Comes the month of August and a large number of radio personnel, perhaps even a hundred or more, will gather in Miami, Florida for the next HFCC, High Frequency Coordination Conference, for the purpose of co-ordinating their programming schedules on the international shortwave bands. In our program today, we begin to take a look at the fascinating radio backgrounds in the American state of Florida.
The
name Florida means Flowery Easter, and it is a state that has a very varied and
interesting historic past. It is made up
of a peninsula 450 miles long and 100 miles wide, together with what is
described as the panhandle in the northwest.
Then there is also the chain of some
70 islands stretching out west for 120 miles from south Florida that are known
collectively as the Florida Keys. In
prehistoric times, a half a dozen sub-tribes of Native Americans inhabited the
islands of the Florida Keys, mostly from North America though at times some
from the islands in the Caribbean. The
word Key is taken from the Spanish word Cayo, meaning a small island.
Florida is noted for its many
tourist locations, beaches, fun parks, car racing, alligators, orange orchards,
the Kennedy Space Center, and Disney World in Orlando. Disney World was opened in 1971, and it is the most visited
vacation resort in the world, with an attendance in excess of 52 million people
annually. According to Wikipedia, the
Adventist operated Florida Hospital is the largest hospital in the United
States, and it is the second largest employer in the Orlando area, after Disney
World.
It was on April 2, 1513 during the
Easter season that the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon landed on the east coast of the Florida
peninsula on his epic voyage from the Caribbean and he claimed the territory
for Spain. Half a century later, the
Spanish established a colony at this same location and St. Augustine was born,
the first European colony on the mainland United States.
Over the centuries, England, Spain,
France and the United States have all demonstrated a political interest in
Florida until on March 3, 1821, Spain sold Florida to the United States for $5
million. In exchange, the United States
gave up its interest in Cuba.
Forty years later, in January 1861,
Florida seceded from the United States at the time of the American Civil
War. However 4 years later again,
Florida was once more an integral part of the United States of America.
In 1905, work began on the Overseas
Railroad, running from Miami out over the Keys towards Key West and it was
opened to traffic 7 years later. It was
described as the 8th Wonder of the World, and at one stage
it employed as many as 4,0000 men in construction.
The original Overseas Highway
running somewhat parallel to the railroad, was opened for vehicle traffic in
1928, though there was a 41 mile long stretch requiring transportation by
ferry. However, the railroad went
bankrupt in 1935 due finally to a hurricane and the roadway took over much of
the railroad right of way for re-construction for motor traffic.
The city of Key West, at the end of
the old Overseas Railway and the subsequent Overseas Highway, was the largest
city in Florida in the late 1800s. On
April 23, 1982, the mayor of Key West declared his city as the independent
Conch Republic, for one minute. One
minute later, when the independent Conch Republic surrendered symbolically to
the United States, he requested $1 billion in foreign aid. Each year, the re-enacting of the Conch
Republic incident forms part of their annual celebrations.
In 1902 the federal government
acquired a block of land at the western edge of Key West that was bounded by
Caroline, Whitehead, Eaton and Thomas Streets for the installation of a
wireless station. Three tall wooden
masts standing 208 feet high were erected, two within the designated block of
land and the third just off the property at the corner on Front Street. A caged antenna array requiring 8½ miles of 7 strand phosphor bronze
wire weighing 1/3rd ton was strung between the three towers.
The American De Forest Co installed
a 35 kW spark transmitter in a new building underneath the antenna system. An additional antenna system that was coupled
to a rudimentary receiver was installed at the eastern edge of the city of Key
West. The operating channel for the
transmitter was 1250 metres, equivalent to 240 kHz longwave. Initially the callsign for this new De Forest
radio station was KW, though under the navy quite soon afterwards it was
changed to RD.
In 1909, the callsign was
regularized to an American naval callsign NAR, though when in use for army
communications, the call was WUBV. In
1914, the three wooden masts were replaced by three steel towers, and as this stage,
daily time signals were transmitted for navigational purposes. Electronic equipment was installed in the mid
1920s; and in 1969, the three steel towers were removed and replaced with a
single mast.
These days, radio station NAR at Key
West in Florida celebrates the distinction of being the oldest continuously
operated American naval communication station in the world.
For a few years back in the early
1900s, there was another spark wireless station on the air in Key West, and
this was a commercial operation under the United Wireless Telegraph
Company. When this station was installed
in 1907, it took over the earlier temporary callsign KW from the other
station. However, because the two
stations were so close together, there was considerable mutual interference, so
half a dozen years later, the United Wireless Telegraph station was closed.
More on the story of wireless and
radio in Florida in times to come.
(AWR-wavescan/NWS 382)