Minneapolis City Hall 2012 cropped” by Jason Riedy from East Point, GA, USA. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

The Minnesota Wireless Association (MWA), according to its QRZ.com listing, has been in existence since 1914, and that fact is borne out by the photograph above, which appeared a hundred years ago, in the March 1915 issue of Popular Mechanics.  The article describes the station installed in the Minneapolis City Hall, a structure which is still in existence and easily recognizable, as seen in the modern photo here.

The magazine reported that the station had just been installed by the Minnesota Wireless Association, and was “probably the largest private wireless station” at the time. It noted that the instruments in the station were “arranged with particular reference to experimental work, which will include tests and comparisons of new apparatus, studies of stray electrical disturbances, and the development of new apparatus.” The antenna consisted of eleven wires between the two towers, 400 feet above ground at the clock tower.

The article reported a receiving range of 4000 miles and a “sending range limited only by the power used.” The station had a license to operate on any wavelength and with any power, but the article noted that “every precaution will be taken not to interfere with other stations.” The station apparently used only radiotelegraph at the time, but the article noted that a wireless telephone set was under construction.

According to a 1914 Wireless Age account, the station’s best DX was Colon, Panama, as member Claud Sweeny had copied that signal.  The club also reported that the station had excellent reception of time signals, presumably from NAA in Arlington, Virginia, and it was likely that those signals would be utilized for controlling the city clock, “thus giving Minneapolis the first radio municipal time.”

The MWA currently holds the call sign W0AA, although I’m not sure when they received this call.  According to the Club’s QRZ.com listing, they’ve held it since 1967, in memory of one of its members, Art Andersen, who had held the call prior to his death.  However, W0AA is shown in the 1952 call book as belonging to the club, with Andersen listed as the trustee.  The 1938 call book shows W9AA as belonging to a ham in Chicago, so it appears that the club got the ‘AA call sometime between 1938 and 1952.

According to the September 1914 issue of Wireless Age, the station bore the call sign 9ZE.  That call is listed in the 1914 call book as being held by Philip E. Edelman, who is identified in the Wireless Age article as being the Association’s president.   The club is listed in the 1920 call book as holding the license for special land station 9ZT, with an address of 402 Courthouse Bldg.  In the 1926 call book, the licensee for that call sign is a familiar name in Amateur Radio history, D.C. Wallace, later W6AM.  A QST search for 9ZT reveals that the call was Wallace’s personal call sign until he moved to California in the 1920’s.  It’s unclear, therefore, whether MWA has continously held a license for the last hundred years.  But as the photo above proves, they have been a force in Amateur Radio for a century, as 9ZE, 9ZT, W0AA, and possibly other call signs.

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