A hundred years ago, the young lady shown here, 6SO, was burning up the ether of the West Coast.
Shown here in the August 1916 issue of The Wireless Age is Miss Kathleen Parkin of San Rafael California. which the article identifies as one of the youngest girl wireless operators in the world. She was fifteen years old and held a first grade commercial license, having gained her knowledge of radio in her brother’s station where, as she said, “I spent every minute of my spare time, and often helped him make his instruments.” She constructed, without assistance the 1/4 kilowatt transmitter shown here, and was in the process of making a rotary spark gap and a receiver with vacuum tube detectors. At the time, she was using a galena detector, but successfully receiving up to 1000 miles.
According to Wikipedia, her full name was Gladys Kathleen Parkin, and she was born in San Francisco in 1901, and moved to San Rafael after the 1906 earthquake. She received her amateur license at the age of 9 (in about 1910), and she died in 1990.
In the 1923 call book, she is listed as holding the call 6BP. However, in the 1938 call book,
there’s no listing for W6BP. I was unable to find any later history about Miss Parkin. If you know more about this wireless pioneer, please add a comment or contact me.
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I have the station shown in the picture from the 1916 Wireless Age magazine. The picture shown in
the Electrical Experimenter magazine was “photo-shopped” (the 1916 version of photo-shopped) to make the picture more visible. I purchased the station from Woody Wilson a CHRS member and Doc Harrold award winner. in the early 1990’s. Woody is now a silent key. I have the original commerce department licensee for 6SO.
In a few years I will be opening a museum and have this station on display.
Mike McNeal
Hi Mike. Kathleen was my great aunt. Some of my family members may know more about her. I would love to visit the museum. I did not know she had a radio license when I got my ham radio license as teenager and built my Heathkit
Hi –
After I changed my callsign to W6BP in late 2018, I set out to document the history of the call. Here’s the info from my QRZ page:
1920-1922 Miss Kathleen Parkin, San Rafael, CA. Miss Parkin was something. One of the youngest women wireless operators of her time, she obtained her first amateur license at age 9 and a commercial license at 15. 6BP wasn’t her first call; she appears as 6GK in the 1914 Callbook. A drawing of her keying a transmitter while sitting far too close to a huge inductor appears on the cover of the October 1916 issue of The Radio Experimenter. Her Wikipedia page is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladys_Kathleen_Parkin .
Note that she never held the call W6BP.