[MRCA] WWI Signal Corps Film

[Ray Fantini]

Trivia, During the Civil War the Signal Corps was not responsible for telegraph communications. All telegraph communications and construction was under the Quartermasters Department with only the highest ranking personal receiving commissions in the newly formed U.S. Military Telegraph Corps. All if not most of the operators were civilian employees and not recognized for there service until 1897.

The Signal Corps was primarlery involved with building signal towers and using flags or at night signal rockets to provide battlefield communications.

More Trivia, Telegraph circuits were series string signal wire with a battery and ground on each end. If you were along the wire at any point your key and sounder were in series with the rest of the circuit. That’s why there is a shorting bar on old telegraph keys because if you were not sending you had to short your key or else the rest of the circuit would be open and not work. To get additional rang from the circuit you would add additional batteries with the line sometimes getting up to hundreds of volts. So often there was a relay used between the key and the line to isolate the high voltage of the line.



Ray F/KA3EKH

________________________________
From: mrca-bounces at mailman.qth.net <mrca-bounces at mailman.qth.net> on behalf of ersmar at verizon.net via MRCA <mrca at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2020 9:56 PM
To: Al Klase <ark at ar88.net>; Ken Krausgill <ken.krausgill at verizon.net>; 'Military Radio Collectors Association' <mrca at mailman.qth.net>
Subject: Re: [MRCA] WWI Signal Corps Film

Signal Corps also was the Wright brothers first customer. SC purchased a couple of the original designs and test  flew them in the DC area.

73 de
Gene Smart AD3F

Sent from my Verizon HTC Smartphone

----- Reply message -----
From: "Al Klase" <ark at ar88.net>
To: "Ken Krausgill" <ken.krausgill at verizon.net>, "'Military Radio Collectors Association'" <mrca at mailman.qth.net>
Subject: [MRCA] WWI Signal Corps Film
Date: Thu, Apr 30, 2020 8:25 PM

Hi Ken,

The Signal Corps was the Army's IT department since about 1861.  They trained photographers and cinematographers.

AQl

On 4/30/2020 7:36 PM, Ken Krausgill wrote:

That’s fantastic Al, thank you for sending it out to us!



Super clean footage too!



Ken

KD2GFM



From: mrca-bounces at mailman.qth.net<mailto:mrca-bounces at mailman.qth.net> [mailto:mrca-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Al Klase
Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2020 1:32 PM
To: Military Radio Collectors Association <mrca at mailman.qth.net><mailto:mrca at mailman.qth.net>
Subject: [MRCA] WWI Signal Corps Film



Folks,

I stumbled upon a film on the National Archive site of Signal Corps Training in 1918.  Of course it's silent, and it's just a collection of clips without much information.  I've added some comments, identifying what things I could.

Take a look on my site:  http://www.ar88.net/sc/Sig_Corps_Training_1918_Rev_0-1.m4v

Let me know if you have anything to add or correct.  Can anyone identify the locations?  A college or whatever near the beginning, and a major base, and a parade in a city later on.

Enjoy,
Al


--

Al Klase – N3FRQ

Jersey City, NJ

http://www.skywaves.ar88.net/




--
Al Klase – N3FRQ
Jersey City, NJ
<http://www.skywaves.ar88.net/>http://www.skywaves.ar88.net/


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