What I'm Reading Now

New York City AM radio has a presence in my neck of the woods. So over the years at different times, I have been a regular listener of WABC, WCBS, WFAN, WINS, WOR and WNBC—AM stations whose daytime and nighttime coverage area included my hometown, Waterbury, Connecticut and thereabouts.

Being a New York City radio fan as well as a student of radio history, I purchased The Airwaves of New York, subtitled Illustrated Histories of 156 AM Stations in the Metropolitan Area, 1921-1996 as soon as I saw it while book browsing books on Amazon recently.

The first chapter of the book concentrates on the history of AM radio in New York City and briefly touches upon the history of FM radio and television.

The second chapter describes the history of each AM station that operated in New York City between 1921 and 1996... 156 stations from WAAM to WZRC. (The book was published 20 years ago, so the history after 1996 is not covered.)

The book is well illustrated with photos of the radio stations and the people who staffed the stations.

I enjoyed reading the book and recommend it.

Marconi's Daughter Visits Dad's Cape Cod Radio Site

Art, W1AWX, shot this video of Princess Elettra Marconi visiting her father's Cape Cod radio site on May 31, 2018. Marconi built his first U.S wireless radio station on Cape Cod in 1902 and his station made the first radio transmissions from the U.S. to England in 1903.

2CSC Television Network

Atlas Obscura posted an interesting article about the history of the television network of Allen Dumont, 2CSC.

"Before getting into the broadcast game, DuMont Laboratories, the company of inventor and TV tech pioneer and Allen B. DuMont, was known for being one of the first firms to manufacture television equipment. Launching their own content factory to fill the screens it was selling must have seemed like a no-brainer.

"In the late 1930s, DuMont began experimenting with small TV stations in the New York and Washington, D.C. metro areas. Eventually, they all came together as the DuMont Network, which was officially created in August of 1946. By comparison, NBC and CBS launched around 1940-41, and ABC came on the scene around 1948, putting DuMont smack in the middle of the dawn of television programming."

Read the rest of the story here.

seventy-seven double-you aye bee see

When I was a teenager, I was an avid listener of AM radio station WABC in New York City. Day and night, it was loud and clear in Waterbury and my radio was tuned to 770 kc most of the time.

Awhile back, I purchased a DVD titled 1960’s WABC Radio Airchecks. In addition to airchecks, the DVD contains 75 hours of pure nostalgia from 77 WABC including “Actual Broadcasts By Big Dan Ingram, ‘Cousin Brucie’ Bruce Morrow, Ron Lundy, Scott Muni, Chuck Leonard & More,” like the Cousin Brucie theme song sung by The Four Seasons or the old Palisades Amusement Park commercial.

Seventy-five hours is a little much to listen to in one sitting, so I loaded the contents of the DVD into my iPod (by way of iTunes) and I hear random selections during my daily commute.

A 16-minute segment from October 7, 1964, with Dan Ingram spinning the platters was very entertaining and enlightening.

Here are some items of note from the broadcast:

📶   Telephone numbers still used two-letter alphabetical prefices, for example, "PL 5-1516" instead of "755-1516" (in this example, the "PL" was short for "plaza").

📶   Mailing addresses still used one or two-number postal zones instead of ZIP Codes, for example, "Waterbury 6, Connecticut" instead of "Waterbury, Connecticut 06706."

📶   Firestone advertised snow tires: $24.24 for a pair.

📶   During the broadcast, Dan Ingram announced score updates from the World Series. On the air, he admitted rooting for St. Louis (against the hometown Yankees). Can you imagine an on-the-air personality rooting against the hometown team today? (I can’t.)

📶   This broadcast was during the height of Beatlemania and there were two commercials in a row: one for a contest to win a Beatles poster, followed by a commercial for the Beatles' appearance on Shindig! Both commercials used snippets from the Beatles’ hit She Loves You. Following the commercials, Ingram says, “Well, I guess it was inevitable” and the next song you hear him play was She Loves You.

Fun, fun, fun!

This Day in History… Farnsworth's First TV Demo

On September 7, 1927, inventor Philo T. Farnsworth made his first successful presentation of the “image dissector,” a crucial part of the first televisions. Read the rest of the story here.

This Day in History

This day in history marks a major step in the history of radio. On May 13, 1897, Guglielmo Marconi sent the world's first wireless communication over the open sea. Click here to read all about it.

This Day in Radio History

On December 12, 1901, Guglielmo Marconi successfully sent the first radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean.

Read all about it here.

Connecticut Radio History

Radio Historic West Peak in Meriden, Connecticut

Connecticut has a rich history when it comes to radio. Accordingly, the University of Hartford's radio station, WWUH, is now running a 10-part series, "Connecticut Radio Memories" that deals with various aspects of that history.

Dave Kaplan, WA1OUI, a former engineer at WTIC and current webmaster of the WTIC Alumni Site received permission to post the radio series on the Alumni Site (here).

Enjoy!

ARRL Rewrites History

Compare the fifth paragraph of the September 16 ARRL News article regarding Wayne Green's death with the September 19 ARRL Letter article concerning Wayne's death.

Bridge by Radio

I discovered this unique postcard on eBay advertising “Bridge by Radio,” a radio program that urged listeners to “have your cards and players ready at the time scheduled so as to make each bid and play as broadcast and you will find the radio Bridge games played by experts most enjoyable and instructive.” My research indicates that the program aired in the late 1920s originating from Cincinnati’s WSAI and was sponsored by the U.S. Playing Card Company.

The flare in the photo obliterated the call signs of some of the other stations broadcasting the program, but I believe the obliterated call signs are WEAF (New York City), WWJ (Detroit), WSB (Atlanta) and partially obliterated KPRC (Houston).

Virginia is for Radio Lovers

I just received the July-August 2013 issue of AMRAD Newsletter and as usual, it contains an interesting lineup of articles.

• "JT55a - A Minimalist's Error-free Ham Radio Protocol" by Terry McCarty, WA5NTI
• "An Arduino-based DFCW Beacon" by Andre Kesteloot, N4ICK
• "Adventures with the Arduino" by Karl Berger, W4KRL

Join Amateur Radio Research and Development Corporation (AMRAD) to receive the newsletter and be part of a group of ham radio "experimenters specializing in telecommunications technology."

AMRAD is based in McLean, Virginia, just up the road from the antenna farm pictured in the postcard above. Its monthly meetings always feature on-the-cutting-edge presentations.

By the way, here is the description on the back of the postcard:

"THE UNITED STATES NAVAL RADIO STATION AT RADIO, VIRGINIA. Situated at the southwestern end of Fort Meyer Military Reservation opposite Washington, D.C. Built by the United States Navy Department [Bureau of Steam Engineering]. Land ceded to the Navy Department by the War Department. Rated power of station 100 kilowatts. Towers, one 600 feet high 150 feet square at the base, two 450 feet high 120 feet square at the base, located at angles of an isosceles triangle, large tower at the apex base of the triangle 350 feet between centers of towers, perpendicular to base 350 feet. Normal range: day 2,000 miles, night 3,000 miles. Cost about $250,000."

KA6M/R

KA6M/R, the first digipeater (Source: www.pprs.oprg)

Following up on yesterday's blog post, here is what I wrote about KA6M in my first book Your Gateway to Packet Radio in 1987:

"The United States amateurs did not let grass grow under their feet. Once the FCC gave the go-ahead, packet-radio experimentation south of the border forged ahead. The first US packet demonstration was conducted at the 1980 ARRL National Convention in Seattle, Washington. Most of the initial experimentation involved building and tinkering with the VADCG TNC*, but on December 10, 1980, the first "made in the USA" amateur packet development hit the airwaves: Hank Magnuski, KA6M, put a simplex digipeater (KA6M/R) on 2 meters in San Francisco. Hank's system used a home-built TNC based on the Z80 microprocessor and a Western Digital 1933 HDLC IC. Like packet radio north of the border, Hank used a Bell 202 compatible modem on his TNC because the modems were readily available as surplus equipment. As a result of Hank's operations, a group of interested amateurs joined him in the founding of the Pacific Packet Radio Society (PPRS)." 

* Canadian amateurs got the go-ahead to do packet radio in 1978, two years before amateurs in the USA. Vancouver Amateur Digital Communications Group (VADCG) developed the first TNC, which was available as a kit and became known as the "VADCG TNC."   

 

Handie History

Until I saw this 1944 Motorola advertisement, I had no idea that "Handie Talkie" goes back to World War II.

"The first radio receiver/transmitter to be widely nicknamed 'Walkie-Talkie' was the backpacked Motorola SCR-300, created by an engineering team in 1940 at the Galvin Manufacturing Company (fore-runner of Motorola). The team consisted of Dan Noble, who conceived of the design using frequency modulation, Henryk Magnuski who was the principal RF engineer, Marion Bond, Lloyd Morris, and Bill Vogel.

"Motorola also produced the hand-held AM SCR-536 radio during World War II, and it was called the 'Handie-Talkie' (HT). The terms are often confused today, but the original walkie talkie referred to the back mounted model, while the handie talkie was the device which could be held entirely in the hand (but had vastly reduced performance). Both devices ran on vacuum tubes and used high voltage dry cell batteries. (Handie-Talkie became a trademark of Motorola, Inc. on May 22, 1951)." (Source: Wikipedia)

The name Henryk Magnuski, principal RF engineer of the walkie talkie, rang a bell. One of the packet radio pioneers was Hank Magnuski, KA6M; in 1980, his callsign was used for the first packet radio digipeater in the USA, KA6M/R in the San Francisco Bay area.

And it tuns out that Henryk Magnuski is Hank Magnuski's father!

WTKS nee WTOC

In October 1929, WTOC signed on as the first broadcasting station in the Savannah area on 1260 kc with 500 watts day and night, omni-directional. It was an enterprise of the civic group Junior Board of Trade that was the forerunner of the Savannah Jaycees. Later, WTOC increased to 1,000 watts daytime, finally settling on 5,000 watts day and 1,000 watts at night.

The NARBA nation-wide frequency shift in 1941, moved WTOC to 1290 kc. Shortly thereafter, WTOC built a four-tower array in Garden City, Georgia, and increased to 5,000 watts at night (directional).

The station was assigned the WTKS call letters by the Federal Communications Commission on January 25, 2002. (Source: Wikipedia)

Radio Light

On July 13, the United States Postal Service issued a new set of lighthouse postage stamps depicting lighthouses located on the New England coastline.

In conjunction with the stamp issue, I present a postcard depicting another New England lighthouse and a nearby wireless station: Highland Light in North Truro, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. A Naval radio station was located at Highland Light in 1904, assumed great importance during World War I and was guarded by a detachment of Marines. (Source: Highland Lighthouse History)

Radio Central Station

According to Telegraph and Telephone Age, November 16, 1921, Radio Central Station is designed for world-wide communication which includes Europe, South America and the Far East. This Super-Station is situated at Rocky Point (seven miles east of Port Jefferson) on the northern shore of Long Island, seventy miles from New York City. The station site covers 6,400 acres or 10 square miles.

The construction began in July, 1920, and the first test signals were sent in October, 1921, a little more than a year later, a record in itself when one considers the great amount of work accomplished. 1,800 tons of structural steel were used to erect the first twelve towers, each employing approximately 150 tons.

Each tower is 410  feet in overall height and the cross arm or bridge supporting the antenna wires at the top is 150 feet long. 8,200 tons of concrete were employed for the foundations of the twelve towers, the  base of each tower leg being sunk nine feet below the ground with a total base area of 360 square feet. The distance between two adjacent towers is 1,200 feet or nearly three miles from first to the twelfth tower.

Each antenna consists of sixteen silicon bronze cables 3/8 inches in diameter stretching horizontally from tower to tower. In all, fifty miles of this cable has been used for the first two antenna systems. The ground system for both antenna consists of 450 miles of copper wire buried in the ground in starfish and grid-iron fashion.

The first power-house section covers a space of 130 feet by 60 feet and accommodates two 200 K.W. high frequency transmitting alternators with auxiliaries and equipment. A sending speed of 100 words per minute is possible with the use of each transmitting unit at Radio Central. This means a combined sending speed of 200 words per minute for the two completed units. The present wave length in use is 16,500 meters.

The erection of additional antenna units forming the spokes of the huge wheel and further improvements which are being made will correspondingly increase the transmitting capacity of the big station.

Surfin’: History That’s Worth Repeating

This week, Surfin’ gets historical about ham radio.

Surfin’: A Thanksgiving Cornucopia

In honor of the holiday, Surfin’ offers a ham radio horn of plenty.

Surfin’: An App That’s Apt for Microwave Contesting

This week, Surfin’ tries out a new app on the iPod Touch and revisits a blog of historic proportions.

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