhood.

As they listened to the requests for preservation of the Wallace Ranch,
some commissioners appeared to be skeptical about who would pay for this
slice of history.

Commissioner Joan Ortolano asked speakers how much their organizations were
willing to contribute to maintaining an historic site.

Holiday said his amateur radio group could "provide a few thousand dollars."

(Source: Los Angeles Times, June 1, 1986)

CREDITS
Photo #1: www.k0bg.com
[image: W6AM - Donald C. 'Don' Wallace]

[image: W6AM - Donald C. 'Don' Wallace]   [image: W6AM - Donald C. 'Don'
Wallace]

[image: W6AM - Donald C. 'Don' Wallace]

[image: W6AM - Donald C. 'Don' Wallace]
[image: w6am2.jpg]

He was an excellent CW operator and he stretched his arm across the bench
in his Buick and sent with his Vibroplex.

73

DR

On Sun, Jul 21, 2024 at 4:29 PM Chris R. NW6V <chrisrut7 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I lived, literally, across the street from Don's antenna farm for a couple
> of years.
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 21, 2024 at 12:53 PM D.J.J. Ring, Jr. <n1ea at arrl.net> wrote:
>
>> 40 years ago Don Wallace, W6AM (b. 1898- d. 1985), was interviewed in
>> 1984 by Wayne Overbeck, N6NB, for the PBS series, "Radio Collector." The
>> interview takes place at Radio Ranch in Palos Verdes, CA, and shows Don's
>> shack and antenna farm. The property is likely a condo farm today. The
>> California Historical Radio Society, CHRS, is presenting this uncut
>> interview. Don had 6 beams for Australia alone! He switches them with the
>> switch that controls relay switching. On the air since 1910 until his
>> death. Don had 14 rhombic antennas. 61 telephone poles supported his
>> antennas, scattered around 120 acres. Another 110 poles carried the
>> feedlines to the antennas. https://www.qsl.net/ne6i/w6am/
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5iVb-3MHEY His QSL card shows the
>> rhombic layout.
>> Press Wireless, an overseas radio communications company, bought 100
>> acres in the 1920s and set up a receiving station. The gently sloping
>> hilltop, without a house in sight, was considered ideal for the station
>> because of its 1,200-foot elevation.
>> Don C. Wallace helped the company choose the site and in 1945 bought the
>> property from Press Wireless, along with an additional 20 acres. It already
>> was dominated by the company’s commercial transmission poles, but Wallace
>> brought in a large crane and reset all of them. “At one time,” said his
>> son, “there were 45 miles of wire in the air.” [image:
>> w6am-00631-sk7.jpg]
>> [image: w6am1.jpg]
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