Jeff: 100 years ago, listening to the radio was a very different experience, often requiring skills to construct receivers yourself. Today, Ray Robinson has an interesting story from an article published in the UK back then, about the wireless experiences of a merchant seaman. Ray?
Ray: Thanks, Jeff. In the UK, the official weekly journal of the BBC for many decades was the Radio Times. It was first published in 1923, and although it originally made grudging mention of ‘foreign broadcasts’ from Continental Europe, my recollections of it in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s were that it always provided weekly listings only of BBC radio and television channels. Other pre-War competitor magazines provided listings for both the BBC and many overseas stations, as indeed did listings in British daily newspapers. Most European programming in the 1920’s was either news or classical music. One competitive magazine in the early days was called World-Radio, and in my archive, I have a copy of the edition from Friday, November 25, 1927. The banner heading on the front page says: “World-Radio BBC Dominion and Foreign Programmes, price two pence” (or, tuppence).
As well as program listings, this magazine also contained a number of feature articles, and one of those caught my eye – titled ‘A Wireless Set on the Ocean Wave’. The author merely identified himself as “Seafarer”, but from his comments he was clearly a Scotsman in the merchant navy. The article was published in 1927, with the events spoken about having clearly occurred in 1926, so I thought it would be interesting to read the article, which gives great insight into what listening to the wireless was like, 100 years ago.
‘Seafarer’ wrote:
I cannot claim to have been one of the seafarers who made a hobby of listening in the early days of broadcasting. But I have had several of these enthusiasts as shipmates, men who built their own sets, sometimes with advice from the professional ‘Sparks’ on board, often without. (‘Sparks’ was the common nickname for the wireless operator.) Results were good, bad, indifferent and frequently amusing, the most wonderful of all being those one heard of from men belonging to other ships, who supposedly “had regular concerts every night, right across the band.” The perfect reception, apparently in any circumstances, that they claimed and which their loyal shipmates vouched for, can only be explained by the supposition that they had overcome the atmospheric nuisance in a very thorough manner.
One man I sailed with bought himself quite an expensive set in New York and never got any results at all except by fluke. He had his aerial carried away once or twice to start with, and as he wasn’t very ‘handy’ and not too popular with the senior officers, he had to depend on juniors to rig it for him in a more or less efficient fashion. He was allowed to charge his battery from the ship’s juice, but unless ‘Sparks’ or a junior engineer was at hand to guide him, he was apt to connect it up the wrong way round. It was marvelous how that battery stood up to the abuse it got, first and last, but it was still smiling at the end of the six months’ voyage. There was a loud-speaker connected to the set in the ‘old man’s’ room, but it had a bad effect on the skipper’s temper and it was usually switched off.
But the amateur at sea generally does better than this. Marine engineers, many of whom have sets, have as a rule a good working knowledge of electricity, besides being expert with tools, and I have seen some really excellent sets built at sea, and can vouch for the results attained. When several ‘wireless fans’ are numbered
among the ship’s company, there is often some rivalry, and perhaps, since seamen are boyish in their ways, some jealousy is in evidence. In one case where they amounted to about half the total crew, the skipper refused to allow any
more aerials to be rigged, as he “didn’t want the ship to look like a floating birdcage.”
I had not been greatly interested in ‘wireless’, and probably would not have had a set now but for a sequence of events started by the general strike (that occurred in the UK in May 1926). That upheaval prevented the ship from getting any nearer home than Dunkirk one voyage, and stopped my home leave. Wandering through the narrow, old-fashioned streets, feeling fed up with things in general, and idly scanning the shop windows, I came across a neat little four-valve set, which at the current rate of exchange (about 180 francs to the pound) was a bargain that appealed to a Scot. I bought the whole outfit, aerial wire, batteries, spare valves, headphones and loudspeaker, and on the way to New York I rigged a fine aerial and fitted the set up in my room. The multitude of American stations that flooded the ether as we headed westward was confusing to a novice, but a little practice in tuning made all the difference. “Morse” from the ice patrol vessel was my first capture, and I got my first music from WJZ, Boston (WEEI was second), and off the Newfoundland banks I had my first experience of ‘atmospherics.’ I remember thinking that it was like listening to a concert in a railway station where half a dozen locomotives were taking turns at blowing off and whistling.
In port I had little time for listening in, but before we left the coast, I was familiar with a lot of American stations and their ‘slogans’, the “World's Play Ground” being much in evidence as we moved south. (That would have been from WPG in Atlantic City, with 5 kW on 1100 kHz.)
On the subsequent trip to Australia, via the Panama Canal, I had some interesting results. The Florida stations were the last I heard before passing through the canal, and in the Pacific I early made the acquaintance of Los Angeles (KFI). He was quite an old friend before I lost him, our last communication by loud speaker being at a distance of 2,700 miles, while we were still on speaking terms by 'phone at 4,800 miles in spite of the frequent electrical storms of the tropics, which can make a racket that puts anything met with in temperate zones quite in the shade. (And KFI on 640 kHz was, at that time, also using only 5kW.)
Before I lost KFI, I had got hold of Brisbane (4QG – another 5kW station, on 779 kHz). For several evenings I had been searching for an Australian station, and I was investigating Brisbane’s wavelength when in he came, the first item being an old Scotch song I hadn’t heard since I was a boy at school. Clear and loud came the words, ‘Last nicht there were four Marys, this night there’ll be but three,” and a homely sound they had to a wandering Scot away in mid-Pacific. The same evening, I picked up Auckland (1YA – only a 500 watt station on 901 kHz), and when both concerts ended with ‘God Save the King’ I felt that I was ‘among my ain folk again, and had a foretaste in imagination of the genial welcome with which I have always been met in Australia and New Zealand. It was a novel experience to listen to the Friday night programme from Los Angeles, and, by merely altering the tuning, to change over to the Saturday night concert in Brisbane, but the difference of time enabled me to perform this ‘black magic’.
2FC Sydney, 3LO Melbourne, and 5CL Adelaide came in in that order, and supplied me with regular entertainment on the Australian coast, one interesting item being a commentary on Cobham’s arrival at Sydney. (Between June and October 1926, Sir Alan Cobham became the first person to fly from England to Australia and back, a 26,000 mile round trip, in a De Haviland biplane equipped with floats.)
Seafarer continues: I lost them all comparatively early on the homeward voyage via Suez. 6WF Perth, though a powerful station (it also was a 5 kW-er), was a disappointment. Off the Leeuwin (that’s the cape at the extreme southwest corner of Australia) I could get better reception from Brisbane.
Shortly after we had crossed the line (presumably the equator) I was having my usual experimental combing of the ether after dinner when I raised some queer squeaks and moans. It sounded as though I was just ‘on the edge’ of some instrumental music, but all my tricks of tuning made no difference. I had decided that something was wrong with the set and started to look for slack terminals, when it occurred to me that it might be an Eastern station broadcasting native music. It turned out to be one of the Indian stations, and my set was giving its normal truthful reproduction. I fear I have no ear for music — of that kind anyway.
Before we passed Cape Guardafui (the extreme easternmost point of Somalia, also known as the Horn of Africa, at the entrance to the Gulf of Aden) I was in touch with one or two European stations, but all the way up the Red Sea there was a lot of interference, both atmospheric and morse from shipping, and it was impossible to recognize them. After leaving Port Said (in the eastern Mediterranean) I had the pick of a lot. Eiffel Tower and Daventry soon made themselves heard (both on longwave). I got 2LO first just off Malta (that was the 3kW station on 830 kHz in London), and a day or two more brought me into range of other home stations. The programmes from these compare favourably with the average American or foreign broadcasting.
In the round-the-world voyage I have outlined, one thing left a lasting impression on my mind — the extent and majesty of the British Empire. During by far the greater part of the time it took, I was within reach of stations which concluded their programmes with ‘God Save the King’. Listening to that majestic measure in mid-ocean, thousands of miles from the homeland, gave me always a thrill of pride in the race to which I belong.
And there the article ends. Ha! How things have changed. That was an article written 100 years ago for the British radio journal Radio-News.
Back to you, Jeff.
(1927 listing of stations from World-Radio on next page)
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