[JMS] RE: W1AXL vs W1HRX

[Don Buska]

Ed and Bill, thanks for the new information and research.  I did have a
nice conversation with John (Jack) Stoughton W1AXL on the phone a couple
of days back.  He also looked at the early Commerce Department callbooks
and confirmed his mid-1930 acquisition of the W1AXL Call.

I was talking to Scott WA9WFA just the other day about this and it does
appear that Millen might have gone many years without a call.  I will do
a bit of investigation into the license structure back the 20's and
30's.  Most of us, who have been licensed for a number of years, know
that we used to officially have an operators license and a station
license.  The call would have been assigned to a station.  Just before
the Vanity Callsigns started the FCC eliminated the dual license
structure so that people wouldn't be applying for multiple calls for any
place they could have a mailing address. Thus, it appears, Millen may
have retained his operators license when joining National, using their
W1AXL, but did not apply for a station license.  This would have made
sense since. He would have been a busy man working at National during
the late 20's and throughout the 30's.  Thus somewhere around 1934 he
might have had the desire to built "his" shack and needed to get the
"station" license and call.  

Hey did you folks know that there is a road called James Millen Road now
in North Reading.
http://www.privatepropertiesrealty.com/listings/listing_jamesmillen_9.ht
m .
James Millen Road is an offshoot of Tarbox lane and it appears to
encircle his old farm site hill.  If you want to look at the map here is
the Mapquest link:
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?searchtype=address&country=US&addto
history=&searchtab=home&formtype=address&popflag=0&latitude=&longitude=&
name=&phone=&cat=&address=9+James+Millen+Road&city=North+Reading&state=M
A&zipcode=

Isn't the internet a great research tool! Notice Ed that Millen's home
was in North Reading when at the Tarbox address.  If my memory serves
me, Greg Gore visited the area several years back and could possibly
tell us about it.  I digress, now back to the calls.

Bill, per Jim's 1936 QSL card he was at 61 Sherman Street in Malden.
This was the address that appeared on the original version of the QSL
card that the JMS just used as a model for our new cards.  However, on
our website is the article "W1HRX - A Ham's Paradise" it describes the
Tarbox station.  That article is from February 1937.  So it appears Jim
relocated to the farm somewhere between getting the W1HRX call in the
Spring of 1934 and this magazine article date.  Assuming it took a bit
of time to get everything constructed I'd place the Tarbox move during
the 1935 or early 1936 timeframe.  Even though the W1HRX card was
written in 1936 it doesn't necessarily mean he hadn't already moved.
Note to Scott WA9WFA:  Scott what date is written for the QSO on your
W1HRX card?  Does it have an address correction written on the back?

So Ed if you didn't find another call for Jim in Malden at the 61
Sherman Street it appears he didn't have one before W1HRX.

Ed another investigation would also be the W1HRO call.  As we all have
heard the legend is that Jim was suppose to get W1HRO and it was a
mistake that he got W1HRX.  I'm sure this came from Jim himself.
However, I just wonder when and who had the W1HRO call.  Was it in
existence at the time W1HRX was issued?  I just wonder if Jim just might
have been a little late and it had already been issued to someone else.
My guess is that would be the situation as if it was not assigned I
would have expected Jim would have had enough pull and connections to
have it fixed to be W1HRO.  If it were a mistake I'd expect that we
would see W1HRX in the spring 1934 callbook and the other W1HR* series
would still not be assigned.  However, if they were already into the
W1HR* series as a general callsign issuance it may have been just to
late for them to assign the call to Millen.  It would have been a most
interesting coincidence that just as the HRO was being developed the
callsigns being issued were in that W1H** series.  It is also possible
that it was a mistake and Jim had a station application submitted with
instruction to give him the HRO call once it came up in the normal
issuance order.  However, whomever was doing the issuing simply forgot
about the application and issued it to someone else.  That Spring 1934
callbook can supply the answer.

Some more stuff to think about es 73

Don N9OO



-----Original Message-----
From: Edward Gable [mailto:EGABLE at Rochester.rr.com] 
Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 7:48 PM
To: The James Millen Society Members Email Reflector
Cc: Don Buska
Subject: W1AXL vs W1HRX

Hello Don, etc.....

Don you were asking about W1HRX versus W1AXL, etc...

At the AWA Museum Library I found:

Dates are first occurence in any callbook;


6/30/27  1AXL (no W yet) assigned to National Radio Co., Malden MA.
6/30/27  No 2BYP listed

6/30/29  W1AXL assigned to National Radio Company

6/30/1930  W1AXL assigned to Emil Kolisch of CT

6/30/1931  W1AXL assigned to John Stoughton

The now well known "Flying Horse Callbook" came out in Spring,Summer,
Fall, Winter format showing:

Fall 1931 W1AXL to John Stoughton

Spring 1934  W1HRX to James Millen


So, the mystery of Millen's call in the 26/27-34 time frame remains in
place.  I do have listings  of callsigns by city for that period.  If
anyone knows Jim's address of that period I might be able to look it up
that way.  He is not listed as being in Malden, MA.

Cheers,

Ed Gable  k2mp/w2an
AWA Museum