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| antique morse code keyer |
Soon after the invention and
development of wireless in the early days of Marconi and other experimenters in
Europe and the United States, the transmission of news and information across
the Atlantic began to feature prominently in the commercial business
world. Two leading newspapers in New
York City established their own receiving and transmitting stations for the
purpose of receiving and disseminating news by wireless.
In 1910, the New York Herald
established a wireless station in the United States Barge Office at the Battery
in New York City under their own informal callsign OHX. The antenna wires were strung across a busy
street between two multi-storeyed commercial buildings.
This new wireless station received
news dispatches, mainly from islandic and continental Europe, though also from
other parts of the world as well. In
addition, station OHX also transmitted wireless news for the benefit of newspapers
elsewhere in the United States, as well as for newspapers in other overseas
countries.
As an advertising venture and a
service to their land-based readers, on January 16, 1912, the New York Herald
sent a bulletin of news in Morse Code to the German express passenger liner SS
Berlin as it was traversing the Atlantic.
The shipboard printing press printed the information as a wireless
newspaper for the benefit of passengers.
During the era before World War 1,
the news information from the New York Herald wireless station was also transmitted
from the maritime communication station CC on Cape Cod, Massachusetts and also
from the new wireless station at Hillside in San Francisco California. In this way, they were able to disseminate
their news and information on a worldwide basis.
When the New York Herald wireless
station was taken into service, its transmissions were heard on the longwave
channel 640 metres (470 kHz). The
informal callsign OHX was dropped in favor of a regularized callsign WHB in
1913, in accordance with the new international regulations governing the
wireless spectrum.
Not to be outdone, another newspaper
in New York City, the New York Times, also established its own wireless
station, under the amateur callsign 2UO.
At one stage, this station was also on the air with a regular bulletin
of news in Morse Code for the benefit of an international audience. However, they found themselves in difficulty
due to the fact that they were using an amateur wireless station for a commercial
purpose.
Soon after the end of World War 1,
in 1919, a commercial company in England began the regular transmission of news
bulletins in Morse Code for the benefit of news organizations throughout the
world. These news bulletins were
received in the United States, as well as in distant outposts of the Empire;
India, Australia and New Zealand.
The daily news bulletins from the
British Official Wireless Press were presented in Morse Code from a new
longwave station located at Leafield, in Oxfordshire England. These news bulletins from transmitter GBL
with 300 kW on longwave were observed by station VLB at Awarua at the southern
tip of the South Island of New Zealand.
Seven years later (1926), the daily
news service from London was transferred from Leafield to the large Post Office
wireless station at Rugby in Warwickshire
in England. The high powered 350 kW GBR
was tuned to the longwave channel 18200 metres, 16 kHz. Over a period of time, the spark transmitters
at Rugby were replaced by glass tube valve transmitters, and during World War 2
for example, the news bulletins were transmitted on several different channels
in the 60 metre band, (4.8 MHz) under such callsigns as GBU2 GDU2 and
GDW2.
The London Press Service was on the
air longwave, and then shortwave for a lengthy period of time, 42 years, and it
came to an unceremonial end in 1961.
In 1925, for the benefit of ships at
sea, the AWA network in Australia began the broadcast of a daily bulletin of
news in Morse Code from three of its coastal stations, VIS Sydney, VID Darwin and
VIP Perth. One report (in 1925) tells of
how the ship RMS Niagara received these news bulletins every day while on a
voyage across the Pacific from San Francisco to Australia.
In his memorable tome on the history
of The Voice of America, Robert Pirsein informs us that the Voice of America
inaugurated the broadcast of news in Morse Code from four different shortwave
stations at four different locations in 1943.
These stations were:-
WGEX Schenectady NY 25 kW Rebuilt GE transmitter
WCDA Brentwood
LI NY 10 New transmitter
WRUX Hatherley
Beach MA 7 Old WDJM from Miami rebuilt
WLWK-WLWR2 Mason OH 50 RCA-KFAB composite
(AWR-Wavescan/NWS431)