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In the continuing saga about the long
and illustrious history of the shortwave station that finally became WYFR and then WRMI, we pick up the
chain of events in the middle of the year 1953.
At this stage, station WRUL, as it was at the time, was on the air at
Hatherly Beach with five transmitters:-
3
@ 50 kW, 1 @ 20 kW and 1 @ 7 or 80 kW (with or without a huge power amplifier).
On
June 30, 1953, the 5 WRUL transmitters were officially released from service
with the Voice of America and the station was reverted back to regular
programming under its ownership with Walter Lemmon. The usage of the Boston studios had ended two
years earlier and WRUL had established a New York office at 1 East 57th
Street, which according to the city address list, is the location for the
voluminous fashion icon Louis Vuitton store.
A few blocks away was the location for the original production and
on-air studios of the Voice of America.
At
the same time as WRUL was released from VOA service in mid 1953, so also was
the Westinghouse shortwave station WBOS at Hull, located at the end of the
Nantasket Peninsula out from Boston.
Westinghouse then closed this station and sold the equipment to WRUL at
Hatherly Beach. The leftover equipment from the two transmitters WBOS &
WPIT at Hull was incorporated into the WRUL facility, though never as a
separate transmitter unit. At this
stage, WRUL was no longer an official relay station for the Voice of America with
programming from VOA and the Armed Forces Radio Service.
Then,
in 1960, the 65 year old Walter Lemmon relinquished control of the station,
selling it off to Metro Media in New York.
At this stage, the same five transmitters were still in use:-
3
@ 50 kW, 1 @ 20 kW and 1 @ 80 kW.
MetroMedia,
that is the Metropolitan Broadcasters of New York, also owned mediumwave WNEW,
as well as a small network of radio and television stations across the
country. They transferred the studios
for their new shortwave acquisition into 4 West 58th Street, the
location of the famed Paris Theatre, quite near to Central Park. This new suite of radio studios was titled
the Worldwide Communication Center.
However,
MetroMedia retained the usage of the Hatherly Beach shortwave station for just
three years only after which they sold it off to the International Educational
Broadcasting Corporation IEBC in Salt Lake City Utah for $1¾ million. This change of ownership was effective on October
10, 1962, and a new on air slogan was introduced, Radio New York World Wide,
though the old and familiar callsign WRUL was still retained. At this stage, the same five transmitters
were on the air, though they were now listed as 4 @ 50 kW and 1 @ 80 kW. A total of eleven antenna systems were in
use.
Soon
after IEBC obtained WRUL at Hatherly Beach, this organization morphed into
Bonneville International both of which had close ties with the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter day Saints, the Mormons.
Interestingly,
there was a previous attempt on the part of the Mormon Church to go shortwave
and this was back in the year 1939. At
that time, the experimental shortwave broadcasting station W9XAA was on the air
in Chicago with a 500 watt transmitter located at suburban Downer’s Grove. This
shortwave station was owned by the Chicago Federation of Labor, who also
operated the well known mediumwave station WCFL. The Chicago Federation of Labor in Chicago
wanted to sell its co-owned shortwave station W9XAA to mediumwave KSL in Salt
Lake City Utah.
They
lodged a request with the FCC to sell the station, increase its power, and move
it to Saltair, near Salt Lake City.
However, in September 1939, the FCC denied this request; and so this
first attempt on the part of the Mormon Church to establish a shortwave station
came to nothing.
Returning
to the story of the Boston shortwave station, we might add, that in the year
1964, the long standing Adventist radio program, Voice of Prophecy with the
illustrious Dr. H. M. S. Richards was on the air from the shortwave station
WRUL twice each Sunday. At both 1200
& 1900 GMT, as it was in those days or UTC as it is today, this half hour
program was noted on all four active transmitters in parallel, on 11950 15385
15440 & 17760 kHz.
The
vigorous radio entrepreneur Walter Lemmon was born in New York City on February
3, 1896, and on March 1, 1967, he passed to his rest at Old Greenwich
Connecticut, age 71.
He
gained a B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering at Columbia University in New
York City. As
Lieutenant Walter Lemmon with the Coast
Guard he was appointed as a wireless operator onboard the navy vessel USS
“George Washington”, and he also served as Wireless Operator for President
Woodrow Wilson at the Versailles Peace Conference in France in 1919. While the ship was anchored in port at Brest
Harbor in coastal France, he made a series of experimental radio broadcasts
containing news about the Peace Conference.
On
the return journey across the Atlantic, Walter Lemmon aboard the “George
Washington” presented several broadcasts of recorded music for the benefit of
nearby ships and for listeners along the eastern seaboard of the United
States. When the ship was still 300
miles from port, he persuaded President Wilson to make a special July 4 radio
broadcast to the United States.
Wilson
did indeed make the brief speech in between music items during the Independence
Day broadcast, though he stood so far away from the microphone that his words
were not heard clearly in the broadcast.
A news reporter subsequently re-read the speech which this time was
transmitted quite clearly.
Ten
years later, Walter Lemmon became the general manager for shortwave station
W2XAL in Coytesville New Jersey, a station that he bought two years later and
ultimately transferred to Boston in association with TV experimenter Hollis
Baird. Lemmon manager the Boston
shortwave station WRUL for a period of nearly 30 years, running from 1931 right
up to the year 1960, developing it into one of the world’s largest and most
powerful shortwave stations in the middle of last century.
Walter
Lemmon invented the 3-gang tuning condenser which he sold to RCA for $1
million; and he also invented the radiotypewriter which enabled typed messages
to be transmitted by radio and instantly received on a similar typewriter
anywhere in the world. He was also an
executive with the IBM Corporation; and in addition to his management of shortwave
WRUL, Lemmon was the manager for an early FM station, WGCH 95.9 MHz in
Greenwich Connecticut.
Walter
Lemmon sold his shortwave station WRUL in 1960, he went into retirement at the
age of 64, and died seven years
later. By this time, his shortwave
station was now on the air under the new callsign WNYW.
But
that’s a story for next time.
(AWR Wavescan/NWS260)
