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| Sinking of the Lusitania |
On January 19, the German forces made their first zeppelin air raid against the east coast of England. Zeppelins L3 L4 and L6 set off from their base at Fuhlsbüttel near Hamburg, though L6 encountered technical problems on the way and returned to base. The other two zeppelins made their way across the North Sea with the intent of dropping their bombs on a military target. However, due to bad weather, instead they dropped their bombs on civilian locations near the coast in East Anglia, resulting in four deaths and damage to some residential housing and other structures.
A German submarine U28 sank the British passenger vessel RMS Falaba on March 28 at a location south of Ireland and 40 miles west of the coast of Wales, and among the many dead was an American citizen Leon Chester Thrasher. The submarine U48, the RMS Falaba, and another British ship trawler Eileen Emma, nearby were intercommunicating in morse code, with the submarine warning the trawler to remain clear.
Less than six weeks later, the British ship RMS Lusitania was sunk at almost the same location by another German submarine U20 with the death of 1,198 passengers and crew, and 764 survivors. Before the Cunard liner left New York Harbor six days earlier, the German Embassy in Washington DC, placed advertisements in 50 American newspapers warning intended passengers of the possible danger in traveling across the Atlantic on the Lusitania.
The attack against the Falaba on March 28 (known in the United States as the Thrasher Incident) and the sinking of the Lusitania just 40 days later in a somewhat similar circumstance near the same location, brought the United States close to the brink of war.
On April 22, German forces made the first major poison gas attack in the Great War against the Canadian sector in France. Five months later on September 15, the British took their turn at the usage of poison gas though with disastrous results; shifting winds caused 60,000 British casualties.
On April 25 ANZAC forces, the combined armies of Australia and New Zealand, landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula on the edge of the waterway between Europe and Asia and they took part in disastrous fighting against the Ottoman Empire. The fighting was so fierce that two bullets, one from each side, collided in mid air, one penetrating the other. ANZAC Day, April 25 every year in both Australia and New Zealand, commemorates their participation.
On the radio scene in 1915 set against that background, voice communication across the continental United States was first achieved on September 29 when AT&T president Theodore Vail spoke from the navy station NAA at Arlington Virginia and was heard by station NPG at Mare Island in California. This epic moment was also noted loud and clear at station UC in Pearl Harbor Hawaii.
Three weeks later the same station NAA was heard clearly at station FL on the Eiffel Tower in Paris when Engineer B. B. Webb spoke into the microphone. The NAA transmitter in use for this epic occasion, the first voice across the Atlantic, incorporated 300 valves (tubes) in its circuitry.
Earlier on July 9, the United States ordered the closure of the German Telefunken wireless station at Sayville on Long Island New York, due to the alleged transmission of belligerent messages. The United States navy took over the station and closed it, leaving a contingent of marines to guard it. Soon afterwards though, station WSL was reopened and placed under stricter control.
During 1915, the 11 year-old Charles Litton set up his own amateur radio station in Redwood City; and Hiram Percy Maxim published the first issue of the amateur radio magazine QST. The three letters QST is a morse code abbreviation meaning “calling all stations”. The Department of Commerce published the first issue of the Radio Service Bulletin in January.
Three important callsigns were issued during the year 1915: Charles Herrold in San Diego was allotted the callsign 6XF for his Special Land Station; Hiram Percy Maxim was accorded the callsign 1ZM for his Special Land Station; and General Electric was granted the callsign 2XI for their experimental shortwave station located on Van Slyck Island in New York state.
Four new experimental radio broadcasting stations were launched during this particular year, 1915.
These stations were:
* Lee de Forest with station 2XG at his radio laboratory at 1391 Sedgewick Avenue in the Highbridge section of the Bronx in New York City.
* According to available information, radio station KUT at the University of Texas in Austin began broadcasting weather information and crop reports, in morse code.
* Robert Stull is said to have established a radio broadcasting station at the University of California in Berkeley.
* A radio station was established at the Hotel Ansonia in New York, apparently by the members of the recently formed Radio Club of America.
In other parts of the world, the United States Navy reported that they had already constructed a series of high powered wireless stations at many different locations, and that they were ready for active service. These new wireless stations were located in the Panama Canal Zone, Pearl Harbor Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Cavite in the Philippines, Guam, and Samoa.
On September 16, a Marconi wireless station was opened for service at Mt Pearl in St. John’s, Newfoundland. This station with the callsign BZM was powered by generators attached to two six cylinder diesel Gardiner engines, and the transmitter emitted 30 kW under the Poulsen arc system.
(AWR Wavecran/NWS 502)
(photo/wikipedia)