[QCWA] Re: QCWA Digest, Vol 11, Issue 6

[Walter Maxwell]

> This entry was precipitated by a poster I picked up at a flea market a
week
> ago Saturday for the "Chuck Wagon Opera" on W9XBY.  W9XBY was one of four
> "Amateur" Hi-Fi AM experimental broadcast stations licensed by the FCC in
> 1933.  The poster looks like it's for a commercial station but the call is
> strictly amateur.  In 1933 Missouri was in the 9th call area and the first
> letter of the prefix 'X' for experimental.

I beg to differ with the stance that those calls with X as the first letter
of the suffix were strictly amateur. They were not. The letter X was always
attributed to experimental stations, and were used for experimental only
until a few years ago when the FCC decided to allow amateurs to have
suffixes beginning with X.

> The four stations were:
>     W1XBS, American-Republican, Waterbury, Connecticut
>     W2XR,   John V. L. Hogan, Long Island City, New York
>     W6XAI,  Pioneer Mercantile Co., Bakersfield, California
>     W9XBY, First National Television, Inc., Kansas City
>      |   |  |
>      |   |  Experimental
>      |   Call Area
>      Prefix

Instead of only 'four' such stations there were dozens. White's Radio Log in
the 1930's had pages full of experimental stations. For example, during the
initial testing of Powell Crosley's WLW 500 Kw station in Cinncinnati the
call sign was W8XAL.

The original call sign of J.V.L. Hogan's hi-fidelity New York AM station
WQXR, still in operation today, was W2XR. I had the privelege of meeting
Hogan. Edwin Armstrong's first FM station at Alpine, NJ, was W2XMN. During
the years of RCA's experiments in the NY area various experimental licenses
were granted using several different W2Xxx calls. In addition, call signs
with X as the first letter of the suffix were also used for short-wave BC
stations affiliated with those in the AM band. For example, when New York's
WJZ transmitter was at Bound Brook, NJ, the call sign of its SW BC
transmitters was W2XAL. W2XE was used for another SW BC station in the New
York area. None of these stations bore any resemblence to amateur radio.

With respect to KDKA's claim as the first BC station, there was a
controversy for many years as to whether KDKA or WWJ Detroit was first. I
don't know if that controversy was ever settled successfully.

Hope this has added to the knowledge.

Walt Maxwell, W2DU #5938