{"id":792,"date":"2010-04-13T08:59:28","date_gmt":"2010-04-13T12:59:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/?p=3928"},"modified":"2023-07-09T15:53:42","modified_gmt":"2023-07-09T19:53:42","slug":"the-first-radio-stations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/2010\/04\/the-first-radio-stations\/","title":{"rendered":"The first radio stations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On this, the 98th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic<\/em>, some radio history is in order.  Before broadcast stations, radio was mainly used by ships at sea sending messages in Morse Code<\/a> to coastal radio stations.  These messages could be routine; we are on schedule, we are carrying such and such cargo, request port clearance, etc.  They could also be urgent; the ship is sinking, we need medical advice, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"RMS
RMS Titanic, April 10, 1912<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Most of these early radio stations were owned by Marconi Company, which later became RCA. \u00a0One of the first Marconi Stations was in Wellfleet Cape Cod, the original call sign was MCC (for Marconi Cape Cod) later changed to WCC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On April 14th about 11:45 pm, the Titanic struck an ice burg and sank about two and a half hours later. \u00a0The RMS Titanic call sign\u00a0MGY was equipped with a radio transmitter at a time when ships were not required to be. \u00a0Sadly, the finer details of distress procedures for radio-equipped ships had not been worked out. \u00a0 After this incident, radio distress procedures were codified and the SOS evolved into an internationally recognized distress signal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the night the ship sank, the Marconi employed radio<\/a> operators<\/a> were sending routine traffic to Cape Race<\/a>, Newfoundland<\/a> radio. \u00a0Because the radio apparatus used spark gap transmitters <\/a>and crystal radio receivers<\/a>, interference from other ship stations often caused problems. \u00a0Earlier in the evening, a Titanic<\/em> radio operator had strongly rebuked the operator from the closest ship, the SS Californian<\/em><\/a>, telling him to “Shut up, shut up, I am busy; I am working Cape Race.” At about 11 pm the SS Californian<\/em> operator retired for the evening and the Californian<\/em> never received the distress call. \u00a0Sadly, this incident probably led to the high loss of life because the Californian<\/em> was just over the horizon to the west and would have likely been able to rescue many of the passengers before the Titanic<\/em> sank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coast Guard radioman Jeffrey Herman has a good SOS<\/a> story from the late 70s. \u00a0Being stationed in Hawaii, he was on duty late one night at Coast Guard Radio Station Honolulu, call sign NMO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Davies, the radio operator on board the Eriskay<\/em> also has a story<\/a> about receiving an SOS while at sea. Fortunately, that one turns out a little better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember one night, hearing an automated SOS on the international lifeboat frequency (8364 kHz). \u00a0I imagined some poor guy cranking the lifeboat radio not knowing if it was going out or not (I was right, it turns out). \u00a0We heard him on Guam and DF’d him to off the coast near Australia. \u00a0We notified the Australian authorities, who diverted a nearby ship that picked 26 survivors up the next morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am sure there a quite a few old CW (morse code) radio operators out there that have similar stories. \u00a0By the 1990s most maritime communications had moved to INMARSAT, and CW and coastal radio stations became redundant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The end of commercial Morse Code in the US came on July 13, 1999, when KFS, the last coastal radio station, signed off.  Most of them have been scrapped and the valuable coastal land sold off to developers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The development of broadcast radio was a direct offshoot of these radio stations. \u00a0AM radio, or rather AM technology<\/a> was developed by ATT<\/a> as an adjunct for their long-distance<\/span> system. \u00a0ATT used High Frequency (HF) voice circuits to span oceans for several decades, up to about the mid-1960s. \u00a0Amateur radio operators began fooling around with voice broadcasting, using ATT’s patented AM technology around 1915 or so, after tube-type transmitters and receivers became available. \u00a0 Somebody realized that money could be made with the new-fangled radio contraption and commercial broadcasting was born.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On this, the 98th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, some radio history is in order.  Before broadcast stations, radio was mainly used by ships at sea sending messages in Morse Code to coastal radio stations.  These messages could be routine; we are on schedule, we are carrying such and such cargo, request port … Continue reading The first radio stations<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[302],"class_list":["post-792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","tag-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12161,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792\/revisions\/12161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}