Monthly Archives: December 2016

John Glenn, 1921-2016

Mercury Astronaut John Glenn died on December 8, 2016, at the age of 95. He was the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth aboard the Mercury 6 spacecraft, Friendship 7, on February 20, 1962.

The American orbital mission proved an opportunity for shortwave listeners to eavesdrop of the communications with the space mission. This news flash from the May, 1962, issue of Popular Electronics confirms that many American SWL’s were able to tune into the communications to the space capsule, although at press time, it did not appear that there were any confirmed reception reports of the space-to-Earth downlink.

Voice communication from Earth was sent on HF frequencies, with 15.016 MHz being the most important in the Western Hemisphere. On that frequency, SWL’s were able to hear ground stations in Guaymas, Mexico, Corpus Christi, Texas, and others. It was believed that Glenn was transmitting on or near that frequency, although this had not been confirmed at press time. In the Eastern Hemisphere, ground network stations were heard on 7.575 and 10.61 MHz, with ships in the recovery operation above the 15.016 frequency.

The magazine noted that SWL’s probably enjoyed the mission more than TV viewers.

Godspeed, John Glenn.

Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941

USS Shaw at Pearl Harbor. Defense Department Photo.

Today marks the 75th Anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. Most Americans learned of the attack by radio, and the story of that coverage featured prominently in the December 15 issue of Broadcasting magazine, the first to go to press after the attack. The photo at the left shows the news staff of stations WLW and WSAI, Cincinnati, huddled shortly after the first news of the attack broke.

According to the magazine, the first broadcast of the attack came at 2:26 Eastern Time, when WOR New York broke into a Dodger-Giant football game to read the United Press flash. Two minutes later, the news was broadcast nationwide over the NBC Red and Blue Networks.

CBS carried the announcement during its 2:30 station break. The afternoon news program was quickly reorganized. CBS newsman John Daly had spoken by telephone with KGMB Honolulu, and news of the attack on Manila, Philipine Islands, was carried live by a telephone hookup with KGMB, that signal being cut mid-broadcast.

Newsrooms came to life as staff were summoned in on an otherwise slow Sunday afternoon. At 2:45, the NBC network rang four chimes, instead of the customary three, to alert staff to report to work.

One NBC executive phoned KGU Honolulu for an immediate report. The voice from Honolulu reported that he was a station executive and did not have a microphone available. The NBC executive told him to keep talking to keep the line open as he raced to the network control room, and the call was eventually patched through live over the air. He was on the air by 4:06 PM with the live report, until a long distance operator broke in to report that the line was needed by the military. A recording of that broadcast is available at this link. Another six minute call was aired later that hour.

Starting on Monday, December 8, West Coast stations were on a wartime basis. In compliance with an army order, stations in California, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho went off the air. In Washington, KIRO‘s 50 kilowatt signal remained on the air for Army and Navy use only.

During the blackout, which lasted until the next morning, only five minute news flashes were permitted every half hour. More organization was apparent by Thursday and Friday, when staggered schedules were followed.

The nation’s shortwave stations went on a 24 hour schedule, with broadcasts in multiple languages. CBS carried reports in ten languages to Europe, and three to Latin America. It noted that both networks were following a policy of objectivity in news, following FDR’s pronouncement that more than ever, there was a need for truth in the news.

The East Coast shortwave stations were assigned staff from the Office of Coordinator of Information to review material for any that might give aid or comfort to the enemy. In San Francisco, the Navy served a similar function for GE shortwave station KGEI.

CBS Short Wave Listening Station, Long Island. Wikipedia photo.

The CBS and NBC shortwave listening stations were operating on a 24-hour schedule, making material available for the networks, press, and Government.

More information on radio broadcasting in the aftermath of the attack can be found at this post and this post.

Television had newly come on the air commercially in New York, and the magazine reported that the new medium developed a new presentation as the events swiftly unfolded. WCBW came on the air at 8:45 PM until 10:00, the first time the station had been on the air on Sunday. Throughout the week, it presented several news programs daily. It covered President Roosevelt’s Monday speech, with a waving flag transmitted over the visual channel.

NBC commentator Sam Cuff uses map to show WNBT viewers strategic location of Hawaii.

WNBT moved an AP teletype into the studios, with the camera focused on the incoming wire. In the weeks preceeding the attack, WNBT had devoted much of its programming to civilian defense training, a role which continued during the war.

Sales of battery operated radios were said to have skyrocketed on December 8.

Science Fair Idea: Eddy Currents

Eddy currents in solid core (left) and laminated core (right). Wikipedia image. This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

This simple experiment from eighty years ago shows how to experimentally verify the existence of eddy currents in the core of an electromagnet or transformer.

A coil of wire through which house current is passing is wound over two cores. One half is a solid piece of iron, and the other half consists of pieces of wire bundled together. The magnetic field in the coil, which changes direction 60 times per second, sets up eddy currents in the solid core, and the result is that it becomes noticeably warm. In the core consisting of wire, the currents are broken up, and the effect is not noticed.

Of course, it goes without saying that the aspiring scientist should be careful using household current in an experiment. But as long as all of the connections are properly made and insulated wire is used, the experiment is perfectly safe, and would make a good science fair experiment.

The image is from the December 1936 issue of Popular Science.

In transformers, eddy currents are undesirable, since they cause unwanted heat and inefficiency. However, they have some practical applications, such as levitation and braking.

Peace Light and NPOTA: Herbert Hoover National Historic Site

I was recently in Iowa to present some Continuing Legal Education programs in Cedar Rapids and Des Moines. Whenever possible, I like to combine trips, and I used this opportunity to take part in two other events.

Cedar Rapids is close to the birthplace of Herbert Hoover in West Branch, Iowa. It is the location of the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site, as well as the Hoover Presidential Library and Museum. I’ve been looking forward to putting this National Park Service (NPS) unit on the air during the NPS Centenial year as part of the ARRL National Parks On The Air (NPOTA) event. During this event, Amateur Radio operators are setting up their equipment in NPS units to make contact with other Amateurs around the world. Since the beginning of the year, the event has been extremely popular. There have been over 900,000 individual two-way contacts made from the parks, and it appears almost certain that this number will top a million before the end of the year. As I’ve reported in other posts, I’ve made contact with over 300 different parks and operated multiple times from parks in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa.

I was especially eager to operate from President Hoover’s birthplace, since he played such an important role in the history of radio. Indeed, his son was an avid amateur radio operator, and served in the 1960’s as president of the American Radio Relay League, the national organization sponsoring the event.

I didn’t have time for a long operation, but I was able to spend about an hour operating from the parking lot of the historic site’s visitor center, as shown in the photo above. President Hoover’s birthplace home is barely visible in the photo (just to the left of the larger building in front of the car. Despite the short time available, I managed to make contact with about 30 stations, all CW (Morse Code), ranging from Alaska to Florida. After operating, at dusk, I paid my respects at the gravesite of President and Mrs. Hoover, shown here.

The next day, I used my drive home to the Twin Cities to transport the Peace Light of Bethlehem from Des Moines to the Twin Cities.

For at least the past several hundred years, and possibly more than a thousand, a lamp has continuously burned at the grotto of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the traditionally accepted location of Christ’s birth. Since 1989, the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides of Austria have annually sent a child to Bethlehem, who lights a lamp from the light and returns it to Austria. From there, it is passed on around Europe during the Advent season. Since 2000, the Peace Light has been delivered to North America where volunteers, most of whom are connected with Scouting, deliver it around the country.

This year, there was a gap in the distribution, and it wasn’t making it to the northern tier of states. I coordinated with members of the Peace Light North America Facebook group, and made arrangements to meet with an Iowa Scouter in the parking lot of a Des Moines coffee shop. From his kerosene lantern, we lit my lanterns, shown here, and I took the burning lanterns home.

From there, others have come to light their candles and lanterns, and the same ancient flame is burning in lamps in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Another volunteer from North Dakota is on the way here, and within a few days, the Peace Light will be burning in North Dakota, Manitoba, Montana, Washington, and probably other places along the way.

Many are curious as to how the Peace Light crosses the Atlantic. It is transported by Austrian Airlines in the passenger cabin of an aircraft. The ailine transports the flame from Israel to Austria, and then to New York and Toronto. The flame is held within a blastproof miner’s lamp, which allows the open flame to be transported safely by air. At Kennedy Airport, it’s walked through customs by an airline employee to the airport chapel, where a ceremony is held attended by those who fan out around the country to transport it. Among those were one or more volunteers who transported it to Chicago. From there, it went to Davenport, Iowa, where it was picked up by the person who gave it to me.

December 4, 1941: Three Days to War

Seventy-five years ago today, America’s entry into the war was three days away, but the signs were clear that it was coming soon. The Chicago Tribune, December 4, 1941, carried this headline of FDR’s plans for war.

The front-page cartoon makes clear that the paper was decidedly in favor of neutrality and opposed to intervention. It shows a Midwestern bastion of peace, looking with alarm at what it viewed as pro-war propaganda from Washington.

The war plans, consisting of documents from the War Department and letters from the administration, had been obtained by the paper and the contents were disclosed. It showed the likely enemies as Germany, Italy, Spain, and Japan, and anticipated theaters of war in both Europe and the Pacific. It also stressed the importance of maintaining solid relations with the republics of the Americas, since trade with both Asia and Europe would probably be cut off for the duration. It called for ten million American men to take up arms, with half of those to serve in an Expeditionary Force to Europe, with a ground offensive slated to begin in 1943.

Another cartoon in the same issue of the paper restated what the paper viewed as Midwestern pro-peace values, insisting that we raised our cattle, and not our sons, for slaughter.

WRUL Boston, 1941

Shown here as it appeared at the time of America’s entry into the War is the control room of Boston shortwave station WRUL. The image appeared in the December 15, 1941, issue of Life Magazine.

The magazine was obviously put together immediately after the attack of December 7, since most of the articles refer to an America that was preparing for war, but still at peace. Only a middle section of the magazine includes images of the attack.

This image is from an article profiling the shortwave station which, according to the magazine, the Nazis hated and feared.

It was billed as the nation’s most powerful shortwave transmitter, and was “waging a mighty war of propaganda against Adolf Hitler and his allies.” The station’s transmitters were 50,000 and 20,000 watts, with plans to increase. Programs went out day and night in 24 languages.

The station had come on the air in 1927 under experimental license W1XAL. With the outbreak of war in Europe, unbeknownst to the staff, the station came largely under the control of British Intelligence. With America’s involvement in the war, the station was leased to the U.S. Government. In 1962, under new ownership, the call letters were changed to WNYW for “Radio New York Worldwide,” with studios in New York and the transmitter reamining in Scituate, Mass. In 1973, the station was acquired by religious broadcaster Family Stations, Inc., and operated as WYFR until that station moved its transmitters to Okeechobee, Florida, in 1979.

WWV Moves to Colorado: 1966

Today marks the 50th anniversary of WWV’s move to its current location in Fort Collins, Colorado. At 0000 hours GMT on December 1, 1966 (5:00 Mountain Standard Time on November 30), the station began its transmissions from the new location on the familiar internationally allocated standard carrier frequencies of 2.5, 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 megacycles.

The move was announced in the November 1966 issue of Electronics Illustrated, which contained the photograph shown above. At the center of the photo is the station’s 10 MHz dipole antenna. The 3-1/8 inch diameter transmission line can be seen snaking off to the right. In the background to the left is the WWVB transmitter building (WWVB and WWVL had previously been located at Ft. Collins). The antennas in the background are, at the left, a backup 88 foot monopole, and at the right, the 400 foot WWVL tower.

NIST photo.

To celebrate the move, the station issued a special first-day QSL card for reception reports on the first day. To ensure that SWL’s had really picked up the station, the voice identifcation used a special message on the first day, which had to be copied exactly to receive the special QSL, which is shown here.

According to the accompanying note on the card, WWV had apparently planned to award a photograph of the new station to the first three reception reports. However, it proved impossible to determine which were the first three, and three were selected from the batch. One of those went to long time ARRL staffer Lewis “Mac” McCoy, W1ICP.

The station had previously been located at Greenbelt, Maryland. The move was designed to give better coverage and to move the station closer to the National Bureau of Standards’ frequency standard lab in Boulder, Colorado.

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