This week, Ray Robinson takes a nostalgic look at a bygone radio era – that of shortwave usage by commercial stations in the United States before World War II, and one station in particular, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Ray: Thanks, Jeff. When I first started listening to shortwave radio at my parents’ home near London, England around 1970, I loved tuning in to WNYW, Radio New York Worldwide, for a taste of real American radio. The station used to relay the CBS Evening News from the CBS network every evening at 6pm Eastern, which was 11pm for me in England, and I listened to that and other programming on the station most nights.
But that station was just the vestige of a number of shortwave stations that had previously been operated by CBS, especially during the pre-War years. In the late 20’s and 30’s there was quite a movement in the United States to establish shortwave stations to relay programming from local medium wave stations to wider audiences. The standard medium wave broadcast band was not overcrowded at the time – there were only nine medium wave stations in Philadelphia in 1938 – but medium wave signals generally gave only local coverage, particularly during daylight hours. Some stations such as WLW in Cincinnati experimented with very high power to try to increase coverage, but it was also understood that shortwave transmissions could give wide area coverage both within the country, and even internationally.
So, many medium wave stations in the United States established shortwave relay transmitters to carry their programming to distant listeners. In fact, documents from that era indicate there were several hundred of these shortwave relay stations on the air in the United States by the late 1930’s. Some of the shortwave stations were quite large, although most were small and temporary.
One of the shortwave relay stations that was held in high regard during those pre-War years was located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The station was launched on behalf of the co-located medium wave station WCAU, under the experimental shortwave callsign W3XAU. But even though that callsign might seem to indicate it was an amateur station, that was not the case. The X in a pre-War shortwave callsign indicated an experimental station, either amateur or professional, and in this case, it was indeed quite professional, relaying programming from medium wave WCAU.
WCAU had been launched in 1922 as a very small operation located in the back room of a radio shop in Philadelphia. Ten years later, following a couple of intermediate migrations, WCAU was established in a professionally built studio complex, the first building in the United States that was constructed specifically as a radio station. This facility was located at 1622 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia.
About the same time, WCAU upgraded to a new 50 kW medium wave transmitter, which had been installed in a new transmitter building at Newtown Square. The initial broadcast from this grand new and powerful WCAU was on September 19, 1932.
But in 1930, WCAU had got its feet wet in the shortwave world by building and installing a small 1 kW transmitter which was given that callsign, W3XAU. It’s claimed that this was the first license issued by the FCC for an international shortwave broadcast station as a commercial operation.
Then, two years after the Newtown Square facility was inaugurated, so in 1934, a rebuilt version of the same 1 kW shortwave transmitter was installed alongside the huge 50 kW medium wave unit. Four years later again, the W3XAU transmitter was rebuilt to a 10 kW capacity, and two V-type antennas were erected to provide coverage beyond just the eastern USA, into Europe and Latin America.
Encouraged by the responses received, WCAU became even more ambitious for a truly international outreach and in early 1939 they erected two large curtain antennas, again for coverage into Europe and Latin America. Programming on W3XAU became more than just a full-time relay of WCAU, and extra content was carried specifically for listeners in Europe and Latin America. Programming in foreign languages was relayed from the sister CBS shortwave station W2XE in Wayne, New Jersey, and programming in English was often taken live from the CBS national network when WCAU was broadcasting content that was only of local interest.
On several occasions in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s, CBS applied to the FCC for a further power increase for W3XAU to 50 kW, but on each occasion the request was denied.
With war clouds looming over Europe in 1939, the FCC took a hard look at the international shortwave scene in the United States and issued a set of three new rules. This edict, issued on May 23, 1939, required that:
1. All shortwave callsigns should be regularized (meaning no more experimental callsigns),
2. The power output of each shortwave transmitter should be increased to a minimum of 50 kW, and
3. Directional antenna systems should be installed.
As far as the callsigns were concerned, the FCC gave some time for consideration and negotiation regarding desired call letters, and new callsigns were to come into effect on September 1, 1939. W3XAU became WCAB, which was probably just a vacant call in the WCA series, to show that the shortwave transmitter was associated with WCAU medium wave. The change from W3XAU to WCAB was actually implemented on August 26, one week before the official date. Although WCAB mostly carried a relay of WCAU medium wave, separate top-of-the-hour ID’s were used on the shortwave transmitter.
As for the directional antennas, well they were already in place.
So then there was the issue of the power increase to 50 kW. At the time, CBS operated two 10 kW shortwave stations on the east coast – W3XAU in Philadelphia and W2XE in Wayne, New Jersey. But they also operated a high-power shortwave station at Delano in California, and another was already under construction at Brentwood on Long Island. I guess the FCC figured two high-power stations was enough.
Initially, CBS’ intention was for WCAB Philadelphia to supplement the new Brentwood facility. However, in view of the power restriction imposed by the FCC on the Philadelphia transmitter, CBS finally considered it best to close the Pennsylvania station in favor of the new high-power facility being built on Long Island, New York.
In spite of the power limitation to 10 kW, W3XAU / WCAB was frequently heard throughout the Americas, in Europe, and also in the South Pacific.
The new transmitter at the CBS shortwave station at Brentwood, WCRC, was inaugurated on January 1, 1941, and just one year later, the 10 kW unit in Pennsylvania was finally switched off. That nostalgic event took place at midnight on New Year’s Eve, December 31, 1941.
However, that’s not the end of the story. You’ll hear the sequel here in Wavescan next week – which surprisingly is quite a ‘cloak and dagger’ real-life spy story.
Back to you, Jeff.
(Ray Robinson/Wavescan)
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