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| Anastasia Island Lighthouse (photo by Gayle Van Horn) |
The
first European settlement in the area was established by the Spanish in 1559,
and some historians state that this was the first Spanish settlement in what is
now the United States. Some 1500 people
arrived from Vera Cruz in Mexico on board 11 ships in August 1559. However, it turned out to be only a
disastrous temporary occupation due to the fact that a massive hurricane five
weeks later destroyed the new settlement and killed a large number of the new
inhabitants.
Pensacola
is currently in the news due to a very recent government announcement giving
approval for the construction of a huge new bridge linking Pensacola city with
the western end of the Fairpoint Peninsula.
This new bridge spans 3 miles of waterways, it will be 6 lanes wide with
an additional pedestrian walkway, it is the third bridge at this location, and
it will cost $400 million.
In
June 1904, the American navy awarded Lee de Forest a contract to install a
wireless station at the Warrington Naval
Base on the edge of Pensacola.
Initially, plans for the new Pensacola station called for 3 towers at a
height of 208 feet set in a triangle 300 feet apart, and a spark transmitter
rated at 35 kW.
However,
by the time Chief Engineer Frank Butler arrived at Warrington during the next
year (1905), the station specifics had been reduced to two towers with a
vertical fan shaped antenna system, and a transmitter rated at 10 kW. The design of this new station in Florida was
similar to the temporary demonstration station that de Forest had installed at
the St. Louis Fair in Missouri two years earlier, in 1903.
At
8:00 pm on a date in 1905 that seems to be lost to history, test transmissions
commenced from this new wireless station; the automatic continuous sending of
the letter D in Morse Code. However, no
confirmation from anywhere came in, not even from the operator aboard a navy
vessel just 2 miles away in Pensacola Bay.
Every incoming message stated “we
do not hear you”.
Over
a period of time, the completed station was totally overhauled; none of the new
wireless equipment seemed to be defective, yet the powerful spark signal from
this new wireless station just did not propagate anywhere. Engineer Butler questioned the operator of
the nearby wireless station that had been recently installed by Western Union,
and Western Union stated that they had encountered the same problem.
The
problem, stated Western Union, was that there were several distinct layers of
white sand, clay, fresh water, and salt water, and the only way that they could
transmit a clear signal was if the grounding system was driven 40 feet down
though the different layers. These
distinct layers, he stated, provided some sort of “electrical resistance, or a
dielectric”, which inhibited satisfactory propagation.
In
order to ensure adequate grounding, Butler drove 12 iron pipes 45 feet into the
watery sands, grouped together into a small circle. The tops of the circle of pipes were
connected with a heavy copper cable that led into the earthing section at the
output of the spark transmitter.
And
again as usual, transmitter testing on 900 metres (333 kHz) began at 8:00 pm,
the letter D was sent automatically and continuously, and this time reception
reports poured in from many areas. Naval
wireless Pensacola station RK was now successfully on the air.
When
the navy regularized all of their callsigns throughout the world a few years
later, station RK became NAS. When on
the air for the army at nearby Fort Barancas, the station was on the air under
the callsign WZD, on 100 metres (3000 kHz).
During
that same historic era, another naval wireless station was installed on
Anastasia Island, off the Atlantic coast of St. Augustine in the northeast of
Florida. This island, Anastasia, is a
barrier island 14 miles long and one mile wide.
The
navy co-sited a wireless station with the already established lighthouse; the
equipment was provided by the Shoemaker company, the station was inaugurated in
1905, and the original callsign was QX.
In that same year, lightning struck the wireless tower; and two years
later a storm destroyed the mast and the antenna system.
In
1909, the navy changed the callsign from the irregular QX to the regular NAP; a
fire destroyed the storehouse three years later; and in 1944, lightning struck
the lighthouse and destroyed the radio transmitter. On several occasions, a hand colored postcard
with a photograph of the wireless station on Anastasia Island has been
available for purchase on Ebay.
The
American navy established another wireless station in Florida back in that era,
and this was installed at Jupiter Inlet, just north of Miami. In the pre-colonial era, this area was
inhabited by native Americans belonging to the Hobe tribe. This name was shown incorrectly on early maps
as Jove, which was subsequently transliterated to Jupiter, the name that the
area still carries to this day.
The
navy installed Shoemaker equipment also at this station which was inaugurated
under the callsign RA. In 1909, the
callsign was regularized to NAQ, and the 3 kW transmitter was listed on 600
metres (500 kHz). This station was
intended to serve as an intermediate naval relay station between Arlington
Virginia and Key West Florida.
In
February 1942, the German submarine U504 torpedoed and sank two American ships,
SS Republic and SS W. D. Anderson, just off the coast from Jupiter. Very rapidly, an intercept wireless station
was constructed and co-sited with the Jupiter lighthouse and naval wireless
station, and it was identified as Intercept Station J.
This
wireless listening facility had a complex antenna system supported on 6 tall masts at 100 feet with the
receiver and ancillary equipment housed in a cluster of unmarked white buildings. At the end of four successful years in
eavesdropping on enemy ships and submarines, station J was closed on July 15,
1945, and it was taken over by the Coast Guard as station NLM.
In
addition to the sizable list of major wireless stations in Florida in the early
years, there was also a long list of smaller stations scattered throughout this
peninsular state. During the 1920s,
there was a whole list of communication radio stations with callsigns in the 4X
and 4Z series, such as for example station 4XP which was operated by the
Aeromarine Airways Corp in Key West for aircraft communication. Then there was also station WX at Miami Beach
which was part of the
Tropical Radio Telegraph network, but that’s a story for another occasion.