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The 25 storey Hunter-Dulin Building at 111 Sutter Street had previously housed the offices and studios for the NBC radio network beginning in 1927. When NBC vacated their Sutter Street facility in San Francisco in favor of their new building in Hollywood (and elsewhere) in 1942, OWI took over the NBC suites on the 21st and 22nd floors. of the Hunter-Dulin Building.
All of the famous California Red White and Blue QSL cards were issued from the OWI office in Sutter Street. Each card contained the same QSL text in blue; a red colored block at the bottom of the lefthand side of the card presented the country name, United States of America; and a large blue colored block on the left side of the card provided a large white space for the station callsign.
The well known California radio station KGEI with its 20 kW shortwave transmitter made its first broadcast from Treasure Island in the San Francisco Bay on the first day of the Golden Gate World Fair, February 18, 1939. Some time after the World Fair ended, the General Electric shortwave KGEI, was moved into new facilities at suburban Belmont, and together with some additional electronic equipment, the power output was raised to the newly mandated FCC requirement of 50 kW.
At the direction of the federal government, all shortwave stations in the United States were taken over by OWI on February 24, 1942, for the broadcast of programming that grew into the international shortwave service of the Voice of America. On earlier occasions before the Pacific War, KGEI had broadcast special programs that were beamed to South America, the Philippines and Asia.
The Red White and Blue QSL card issued by OWI-VOA on behalf of the GE station KGEI gave the callsign of the station, KGEI, in large letters, and the operating frequency of the station was written in by hand or typed in below the callsign.
The GE sister station KGEX was taken into OWI-VOA service on July 1, 1944. Station KGEX was also a General Electric transmitter, Model No G100C, and it was co-installed at Belmont alongside the earlier 50 kW KGEI Model No 4G881. The QSL card for KGEX is exactly the same as the card for KGEI, except that the letter I in the KGEI callsign was changed to the letter X for the KGEX callsign.
It was back in the year 1931, that the well known American telephone and radio company AT&T took into service their shortwave station some three miles southeast of downtown Dixon in California. The original shortwave transmitter KMI was rated at a power of 80 kW, though as time went by, a bevy of transmitters and antennas were installed. At the height of its usefulness, AT&T Dixon utilized 30 transmitters and 36 antenna systems.
In the era prior to the beginning of World War 2, most of the shortwave transmissions from the AT&T station at Dixon in California carried point-to-point telephone conversations across the Pacific. However, there were also many notable transmissions in which program material was relayed across the Pacific for rebroadcast in the Philippines, Asia and the South Pacific.
Three of the Dixon transmitters that were logged in the United States, Australia and New Zealand with the transfer of radio programming in those days were 20 kW units that identified on air under the callsigns KWV KWU and KWY. During the Pacific War, these three stations were also noted carrying a relay of programming from the studios of the United Nations Network in the Mark Hopkins Hotel on Nob Hill, San Francisco.
Even though these three stations were, strictly speaking, communication stations, yet OWI issued QSL cards verifying the reception of all three stations, with a separate card for each, KWU KWV and KWY.
Now, another communication station that carried radio programming during the Pacific War was the RCA station located near Bolinas in California. The OWI office verified three of these Bolinas callsigns each with a separate card, KES2 KES3 and KRCA. Station KRCA was actually the communication station KEI when it was on the air with a program relay on 9490 kHz.
Next we come to the enigmatic callsign KROJ. There is unfortunately insufficient information regarding the World War 2 California callsign KROJ, and the three additional similar callsigns KROS KROU and KROZ. International radio monitors in Australia were led to believe that these four callsigns were associated with Mackay Radio in San Francisco, but subsequently it became evident that international radio monitors in the United States understood that the KROJ callsign at least was associated with Press Wireless in Los Angeles.
Reception reports for the KROJ callsign were verified with a specific Red White and Blue KROJ QSL card, but details about QSLs for the other three callsigns remain largely unknown.
Then the twin stations KWID and KWIX were co-installed at Islais Creek in suburban San Francisco. They were operated by Associated Broadcasters and their signals were heard strongly throughout the Pacific. Separate OWI QSL cards were issued for each, KWID and KWIX, though after the end of the war, Associated Broadcasters issued their own similar QSL card with both callsigns listed on the same card.
Towards the end of the war, two large shortwave stations were constructed in California; NBC at Dixon and CBS at Delano. Interestingly, the OWI QSL cards identifying these two stations showed a double callsign on each card; KNBA-KNBC and KNBI-KNBX for NBC Dixon and KCBA-KCBF for CBS Delano. In these circumstances each pair of transmitters was tied together with parallel programming. There was also a separate transmitter at Delano, KCBR, with its own separate QSL card.
As far as is known, this above list contains all of the known California Red White and Blue QSL cards. If any additional Red White and Blue QSL cards were to turn up unexpectedly with an additional shortwave callsign, that would indeed be a new revelation of interesting radio history.
(AWR Wavescan/NWS 438)