Lee

AWA Review Wireless Comes of Age on the West Coast1

!2011 Bartholomew Lee ABSTRACT This is a story primarily about young men and what they accomplished in a remarkable Radio as we know it time, the fi rst two decades of the 20th Century, had many fathers. Cali- and in remarkable places – especially in Cali- fornia enjoyed unique fornia in the Western United States. Guglielmo circumstances that gave (William) Marconi, in his early twenties, elec- rise to independent de- trifi ed the technical world of the late 19th Cen- velopment. Young men tury with his successes using Hertzian electro- explored and advanced magnetic waves to communicate at distance, devices and means of what we now call “radio.” He did this without communication as soon the wired connections to which the world had as they read about ear- turned with enthusiasm earlier in the century. lier advances, especially The telegraph, including undersea cables, and Marconi’s use of wireless the telephone, needed wire, and lots of it. Com- spark systems. The arc munication without such wires, at fi rst wireless as a generator of high telegraphy, opened new vistas. This was par- power continuous wave ticularly so looking out to the world’s oceans. energy for communica- Communication with ships at sea (Marconi’s tions came to California primary initial interest) was now possible. Then, and then the world. Doc a challenge to the expensive cable monopolies Herrold began the fi rst could be mounted. This was so because the new regular broadcasting to a “wireless” meant exactly that: no expensive, known audience around capital-intensive investments in cables, only 1912 in California, using in terminal stations. As the amateurs in these an arc. Lee de Forest new arts soon showed, wireless also freed com- perfected his “Audion” munications from pre-existing geographical triode in California in networks. Men and boys, capitalists and hob- 1913. Amateur radio byists, could now explore and stake interests in trained thousands in what inventor Lee de Forest called the “Invisible the new radio arts. The Empire of the Air.”2 Navy led the way from As a result of the then new networks of com- the beginning, from the munication, the late 19th century was blessed earliest spark systems with nearly immediate knowledge of many around San Francisco of the world’s events. Scientifi c and technical Bay, to playing music advances were reported and widely published from the Great White worldwide. Interested people ranging from Fleet, to its world-wide university professors, to entrepreneurs, to networks at the time of back-room tinkerers, followed these develop- the First World War. ments, and sought to replicate them. They were Radio grew up in many able to do so by reason of the uniformity of the places, and the West laws of physics. And they sought to go beyond Coast was one of the into new devices, new arrangements and new more important of those technologies. places. San Francisco, from its Gold Rush days, had

Volume 24, 2011 241 West Coast Wireless been a cosmopolitan world city. maritime Wireless installation (a Nearby Stanford University (at Palo spark coil on a lightship) for jour- Alto, California) fi rst fl ourished in nalism and public notice was semi- the 1890s. Its electrical engineer- nal in all later developments. This ing department was instrumental is so because it was such big news, in development of hydro-electric nationwide. The experimental use facilities for electrical power. It of the arc technology to generate provided a sound foundation for re- continuous waves, in which Lee search, technical experiments and de Forest played a major role, what were then high-technology brought on two novel successes. business formations. The people First, the arc succeeded in com- of San Francisco, like much of the munications circuits. These high world, enjoyed Scientifi c Ameri- power circuits eventually ranged can, McClure’s Magazine and a worldwide. The Federal Telegraph host of other publications. Events and Telephone Company of Palo reported in such publications also Alto, California, the predecessor catalyzed technical work on the of ITT, implemented them. Victory West Coast of the United States. It in World War One required these wasn’t “instant messaging” but it reliable circuits. Second, the arc was current and thorough explana- provided the basis of early broad- tion of advances. casting. ‘Doc” Herrold in San Jose The independent wealth and the broadcast programs and music geographical isolation of the West well before the First World War. Coast fostered an independent The improvement of the vacuum development of communications tube technology of Lee de Forest’s and electronic technology. These three-element triode vacuum tube developments ranged from the “Audion,” was work largely done by fi rst American use of wireless at de Forest in Palo Alto at Federal. San Francisco in 1899, the first This work provided the basis for reliable worldwide communica- supplanting both the spark and the tions systems from California’s arc technology of earlier years, at Federal Telephone and Telegraph the end of the First World War and less than 20 years later, even the by the beginning of the 1920s. The invention of electronic television post-war boom of the 1920s saw in San Francisco by Philo Farn- radio broadcasting, using vacuum sworth in 1927, up to the Silicon tube transmitters and receivers, Valley of today’s digital world. It become a nationwide unifying and is the goal of this note to tell some standardizing cultural force. of the stories of that independent History, said Henry Ford, is development, from the primitive “just one damn thing after anoth- marine wireless of August 1899 er.” But it’s all that the word “after” in San Francisco to the advent of implicates that is so interesting. radio-telephone broadcasting by Lee de Forest in San Francisco in 1920, with much in between in GENESIS: AMERICAN WIRE- these 21 years. While there were LESS TELEGRAPHY IS BORN many regional successes as well, IN 1899 IN SAN FRANCISCO there were not a few dead-ends. In August, 1899 the San Several important stories stand Francisco Call newspaper suc- out through the mists of time – and cessfully used wireless to scoop San Francisco’s fogs. The 1899 a competing newspaper about success in using the fi rst American the appearance of a long-await-

242 AWA Review Lee ed troopship in the fog seven success in Great Britain.4 Early miles off the Golden Gate, San newspaper reports told of the Francisco. The USS Sherman use of wireless by the Lightship brought a California regiment Goodwin to summon aid after a back from the 1898 Spanish collision. The San Francisco use American War campaign in the of the Lightship 70 as a trans- Philippines.3 Lightship 70 of mitting station, and the spark the U.S. Lighthouse Service, a and coherer technology em- predecessor of the Coast Guard, ployed, appears to derive direct- signaled the arrival of the troop- ly from the report in McClure’s ship to a receiving station near Magazine. The San Francisco the Cliff House. By 1901, the experimenters used the then Lighthouse Service began regu- standard laboratory equipment lar installation of wireless sets Rhumkorff inductance coil to in Lightships. generate a high voltage, high In April, 1899, wireless test current spark. They ran it up signals between San Francisco’s a 82 foot long vertical antenna Telegraph Hill and its downtown on the Lightship 70. At the Cliff (at the Call building), were suc- House, a similar antenna came cessful enough to justify further down to a coherer and an inker development by the San Fran- as the receiver. “Sherman in cisco Call. In 1899, McClure’s sight” is the text of what is likely Magazine began to report, the fi rst working wireless message worldwide, Marconi’s wireless in America. Some of the headlines of the Call coverage show the technical impact of the success: “Wireless telegraph Excites Much Interest – Information Solicited Regarding Method of Procedure – Associated Press Asks for Full Details of the re- cent Successful Experiment by the Call.” A “Description of the Apparatus” followed, character- ized as “the latest marvel of the 19th Century.” Some of the Call story appears nearby along with images of some of the facilities

Fig. 1. The site of the April, 1899 tests Fig. 2. The site of reception of the  rst to Telegraph Hill, San Francisco. American wireless message. The Cliff Postcard. House, 1899. Postcard.

Volume 24, 2011 243 West Coast Wireless ments of a Dr. Taylor at Stanford. Herrold, in his test, achieved one mile’s distance with a Rhumkorff coil and a Branley coherer.5 No doubt enthusiastic young men performed such replicating experi- ments around the country as news of Marconi’s successes spread. The fact that Marconi himself was so young provided a model for ambi- tious exploration of the new world of communications. Commercial interests leapt at the opportunities of 1899; in retrospect some were just stock selling frauds but many at least put Fig. 3. Lightship 70, San Francisco, enough money into their stations 1899. Kent Leach, CHRS, artist, em- to advance the art. In November, phasizing “capacity hat” atop vertical 1899, American Wireless Tele- wire antenna, as a signal bell. CHRS phone and Telegraph Company, Journal cover, 1999 the fi rst such enterprise, incorpo- used. rated in Arizona. It held the com- In January, 1897, Scientific munications patents of Professor American had reported Marconi’s Amos E. Dolbear of Tufts Univer- initial successes with telegraphy sity, giving it a patina of technical without wires in England. “An respectability. (The patents were invention which promises to be of good enough to require the Mar- the greatest practical value in the coni interests, ultimately, to buy world … Mr. Marconi had come… the rights). American sold a lot of with such a system…. [Y]oung speculative stock. The promoter Marconi had solved the problem was Dr. Gustav P. Gehring but the [communication without wires] Chief Engineer was Harry Shoe- on entirely different principles, maker. Shoemaker’s pioneering … ma[king] a successful test on technical work earned the respect Salisbury Plain at a distance of of many6 and he trained several three-quarters of a mile.” This of the next generation of wireless news, and that of Marconi’s follow- pioneers. ing feats, sparked great attention in both commercial interests and THE NEW CENTURY OF RA- in experimenters. In communicat- DIO BEGINS ing across the English Channel in By 1901, wireless began to pro- March, 1899 Marconi opened the vide real service. In March, 1901: eyes of the world to the potential The Mutual Telephone Company of of wireless. In California, a young Hawaii linked the main Hawaiian Stanford student, Charles D. Her- Islands by wireless. Stations began rold (later affectionately known as to use call letters on the model “Doc”) went to work even earlier. of the abbreviations of landline Herrold repeated Marconi’s 1895 telegraphy; Oahu’s call letters are wireless-at-a-distance tests the “HU,” Molokai Island’s call letters very day he read the newspaper are “AM,” Puaho is “KA,” Lahaina reports of their success. Herrold on Maui is “LA,” and Nawiliwili on had observed similar lab experi- Kaui is “NW.” 7 244 AWA Review Lee In these early days, companies, commercially ambitious Francis and other wireless operations McCarty put together a primitive chose their own callsigns. Usually radio-telephone using the spark they bore some relation to place or coil design by Collins. (His father, provided some clue as to operation, “White Hat” McCarty, also dabbled but that is not easy to decipher in in wireless). Francis McCarty retrospect. tested his device in Western San The United States Army as early Francisco, at Ocean Beach. Mc- as 1900 and 1901 used wireless to Carty interests followed up with communicate with the Coast Artil- an early arc system, known as the lery post on Alcatraz Island from “peanut whistle.” In 1905 Mc- Fort Mason in San Francisco,8 ac- Carty demonstrated his wireless cording to radio historian George telephone from the Cliff House in H. Clark. Three such Coast Artil- San Francisco. McCarty managed lery forts controlled the entrance to garner considerable local press to the Golden Gate. The offi cer in for his enterprise, including a 1905 charge was a Capt. Dyer, the engi- newspaper interview. McCarty’s neer Carl Kinsley.9 Both the Army system engendered a great deal and the Navy saw the importance of publicity and public interest.12 of wireless for command, control In the1905 interview, McCarty and communications, and soon recounted: for intelligence purposes as well, “… I’m always reading as others also used wireless com- about this kind of work whenever munications. I fi nd in a book or magazine any In December of 1901, Marconi’s report of some man’s experiment successful transatlantic test re- with a diagram the apparatus with ceived wide publicity on the West which he made his tests, I set right Coast as in the rest of the world. at building a duplicate to see if I He heard the famous “S” – three can get the same results. You really dits in Morse Code – from Polhu in can’t understand the problem and Cornwall in far West Great Britain the way he worked it out unless you at St. John’s in Newfoundland on do this.” December 12 and 13.10 The news “I had been working for got out quickly. The value of the the wireless telegraph company, stock of the Atlantic cable compa- and it seemed to me that since we nies fell by half at the prospect of could send the wave signals with- such lower cost competition. Wire- out direct connection we should less became an even more interest- ing business opportunity. It also provided an even more promising stock selling proposition. The pro- moters such as Gehring often mod- eled the sales pitch on the lucrative returns to early investors in Bell’s telephone company.11 But wire- less was undoubtedly opening new technical and business frontiers. A. Frederick Collins, in 1902 and earlier, published many ar- ticles about wireless, in Scien- Fig. 4. Collins promotional photograph tifi c American and elsewhere. In of his wireless telephone, circa 1902. San Francisco, a very young and The operator is not Collins. (Author’s collection)

Volume 24, 2011 245 West Coast Wireless Francisco’s Federal Telegraph and Telephone, who evaluated McCarty’s system. Doc Herrold worked for National from San Jose in 1908, perfecting the arc radio-telephone. July, 1902 saw the fi rst com- mercial wireless traffi c on the West Coast and in America. Gehring had established as part of his nascent and would-be wireless empire the Pacifi c and Continental Wireless Telegraph and Telephone Com- pany. It was an American Wireless subsidiary. Robert Mariott, the Chief Engineer, had worked with Harry Shoemaker. Marriott went Fig. 5. McCarty from his 1905 news- 14 paper interview. on to a distinguished career. He set up stations on Catalina Island, be able to send exact tones. They off the California coast, and in Los said this could not be done because Angeles, apparently on his own ini- the rate of vibration of the human tiative. He adopted callsign “A” for voice was so much lower than of Avalon on Catalina, and callsign the Hertzian wave, but I was not “G” for the San Pedro, Los Angeles convinced. If we could only have station. This circuit carried the fi rst the right transmitting instrument paid wireless traffic, a distance I thought it could be done, and I over water of 26 miles.15 It stayed kept on trying. Finally, I struck the in operation16 in various modes right plan. including wireless telephone, for “The first telephone outfit I many years. made was very small and crude. In 1903 the Revenue Marine The transmitting instrument was was a predecessor of the Coast in the front of the house and the receiving on the porch in the rear. The aerial wires were suspended on posts not over fi ve or six feet high and the ground plates were laid on the fl oor. It worked all right over a distance of about fi fty feet and anything that was said, even in a very low voice and with the intermediate doors closed, could be heard plainly.” McCarty died in a road ac- cident in May, 1906 at age 17. His ambitions died with him but his company lingered on, promoted by his brothers and capitalized as the National Ra- dio Company.13 Direct succes- Fig. 6. Robert Marriott, the Avalon and sors to McCarty included Cyril Los Angeles 1902 circuit engineer, Elwell, the later principal of San later in his distinguished career.

246 AWA Review Lee Guard, as was the Lightship Ser- vice. It authorized the Revenue Cutter USS Grant out of Tacoma, Washington to install wireless to communicate with Tacoma (and Friday Harbor). The primary pur- pose was intelligence to suppress opium smuggling and for other law enforcement. By 1910 seventeen cutters were equipped with wire- less on both coasts. On the West Coast later, the Revenue Cutter USS Bear employed the callsign Fig. 8. Alaska Station FK about 1905 RCB.17 (SWP). Alaska, by reason of winters and ers. Established companies (dubi- isolation, provided a good opportu- ous though many were) had imple- mented wireless telegraphy. But the hope of a wireless telephone could engender both enthusiasm and investment. These early de- velopments came to naught, but provided a foundation for vacuum tube generated carrier wave ampli- tude modulated broadcasting in the next decades. Fig. 7. Revenue Cutter Grant,  rst In April, 1903 the Mare Island Coast Guard ship equipped with wire- less, in 1903. (Photo courtesy Coast Naval Station just North of San Guard Radio) Francisco first employed wire- less.20 It put into service a German nity for wireless to prove its worth Slaby-Arco two kilowatt open gap on the ground. In August 1903 the spark transmitter. Ironically, the United States Army established Navy sited it in the former hom- the Alaska Wireless network. It ing pigeon loft. The Navy took to was the predecessor of decades of wireless with enthusiasm for shore effective radio networks in Alaska. to ship, ship to shore, and ship to Stations and callsigns were: FB ship communications, sometimes Fairbanks, FD Nome, FE Mouth to the distress of Captains whose of the Yukon, FG Fort Gibson, FK discretion was thus managed by Circle City, FM Fort St. Michael shoreside officers. Wireless of- (reported to be the fi rst station in fered worldwide central control to the West), FP Petersburg, FQ Fort the Admiralties of the major naval Egbert, FX Fort Worden.18 powers. In 1903, another San Francisco By 1904 the Navy established experimenter, Rev. Richard Bell, a network of three Northern Cali- sent wireless messages from San fornia stations, San Francisco on Francisco to San Jose, about 60 Yerba Buena Island in the Bay (call miles. In 1907 and thereafter, he letters TI) and Mare Island (call and Doc Herrold in San Jose com- letters TG) with landline telegraph municated by wireless telephone.19 links, and one on the Farallon Is- Wireless telephone attracted both lands 27 miles off the Golden Gate experimenters and stock promot- (call letters TH).21 In November, 1904 the Mare Island and the San

Volume 24, 2011 247 West Coast Wireless Francisco (Yerba Buena) Navy fornia as one of the more colorful stations began regular weather wireless personalities. He enjoyed broadcasts by wireless telegraph. a long career in radio.26 The ability to gather and to dis- Also in 1905, at Fort Mason seminate regionally meteorologi- in San Francisco (the site of the cal information, especially storm earlier circuit to Alcatraz Island), warnings, early proved radio’s Major George O. Squire of the Sig- utility. Time signals, so useful for nal Corps experimented with trees navigation, soon followed. So too, as receiver antennas for wireless Navy stations soon sent out press communications. They worked. summaries to ships at sea. For He was able to communicate sev- example, Point Loma near San Di- eral miles from Yerba Buena Island ego, established about 1903 with a in the Bay and nearby Alameda and ten inch spark gap, did so with the Santa Clara Counties. Squire as a preface “CQ de NPL – press.” Point general offi cer later became Chief Loma used the callsign TL before of the Signal Corps in World War using NPL.22 One.27 Commercial interest radio ap- About 1906, the callsigns used peared in San Francisco in the on the West Coast suggest several summer of 1904. The DeForest chains of stations, or proposed sta- Wireless Telegraph Company tions. Avalon on Catalina Island established its first West Coast and Los Angeles had used “A” and station in the Palace Hotel on “G” respectively in their earliest Market Street in San Francisco. Its transmissions under the aegis of operator, Tim Furlong,23 naturally the Pacifi c and Continental Wire- enough adopted the callsign “PH.” less Company. Pacific Wireless Sam (Sydney) Maddams built the Telegraph Company succeeded station in 1903-04. Maddams had Pacifi c and Continental Wireless in been Marconi’s operator at Poldhu August, 1903 and bought the Cata- in Cornwall in 1901 who fi rst sent lina Island circuit and stations. Pa- the “S” in tests, the “S” heard by cifi c’s stations included at least: A Marconi across the Atlantic.24 In at Avalon, Catalina Island, Califor- 1904 the de Forest company exhib- nia; G in Los Angeles, California; ited at the St. Louis Exposition and D in Port Townsend, Washington; successfully got messages through DA in Seattle, Washington and SF to Chicago.25 Charles B. (“C.B.”) in San Francisco, California.28 Cooper was de Forest’s operator at Continental is reported to have St. Louis, and he later came west through Denver, Colorado to Cali-

Fig. 10. Lee de Forest and C.B. Coo- Fig. 9. Navy Mare Island station about per in Colorado, 1905 after working 1904 (Signals, 1951). together in St. Louis in 1904 (Mayes).

248 AWA Review Lee operated a station at Portland, employ competent designers, op- Oregon that employed the callsign erators and technicians. “O-2;” another such station oper- As of 1906, the now known pri- ated out of Seattle with the call mary stations on the West Coast in- “S-2,” from Queen Anne Hill with clude the United chains, the Navy fi ve kilowatts of power.29 chain, the Army Alaska chain, PS Another network used callsigns at the Presidio Army Headquarters starting with D or P, plus a sec- in San Francisco, California and PT ond letter, in California, Oregon, at Fort Bragg, Oregon (both also Washington and Alaska. The “D” listed to United).31 stations may have derived from the de Forest name, and the “P” 1906: EARTHQUAKE AND stations from the Pacific Coast on which the were sited by the DISASTER Pacifi c Wireless company. The D The use of wireless telegraphy and P stations ended up as United in disaster response came early. Wireless stations (some erected by For example, in March of 1906, a the DeForest Company); United’s storm took out wired communica- West Coast headquarters was in tions between Los Angeles and San Seattle. Diego. The De Forest Company RA in Safety Harbor, Alaska is provided all communications by listed to United; the Army Signal wireless, earning the gratitude of the disabled companies and the Corps established a Safety Harbor 32 station in 1903 with de Forest public. This was a precursor to equipment. Nome, Cordova and “The Big One.” Sitka, Alaska operated with call- The next month, April, 1906 the signs SA, SN and SO, respectively. Great Earthquake and Fire leveled United Wireless is reported to San Francisco. The Navy Cruiser have been operating thirty coastal USS Chicago, at sea, returned and and inland stations between 1900 tied up at the docks at the foot of and 1906. The inland stations were Telegraph Hill. It handled out- not intended to handle maritime bound San Francisco traffi c, over traffic, but rather to compete a thousand messages. This traffi c with landlines.30 United Wireless, was managed by a young offi cer, like Pacific Wireless, sold large S.N Hooper, later known as the amounts of stock to the public Father of Navy Radio (and RCA), without significant commercial who had some landline telegraph revenues from its actual, let alone experience. Yerba Buena Island projected, stations. On the other (TI) acted as a relay to Mare Island hand, it did operate stations and (TG). Mare Island connected to the telegraph landlines that con- veyed to the world the extent of the disaster.33 Station PH was lost with the loss of the Palace Hotel to the Great Fire. An amateur radio operator by the name of Ray Newby lost his 70 foot tower and antenna in San Jose to the earthquake. Newby Fig. 11. A.J. Krenke and the Paci c was later an American Marconi Wireless crew constructing transmitter operator and Doc Herrold’s station equipment (a large helix) about 1906 operator in San Jose, holding the for the projected Hawaii circuit (SWP). license. In San Francisco, McCarty Volume 24, 2011 249 West Coast Wireless offered to transmit wireless traffi c SAN FRANCISCO RECOVERS, from the West part of the City. 34 WIRELESS MARCHES ON The 1906 earthquake delayed “PH” had been in operation Pacifi c Wireless’s proposed Cali- in early 1906, fi rst as a DeForest fornia and Hawaii circuit. Antenna Company station and then as Unit- towers did go up on Mount Tamal- ed Wireless. Formerly at the Palace pais. The earthquake did not take Hotel, it moved to Russian Hill to down the tall towers. Persons un- the North, just West of Telegraph known, rumored to be associated Hill after the Great Fire after the with a competitor, caused the fall Earthquake burned the Palace Ho- of the towers in December. Ha- tel down. Its site had a magnifi cent radan Pratt investigated and found view of San Francisco Bay but it did that someone had cut the guy wire not carry much traffi c for want of anchor rods.35 Pratt later enjoyed a wireless equipped ships.38 It was, distinguished career in radio at the however, a nuisance to its residen- highest levels. tial neighbors, so it shortly moved A.F. Krenke had been the opera- to Hillcrest in Daly City,39 South of tor at “G” in Los Angeles on the San Francisco. This site was soon Catalina Island circuit. He was the called Radio Ridge on Mount San station manager and in charge of Bruno (full of radio towers to this construction for Mt. Tamalpias.36 day). When American Marconi Pacifi c Wireless was regarded by absorbed United Wireless in 1912, many, then and now, as primarily PH at about the same time was a promotion to sell stock, hyped destined to migrate North to Marin by comparison to the success of County for its radio operations. PH the Bell Telephone Companies. became KPH with the assignment So too, the Gehring companies by the government of offi cial call- and the DeForest companies were signs. Much later it operated its then and are now widely seen as transmitters from Bolinas and its fraudulent enterprises. The en- receivers at Marshall.40 gineers of such companies, such Another Pacifi c Wireless station as Harry Shoemaker and Lee de in San Francisco used the call sign Forest did, however, make very “SF.” The Presidio station in the significant contributions to the Army installation at San Francis- art, most importantly de Forest’s co’s Presidio signed “PS.”41 Many Audion vacuum tube triode of amateurs were active as early as 1906. Pacifi c’s ambitions for a San 1906 as well. For example, Butler Francisco and Hawaii circuit made (Bert) Osborne of San Francisco, good business sense, as later devel- later W6US, started in 1906 at age opments showed. 12. In 1908 he was on the air,42 In about 1906, as many as 40 shortly with fi ve kilowatts of spark commercial wireless stations op- and callsign CG.43 erated on the West Coast: DeFor- In about 1907, the legendary est - United include: California Lawrence A. Malarin was known to - 9, Washington - 9, Oregon - 6, all by his personal sine “LM.” (The Canada - 3, Alaska - 2; Pacific sine, as in “sign,” was an opera- Wireless, California -3, Washing- tor’s unique self-chosen personal ton -2; Massie Wireless had one abbreviated identifi er). He began (in San Francisco); Hawaii had his wireless career as the operator fi ve stations.37 at San Francisco’s PH in the Palace Hotel. The Navy insisted that he be fi red as the PH operator on Rus-

250 AWA Review Lee sian Hill for using so much invec- coast stations, the Massie station, tive in the ether. He then became operated with the call sign “IAA” the United Wireless Manager44 in 1907. It used two 200 foot tall downtown. He later became the masts to support its antenna. American Marconi Manager. His Pioneer wireless engineer Arthur idiosyncracies included assign- A. (“A.A.”) Isbell established it for ing similarly named operators to the Massie company. He had just the same duty stations: Mr. West earlier parted ways with Reginald would get to work with Mr. East, Fessenden’s company. Isbell had Mr. Baer with Mr. Wolf.45 Opera- constructed and operated the sta- tors penned doggerel verse about tion in Scotland with which Fes- him, for example: senden had communicated from “LM” once handled the great PH, Brant Rock.48 Isbell had been a Is what I have been told, classmate of Lee de Forest’s at the He did his work, he’d never shirk, Mt. Hermon School in 1892-93 and And now he’s the Chief quite bold.46 in 1902 had worked for de Forest Navy Commander Richard as one of the earliest wireless op- Johnstone, an early (1907) wireless erators. amateur in San Francisco and later Isbell also chose his initials re- a KPH operator, was fi rst hired by versed for the Massie stations call United Wireless after impressing letters. He set it up near the Cliff Malarin with his skills. They be- House at Ocean Beach for maritime came friends over the years. Dick work. After setting up the Massie Johnstone provides interesting station, Isbell found a bullet hole biographical information on Ma- in his residence window, which he larin47 in his colorful 1965 book of attributed to a competitor.49 wireless reminiscences. Isbell had arrived in May 9, 1907 One of San Francisco’s first on the steamship SS President of the Pacifi c Steamship Company, coming around the Horn. This was the fi rst ocean liner to be fi tted with wireless in the Pacifi c.50 Isbell was its operator. It used a three-kilo- watt Massie system on 400 meters, callsign V-2. It set distance records during its voyage. Isbell went on to set up wireless and radio sta- tions all over the world, initially in Hawaii circa 1908, and enjoyed a long career American Marconi, successor to United Wireless, and then with RCA. Isbell was for a time the United Wireless San Fran- cisco Manager, for whom Malarin worked. He drove one of the fi rst automobiles in the City.51 With the coming of American Marconi in 1912, absorbing United, Isbell became the Marconi Manager. His Fig. 12. The legendary Lawrence Malarin, sine LM, at work as a United San Rafael marriage in 1912 was Wireless (American Marconi) manager a newsworthy event, headlined in San Francisco (SWP). “Belle Elopes With Marconi Mag-

Volume 24, 2011 251 West Coast Wireless with club callsigns. They were three letter calls starting with “S.” A member had to copy 20 words per minute in Morse code and pass a technical test in order to qualify. By 1912 some 50 operators held “S” calls licensed by the club. Haraden Pratt, President of the club, held SKH. Ray Newby, who also worked with Doc Herrold, held SEW. The later careers of the members of this club show how important engage- ment by amateurs with the evolv- ing technology was for commercial success. At each meeting of the Bay Counties club, the President Fig. 13. A. A. Isbell at sea, 1911, on assigned one or more topics for the Lusitania. (Rachel Isbell Branch scientifi c investigation and discus- collection). sion.58 The fi rst amateur wireless 52 man in the San Francisco area was nate.” Isbell was all too honest 59 a man. He accused the United Bill Larzelere, a member of the club. His call was SWL; circa 1908, Wireless management of chicanery 60 (“liars, cut-throats and thieves”). he ran 5KW at 720 meters. His They sued him for criminal libel.53 station operated from the second fl oor of a barn at his home in San He was, of course, right, and the 61 United Wireless principals went Francisco. Many of the amateurs to prison for stock fraud. went to sea as wireless operators as The utility of wireless for business coordination became clearer and clearer. In about 1907 the sailing ship Archer, which was a bulk carrier, was the fi rst commercial vessel to install and use wireless on the West Coast. It communicated with its home company near Seattle, Roche Harbor Lime Company, station RH, which ran ten kilowatts spark.54 In 1907 amateur wireless op- erators formed the Bay Counties Wireless Telegraph Association.55 Haraden Pratt of San Francisco was an active member. He was later telecommunications advisor to Presidents Truman and Eisen- hower.56 Another active member was Ellery W. Stone of Oakland, later Radio Inspector, naval offi - Fig. 14. Haraden Pratt, one of the cer, and a distinguished technical earliest San Francisco amateurs, author.57 The club issued licenses later enjoying a distinguished career to operate as club members, along in radio (SWP). 252 AWA Review Lee soon as they could get a license.62 more than Marconi paid on the In 1908 the Bay Counties Wire- East Coast. A fi ve-dollar a month less Association pioneered sports premium was paid for operators in radio. It reported by wireless on tankers.66 In today’s money, $40 the “Big Game,” to Palo Alto and then is somewhere between $1,000 Alameda from Berkeley.63 This and $5,000 now. It was good pay, was (and is) the annual clash of although Dick Johnstone did not the football teams of Stanford think so at the time, because ships’ University and the University of offi cers got more.67 KPH operators California at Berkeley. earned $90 a month. Before callsigns were required Early in 1908 the United States and assigned after 1910, vessels Navy stations at Mare Island and of varying ownership used calls of in Panama communicated with the the form letter-number like the SS fl eet in the South Pacifi c.68 This President, rather than two letters; was the beginning of transpacifi c for example: Navy communications. Other po- A-2, SS Acapulco, Pacifi c Mail tential Naval applications of the SS Line, A-3, Tug Tyee, Seattle and new technology were coming to Columbia River Tugs, B-2, SS Gov- mind. In 1908 Doc Herrold fi red ernor, Pacifi c Coast SS Line, H-2, explosive mines at a distance us- SS Rose City, San Francisco and ing wireless signals, and controlled Portland SS Co. (Continental Wire- small boats.69 Many experimenters less’s only shipboard installation), explored just how effective wireless M-2, SS Geo. W. Elder, C.P. Doe could be in managing weapons, & Co., P-1, SS Enterprise, Matson including Nikola Tesla. He dem- Navigation Co., P-2, SS Hilonian, onstrated a wireless torpedo in Matson Navigation Co., P-3, SS New York in 1907, with attendant Portland, (schooner), P-5, S S publicity. Col. E.L. Drake, Standard Oil Com- Shoreside, in 1908 a daily wire- pany, P-8, SS Admiral Watson, less circuit ran between San Fran- The Admiral (Alexander) Line, cisco’s soon to be Chief Electrician, S-2, SS Roanoke. C. P. Doe & Co. Ralph Wiley, and operator George (later lost at sea), U-2, SS Lurline, Kellog of the Fire-alarm control Matson Navigation Co. station at Jefferson Square.70 Two letter calls were more Radio has been part of the public common. For example, by 1907 works and public safety infrastruc- The Southern Pacific Company ture of San Francisco and all other had equipped three vessels with cities ever since. Wiley’s “wireless DeForest gear at two kilowatts outfi t” appeared in Modern Elec- each on 300 meters. They used trics in 1909, his photo and de- the callsigns KA, KM and KR.64 In scription winning First Prize ($3).71 1908 United Wireless equipped In October, 1908 Lawrence and manned its fi rst maritime in- Malarin in San Francisco at PH stallation on Union Oil Barge No. and Arthur Isbell, now at HU in 3. Tim Furlong, PH’s fi rst operator, Honolulu, fi rst established wire- had the key.65 Wireless became an less contact between California important asset in inland water- and Hawaii.72 Malarin, at PH on ways as well as on the high seas. Russian Hill, heard “Aloha.” He United Wireless leased its realized it was Isbell testing in equipment for each vessel (as did Hawaii and responded: “O.K. Isbell Marconi), at $200 a month and Hu 1:35 a.m. Hawaiian Wireless paid its operator $40 a month, 25% Company: Congratulations. United

Volume 24, 2011 253 West Coast Wireless Wireless Company”; Isbell replied: De Forest company engineer “Hu Isbell Cx Dh 1:38 a.m. Hu 11 Roscoe Kent in San Francisco United Wireless Company, Ph., wanted to set up a test of the wire- San Francisco, Thanks. Same to less telephone with the Ohio. In you. Isbell.” Isbell immediately, in another instance of sabotage, a his next message, suggested solicit- wireless competitor prevented ing press traffi c. “CX” was Isbell’s the test by cutting down the De sine. HU ran ten kilowatts and PH Forest station’s antenna poles.79 about fi ve kilowatts. The Ohio did work several Navy Hawaii thus joined the union and other stations with its wire- of national communications. This less telephone, including a more circuit had been the goal of the than 40 mile contact with Tatoosh sabotaged 1906 Pacifi c Wireless Island and a 30 mile contact with Mt. Tamalpais station. Similarly, Mare Island. Many other stations in 1908 United’s Monterey, Cali- heard these and similar contacts, fornia and Friday Harbor, Wash- often amazed at hearing a voice ington stations maintain regular (or music) in the ether. Mener- nightly contact up the coast.73 atti noted on contact in his log for May 26: “Used phone with Port Townsend. Scared him out of his MUSIC IN THE ETHER wits. Didn’t know what to make In 1908 the Navy Battleship of it. Broke all wireless records … USS Ohio of Teddy Roosevelt’s Longest distance 45 miles…. He world-cruising Great White Fleet broadcast music over its Defor- est Company wireless telephone. The ship used a Lee de Forest arc system and the callsign DC. En- gineer O.C. (Oscar) Brill was the DeForest technician for the Fleet. When calling on San Francisco on the West Coast leg of the cruise, fi rst the ship’s band went out over the ether, and then phonograph records obtained in port.74 The broadcaster was Chief Electrician H. J. (Herbert) Meneratti.75 Sam Maddams at PH early on moni- tored music from the Fleet, and reported it to the press.76 Many commercial and amateur opera- tors heard these broadcasts77 as well as the Navy stations. Chief Meneratti played his records over the radio-telephone in many of the Fleet’s ports of call around the world. Chief Meneratti could thus well lay claim to the title of fi rst ra- dio broadcaster and “disk jockey.” In 1938 he was a Lt. Commander Fig. 15. Navy Chief H. J. Meneratti in the Navy and told the story in who used Lee de Forest’s wireless telephone to broadcast voice and some detail to historian George music around the world in 1908. (Clark H. Clark.78 Radioanna collection). 254 AWA Review Lee must have a fi ne receiving set.”80 500 kHz.84 In 1909, however, he Meneratti had a special record worked with a spark transmitter. made of a fighting song, played Whether he had heard or read often. One chorus proclaimed:81 about Chief Meneratti’s “giving Coming round the Horn, boys, out” music into the local ether With a hundred thousand tons a year earlier is not known, but Of Yankees and their battleships, probable. The De Forest Company And a hundred ten inch guns. arc on the Ohio may also have pro- This bellicosity, including some vided an impetus to explore that “Yellow Peril” lyrics, was directed relatively successful technology. at the Japanese. This record, however, was not played for the THE YOUNG TECHNOLOGY Japanese when the Fleet got to OF WIRELESS EVOLVES Tokyo. Their wireless operators At least eight West Coast wire- were proficient in English: this less operators died in sinkings and record was “stowed.” The Japanese wrecks, “lost at sea at the post of wireless men enjoyed other music. 82 duty” on the Pacifi c Coast as early Meneratti’s own 1948 memoir as 1909, through 1916: George C. notes that: “During the fi rst part Eccles, SS Ohio, 1909; Lawrence of June [1908] we gave music Prudhunt, SS Rose Cranz, 1913; regularly to the Mare Island sta- Donald C. Perkins, SS State of Cali- tion about 30 miles distant. We fornia, 1913; Walter E. Reker , SS were in San Francisco Bay at the Admiral Sampson, 1914; Harry time. The record shows that from Fred Otto, SS Francis H. Leggett, 1 June to 5 July we did not miss a 1914; Clifton J. Fleming, SS Fran- day giving out music to the Fleet cis H. Leggett, 1914.85 [i]n the Bay at the time.” On July th In November, 1914 the SS Ha- 6 , Meneratti did an interview with nalei wrecked off Point Reyes near a prizefi ghter: “This is no doubt American Marconi’s station KPH. the fi rst time a fi ghter broadcast.” Its wireless operator Adolph J. When the Fleet got to Hawaii in Svenson died.86 In May,1916 the SS July, Chief Meneratti continued Roanoke foundered near San Luis his playing of music over the radio- Obispo. Wireless operator George telephone. Engineer O.C. Brill, E. Chamberlain’s last transmis- with the [DeForest] “Radio T & sion, taken by Dick Johnstone at T Co.” came “over to test phones. KPH,87 gave the ship’s position as All OK.” The Fleet continued into 90 miles South of San Francisco. the Pacifi c. Meneratti broadcast at Marconi man Chamberlain died at each port of call to the delight of sea. Shortly before, he had written wireless men everywhere. this poem:88 In 1908, Dick Johnstone, as a We list through the night, To our very new amateur, heard nearby comrades afar McCarty experimenters sending On the tropical seas, Or beneath out voice and recorded music: “ – a the North Star, real fi rst in wireless transmission.” 83 We fl ash out glad tidings – Some A year later, in 1909 Doc Herrold of sorrow and hate, broadcast voice and music from Of a tempest arising, Or a ship “San Jose Calling” using a spark warned too late. gap. He soon identifi ed his station Now we’re hearing a ship, And her as “FN.” He then designed his own cries of appeal arc transmitter, which operated as Of the wave-wrecked reef, That is low as 20 kHz and later as high as clutching her keel.

Volume 24, 2011 255 West Coast Wireless Ah! Her set is now still; Not a details of arrival to publish. 92 Such spark rends the air, stations, including similar sta- And we dream of the story, Of tions in New York, often sent out death and despair. “press” to ships at sea. Passengers We think of a face – He – my pal and crews valued these news sum- to his death; maries. “PH” moved from Russian It is hard to believe, He has Hill to South San Francisco to breathed his last breath. “Hillcrest” on what became Radio He’s a man among men, E’en the Ridge, with CH fi lling in during Devil’s defi ed; the interregnum. Engineer O.C. He has now met his God, As the Brill initially supervised the new wireless men died. construction.93 To the North, the Other wireless operators in San Canadian Government operated a Francisco and around the world wireless station on Gonzalez Hill at died at their keys at shoreside sta- Victoria, B.C., and at a lighthouse tions while taking storm distress at Triangle Island, 45 miles out in traffi c, especially SOS messages. the open Pacifi c. These were its They knew the risk to their lives outposts for communications with from lightning strikes to the high ship traffi c to Japan via the shorter antennas but they stuck to their great Circle Aleutian Islands north- posts in hopes of helping founder- ern route.94 ing ships. If they escaped death In 1909 young amateur wireless from a lightning strike, severe operators at the initiative of then injury was likely.89 12 year-old Henry Dickow formed By 1909 the Navy’s wireless the San Francisco Radio Club.95 chain included Tatoosh Island, Several others clubs also met regu- Washington (callsign SV), and larly. A San Francisco newspaper Cape Blanco (TA), Table Bluff ran a full page story on the young (TD), Point Arguello (TK) and wireless operators of San Fran- Point Loma (TM) in California. cisco associated with Lowell High These stations used Massie, Tele- School, on December 26, 1909:96 funken, Shoemaker and DeForest “This is amateur morning in the gear as the Navy sought the best wireless world. San Francisco and technologies. (The Navy refused adjoining suburbs alone have be- to lease Marconi gear and Mar- tween 200 and 300 young wireless coni refused to sell it). Some of operators; amateurs who rank as these stations are reported to have such principally in name, who are had two “humps” in their wave- everywhere dotted about the city lengths.90 This indicates simulta- and country for a stretch of miles neous although not intentional op- that extends way beyond the city eration on two center frequencies. and county boundaries. The handi- These were broad frequency ranges work of the young wireless expert because spark systems centered a is seen all about on house-top band of radio frequency hash at and barntop in the form of a pole one wavelength or another. Too a few feet long projecting above tight coupling of the last induc- the gables, with a few wires run- tances gave rise to the two humps. ning to it top window. Such signs In 1909 station United Wireless denote the residence of a lad who station “CH” operated from the may some day, somewhere, if not San Francisco Chronicle build- in San Francisco, assist materially ing.91 According to Johnstone, in perfecting the system of wireless it contacted ships coming in for telegraphy that, while considered

256 AWA Review Lee by electrical wizards to be still in Not all the action was in San an embryo condition, is one of the Francisco. In San Jose in April, greatest achievements of modern 1910 Doc Herrold and his radio- times.” telegraph signals from his San The 1909 Modern Electrics call- Jose College of Engineering and book, the Wireless Blue Book of the Wireless reached out as far as the Wireless Association of America, Farallon Islands and Mare Island, lists only ten of the many amateur 90 miles to the North. Ray Newby operators in California. It includes operated a one-inch Electro-Im- Ray Newby, as EZM. It also lists porting (EI) spark coil from Hugo the Ozone Wireless Company of Gernsback’s New York company.102 San Francisco, as callsign MJ, per- Doc Herrold certifi ed the feat in an haps its principal’s initials. In 1919, affi davit sent to Electro Importing, ten years after its founding in 1909, which it published in its catalog. the San Francisco Radio Club Gernsback’s Modern Electrics in incorporated. It has met continu- 1910 also featured a photograph of ously since then (but for wartime Doc Herrold (at the key) and Ray interruptions) and uses the callsign Newby operating their wireless.103 of an early member, W6PW, for its Later in 1910 Newby signed on for club station/repeater. some sea duty. The Standard Oil In 1910 the then new Federal tanker Atlas installed American Telegraph Company demonstrated Marconi wireless. Newby was the a wireless telephone circuit be- operator104 using callsign GN.105 tween Sacramento and Stockton.97 In Oakland, across the Bay, It used the arc technology that lived Fong Yee, an immigrant Cyril Elwell had acquired, mostly from China. In about 1910 he by gumption, from Vladimir Poul- constructed and operated both a son of Denmark. Elwell initially home wireless station and a well succeeded to McCarty’s work, and regarded portable station for fi eld the National Radio Company of San Francisco was formed. Elwell found McCarty’s system inad- equate. In July 1910, as Federal Telegraph, Elwell put the Ocean Beach Station98 in operation in San Francisco with the original 12 kilowatt Danish arc (as callsign “FS,” later KFS). 99 Wireless also took to the aero- nautical air in 1910. Ralph Heintz, was then 18 years-old and was later a distinguished engineer and suc- cessful businessman. He received Fig. 16. Cyril Elwell, after  nding Mc- Carty’s system inadequate, acquired the messages on the ground from the American rights to the Poulsen an aircraft temporarily equipped arc in 1907, and formed his  rst com- for wireless signaling. 100 Then in pany, the Poulsen Wireless Telephone 1911 the Army used Tanforan Field and Telegraph Company. He soon just South of San Francisco in San changed the name to Federal. This Bruno for the fi rst military tests of certi cate is odd because it is one of air to ground wireless signaling. a series of about a dozen of the same By 1916, aircraft over the Pacifi c tenor all made out to Elwell. It may 101 have been something of an experi- had signaled 125 miles to shore. ment in scripophily.

Volume 24, 2011 257 West Coast Wireless the Navy, the beginning of a long and successful career. 108 Oregon had its share of activ- ity as well. Joe Hallock started as an amateur in Portland in 1906. By1910 he was an operator at Portland’s DZ (and O-2 and KE). He later went to sea in 1911, then to station PC at Astoria, Oregon. Later he became the Portland Fed- eral Communications Commission (FCC) administrator109 after insti- Fig. 17. The Federal Beach Station, tuting Portland’s fi rst broadcasting interior, 1910; the  rst big arc in ser- station in the 1920s. He also had vice (12 KW). (Mayes). worked on the 1,000 kilowatt (1 use. He also built and fl ew a bi- MW) Federal arc station in France. plane on the model of the Curtis Joe Hallock was one of several old biplane. He was called to China time wireless operators chronicled in 1911 in furtherance of the Sun in Radio & Television News in the Yat Sen revolution. 106 He died in early 1950s. 110 a crash of his airplane in China in At station United station DZ in 1912 at age 29. Portland, Oregon, in 1910 a beau- In Seattle in 1910 William Du- tiful young blond woman, Abba bilier, then a young man about Lindsay, worked the day shift, the 16, demonstrated a wireless tele- fi rst trick, in the front offi ce: “ ...she phone.107 A 300 foot tall antenna dressed in a snappy blue marine mast gave him some range. In 1910 operator’s uniform and made quite he was also selling his then-novel an impression on the customers.” mica condensers, and by 1916 to 111 United Wireless also operated station KE in St. Helens, Oregon, and 37 other West Coast stations.112 In Los Angeles in 1910 Howard Seefred as a teenaged amateur

Fig. 19. Doc Herrold, center, at his Fig. 18. The  rst airplane  ight to send San Jose arc radio station FN circa a wireless signal, to Ralph Heintz on 1912 and thereafter, with his wire- the ground, in artist Edwin Ingalls’s less school and station engineering conception; a demonstration per- staff. (Photo courtesy of Mike Adams, formed just south of San Francisco in CHRS, Perham Collections image, 1910 (Morgan). History San Jose)).

258 AWA Review Lee proposition: DA Perry Hotel, Se- attle, DB Tacoma, DE Pasadena, DF Santa Barbara, DF Vancouver, BC, DG Sacramento, DK Everett,

Fig. 20. Oakland, California’s Fong Yee, 1910 (Electrical Experimenter). operator monitored stations each a thousand miles North: Friday Harbor, Washington, callsign PD, and Seattle callsign PA.113 Later as W6EA, he ran the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) Pacifi c Division. The League, formed in 1914, fostered cooperation among amateurs and created a traffi c han- dling relay network for nationwide distribution of personal and emer- gency messages. California and the West took considerable benefi t from this public service. By 1910 the commercial chains of wireless stations on the West Coast, operated as United Wire- less, included, in two categories: 1) Commercial Stations largely intended to compete for landline telegraph business, a challenging

Fig. 22. Dubilier’s 1909 tower for his antenna. Like Herrold, his antenna was an enormous amount of wire (6,000 feet of it) as high as he could get it (320 feet) in an “umbrella.” Her- rold used 7,000 of wire but in a more linear pattern from the top of a San Jose building. These antennas likely primarily provided a large capacity to Fig. 21. Dubilier’s 1909 radio-tele- ground permitting the lead to them to phone in Seattle. radiate at a low frequency.

Volume 24, 2011 259 West Coast Wireless DM Salem, DN San Louis Obispo, an intentional fraud and maybe a DO Roseburg, DU Juneau, DV madman. The prosecutors of Lee Chelahis, Washington. The “D” de Forest argued that the triode in the callsigns derived from the Audion was worthless as a device DeForest Company. and wasn’t even a very good lamp- 2) Maritime Stations for com- bulb.115 munication with ships at sea: PA After the failure of United Wire- Seattle, PB Ketchican, AK, PB less, American Marconi in July, Tacoma, PC Astoria, PD Friday 1912 acquired United’s assets, Harbor, Washington, PE Portland, including its West Coast opera- PF Aberdeen, Oregon, PG Gray’s tions.116 Until this acquisition, Harbor, Washington, PG West- American Marconi was primarily port, Oregon, PH San Francisco, an East Coast operation with little PI Avalon On Santa Catalina Island West Coast presence. American (earlier “A”), PJ Los Angeles (ear- Marconi’s chief operator in San lier “G”), PK San Diego, PM Eu- Francisco was Lawrence Malarin, reka, PN Katalla, AK, PO Cordova, LM, coming from United. Malarin AK, PQ Monterey, PR Victoria, BC, and American Marconi maintained PU Bellingham, PV Klamath, PW offices in San Francisco’s Mer- North Victoria, BC, PX Marshfi eld, chants’ Exchange Building, where Oregon (later called Coos Bay), PY every seagoing operator checked in Olympia, Washington. when in San Francisco.117 American The “P” in the callsigns stood Marconi also bought out Massie’s for Gehering’s old company Pa- West Coast system including the cifi c. Gehring’s East Coast Atlantic San Francisco land station and 13 Wireless Company used callsigns shipboard installations.118 Also in starting in “A.” The Marconi com- 1912, the American and the English pany had little West Coast pres- Marconi companies committed to ence. But evolving technology the Marshall receiving station and numbered the days of these spark Bolinas transmitting station (KET, stations, as early as 1910. Stock later KPH) in Northern California, promotion frauds also doomed using a powerful but soon obsolete these chains. The operators and rotary spark system.119 technicians paid for the sins of the As the spark stations continued promoters. to hurl Morse code into the ether, United Wireless crashed in 1911 the radio-telephone pioneers con- with the indictment of its princi- tinued development. In 1911 the pals for fraud (vindicating Arthur Navy station at Tatoosh Island, Isbell). It continued to operate Washington monitored radio- only ten West Coast stations, fo- telephone signals from the Bay cusing on maritime installations.114 Area,120 probably those of National It is true that some wireless pro- Radiotelephone Company, succes- moters engaged in much skulldug- sor to McCarty, and a company for gery, and sometime outright fraud which Doc Herrold worked as a and embezzlement. But it is also consultant. In 1912 National was true that prosecuting authorities licensed as 6XE, experimental por- were deaf, dumb and blind to the table, license number 101.121 Doc possibilities of the new technology. Herrold connected San Francisco Anyone, such as Lee de Forest, who and San Jose by radio-telephone would predict, for example, trans- daily for eight months in 1912.122 atlantic radio-telephone communi- About this time in San Francisco, cations, the authorities regarded as another experimenter, H.D. Dwy-

260 AWA Review Lee er, tested his radiotelephone, with Clark began to manufacture wire- a receiver in the home of Haraden less state of the art transmitting Pratt. Dwyer later tried to estab- equipment, and also its highly lish a commercial San Francisco regarded Type E receiver. to Fruitvale (Alameda County) State-of-the-Art in 1912, for circuit.123 those who could afford it, was A typical high-quality nautical Telefunken gear: a quenched wireless outfit of 1911 is that of sparkgap, a sharp-tuning receiver the good ship Charles Nelson, a with litzendraht wire coils,125 and bulk carrier of the Nelson Lumber an electrolytic detector; most op- Company. It employed a Marconi erators use galena crystal detectors magnetic detector with a wind- irrespective of patent rights126 and up mechanism to move the wire some similarly used carborun- through the silk covered litzen- dum.127 Rule number one among draht coil. Another receiver used wireless operators was: Don’t get a Fleming valve diode detector caught by the company with your with two valves connected to a real detector.128 loose coupler. Nighttime recep- In 1911 federal regulation had tion ranged to 200 miles. The come to wireless. The Ship Act of operator listened on Brandes high 1911 required licenses of maritime impedance headphones. Then or wireless operators.129 In a typical soon after, a 240 cycle rotary spark success story, Sydney Fass, at 16 transmitter from a new Seattle years-old in 1911, obtained his ma- company, Killbourne and Clark rine wireless telegrapher’s license. handled outbound traffi c. So re- He then went to sea on schooners, ported its operator, R. S. (Rusell) crude oil tankers and liners. He Ormsby, still at sea in 1954 (sine also operated for United Wireless RQ) on his 26th ship.124 Lee de For- at station PM at Eureka, California. est’s former assistant in Canada, Fass was a friend of Haraden Pratt St. Louis and Denver, C.B. Cooper, and Dick Johnstone.130 Fass was was a principal at Killbourne and active in the San Francisco Radio Clark. By 1915 Killbourne and Club as a young man. Fass was later to serve in the Navy in both wars. He retired as a Commander after 33 years in the Naval Reserve. Fass owned and operated one of San Francisco’s largest Radio and TV stores in the fi fties.131 Similarly, Edwin J. Lovejoy was licensed in 1911 and went on to become the Chief Operator and Manager of United Wireless sta- tion PJ in San Pedro at age 18. In Fig. 23. United Wireless “franks” that permitted pre-paid messages, usually 1914 he joined Federal Telegraph issued by communications compa- and operated KFS in San Francisco nies as courtesies and perquisites. and KLS in Los Angeles, and arcs These tell a story: later indicted C.C. aboard ships as he installed them. Galbraith issued the 1910 stamp but After service in both wars in the the Trustees in Bankruptcy issued Navy, he retired with the rank the 1912 stamp. American Marconi of Commander and had a distin- gobbled up the assets and competent 132 staff, establishing thus its West Coast guished career with the FCC. operations. (Author’s collection) In July of 1911 a new kind

Volume 24, 2011 261 West Coast Wireless of scandal came to wireless. In Hawaii circuit from South San Los Angeles, teenaged wireless Francisco using an arc.135 By De- amateur operators, trained at Los cember, Federal could communi- Angeles Polytechnic High School, cate across country to Washington, intercepted and disclosed collu- DC and to Hawaii by its initial 35 sion over the Catalina wireless kilowatt arc CW transmitters.136 telegraph circuit. This involved This was a fraction of the power of the Hearst newspapers, with much much less effective spark stations. attendant publicity from the rival Federal arc stations included: press. The Hearst interests insti- POL Central Point, OR, PFW Fort tuted a criminal prosecution but it Worth, TX, PNU Honolulu, HI, was later dismissed.133 The affair PNX Phoenix, AZ, PKC Kansas garnered a great deal of publicity, City, MO, PLA Los Angeles, CA, and Hugo Gernsback’s Modern PSC South San Francisco, PSN Electrics reported nationally on Portland, OR, PSO El Paso, TX. the prosecution and its dismissal. Federal alone could compete The Wireless Association of South- with the landline telegraph com- ern California, over 200 young Los panies for domestic traffi c. Some Angeles amateurs, formed as a bigger companies also established result of the incident. It operated their own wireless stations and a two kilowatt spark transmitter circuits, especially where landlines using the callsign ALA.134 were problematic. For example, Howard Seefred in Los Angeles in 1912 Phelps Dodge operated a in 1912 heard and logged several wireless station at its main Arizona United Wireless stations and PH, copper mine.137 (and he had also heard the fi rst Federal operators and engi- Pacific Wireless stations “A” in neers in this period, including Lee Avalon on Catalina Island and “G” de Forest and Lon Fuller at Feder- in Los Angeles), all on the usual al, also fi rst observed and analyzed crystal set receiver of the day. He ionospheric “skip” propagation. noted the Los Angeles Examiner Differences in reception (due to newspaper as using the callsign selective fading) of the main wave- EX. Seefred also monitored the length and the back-wave, a higher new state-of-the-art Federal 12 frequency artifact of the arc keying kilowatt arc at Los Angeles, sta- method, suggested differential tion PLA. refl ection of the higher and lower Seefred also logged Marconi- frequencies.138 equipped vessels: IAA SS Lurline, Labor issues arose for wireless IAB SS Wilhelmina, IAC SS Hya- in 1912. Some wireless operators des, IAD SS Hilonian, IAE SS called a strike, and harassed oper- Enterprise, IAJ SS Jason, IAK SS ating stations.139 One such station Stanley Dollar, IAO SS Cuzco. And was PH in South San Francisco shore stations whose callsigns he with Haraden Pratt at the key. He recorded as: IAF San Francisco, went out to see what the trouble CA, IAG Seattle, WA, IAH San Di- was, with a revolver in his hand. ego, CA. The “IA” callsigns suggest It turned out to be an old acquain- assignment for United/Marconi by tance, Bill Larzelere.140 The strike Arthur Isbell before 1912. was called by the Commercial Te- Following in the spark technol- legraphers Association of America, ogy lead of Malarin and Isbell, in and resulted in gradually improved May, 1912 the Federal Telegraph working conditions.141 established the San Francisco and At the Hillcrest station, wire-

262 AWA Review Lee less telephone tests interfered with GEE, I was glad145. reception at station PH, prompting Nor did manager Malarin or this log entry:142 other operators escape versifi - “...Recalling the days of ‘Bugs’ cation; a problematic operator McCarthy [sic] the Wireless Tele- engendered this poem: phone Capatilist [sic] in the Me- He worked Second at PH tropolis Bank Building. 9:55 p.m. One long month and a day ‘Bugs’ in with his fone, stronger “LM” was tickled pink when he than usual. Try to get GW but came, can’t hear him through fone, Likewise when he went away. CURSES!!!!” ‘Twas he that smoked the cigarette The Federal arc station PSF, the ‘Twas he that passed the “buck”, Beach Station, earned a poem of You’d thought he was the fi nest yet similar disdain in the 1912 station PH logs: There’s a station way down on the Beach The noise it turns out is surely a peach The Opps tear their hair, They cuss and they swear But Old Poulsen he sticks like a leach. Arcs were notorious for parasit- ic and other interfering emissions. PSF/KSF wiped out reception at KPH in Daly City until special receiving antennas were devised, according to Dick Johnstone, an operator there. The log also noted amateur op- erators on the weekend: “8:30 a.m. The combined forces of 3,000 ham factories are burst- ing forth with their weird codes upon the quietude of this lovely rainy morning.”143 The term “ham” for amateur operators probably derives, at least in part, from the old landline telegraphers’ descrip- tion of badly sent traffi c as “ham.” Hence the description in the PH log of amateur stations a “ham factories.” One of Doc Herrold’s associates, many years later, closed Fig. 24. A.A. Isbell working for United a letter to Herrold along the lines of in 1911 managed a direct wireless “one of your old ham factories.”144 contact with Japan, anticipating the later high power Marconi circuit. Traf- PH operators could not resist  c with Japan was the prize sought by poesy or at least doggerel verse: the commercial wireless companies The night was dark, because of the prices charged by The static was bad the cable companies and the limited The power went off, capacity of the cables. Rachel Isbell Branch collection) Volume 24, 2011 263 West Coast Wireless From the way he led you up. 1907.151 The term derived from the Morse or Continental, notion of radiating Hertzian waves. He left it to their whim, It caught the imagination. The C.Q.D.’s of twenty ships The wireless telephone evolved Could howl for all of him.146 into the radio-phone. As a tele- Malarin’s management style, phone substitute, the wireless and static – the bane of the long telephone faced the challenge of wave operators -- show up in the no privacy.152 With as little as a log:147 “5:30 a.m. Static very bad. crystal set, any young man, Navy “LM” made a remark at the offi ce operator or business competitor the other day to the effect that my could listen in. Then in about 1912 nightly reports of static were all Doc Herrold in San Jose began bunk. I’d give him my next pay to broadcast musical and other check if he could do as much as programs on a regular basis to a clear NPH thru this static.” NPH known audience, using an arc of his was the Navy station at Mare Is- own design.153 The vice of the wire- land, 45 miles from PH. less telephone became the virtue of The SS Titanic sank in 1912. the radio-phone broadcaster: all The use of wireless in the rescue could listen with as little as a crys- of the survivors was big news. tal set. Herrold had started with a Laws soon required more wireless spark system in1909, shortly after installations and more wireless the visit of the great White Fleet operators. The 1912 post-Titanic to San Francisco and Meneratti’s Radio Act required two operators use of the de Forest Company arc on most ships. In Los Angeles in to broadcast for the Navy. As one 1912 American Marconi operated of the fi rst radio stations as the a wireless school at the YMCA technology is known now, ten years and used the callsign YM for its later in 1919 Herrold renewed his two kilowatt spark transmitter.148 broadcasting activity soon after the Maritime and other demand for end of the First World War, using wireless operators created oppor- DeForest vacuum tubes.154 tunities for such training schools. Doc Herrold’s College of Wireless in San Jose also trained hundreds THE TECHNOLOGY ABOUT of operators in this period. TO DOMINATE THE 20 TH The Radio Act of 1912 also CENTURY: 1913 required licenses of all operators In 1912, Lee de Forest in Palo and consigned amateur operators Alto working at Federal Telegraph to wavelengths of 200 meters and perfected the new vacuum tubes, down, 1.5 MHz and up, thought to his triode Audions. These eventu- be useless short waves.149 Haraden ally provided the catalyst by which Pratt made a point of obtaining one “wireless” became “radio” as we of the fi rst new radio operator’s know it. He built a two-stage and licenses from Radio Inspector R.Y. then a three-stage cascade audio Cadmus in San Francisco.150 amplifi er at Federal. It provided a In 1912 the terminology of the gain of 120. Federal demonstrated technology evolved: the Navy fi rst these amplifiers to the Navy in employed the term “radio” rather September,1912.155 Soon thereafter than “wireless.” Lee de Forest de Forest and Charles Logwood (a fi rst used the term “radio” com- brilliant engineer who had worked mercially in the De Forest Radio with McCarty) experimented with Telephone Company, organized in feedback circuits. This was short-

264 AWA Review Lee ly before Edwin Howard Arm- (NPP). The Navy’s 27 East Coast strong,156 in New York, discovered and Caribbean stations (Atlantic regeneration.157 Armstrong had the Ocean) used callsigns in the NA benefi t of the 1911 experiments of series, from the fl agship station, the United Fruit Company wire- NAA at Arlington, Virginia at 100 less operators with the de Forest kilowatts down to one kilowatt at Audion in the Wallace detector in NAY in Panama.162 a regenerative mode.158 De Forest’s The Navy, however, also main- defeat in 1934 of Armstrong in the tained its interest in the radio- ensuing patent litigation turned on telephone. In September of 1913 de Forest’s work at Federal in Palo the Navy did radio-telephone tests Alto. Hard feelings persist to this between Point Arguello and Mare day among partisans. Island (300 miles). Doc Herrold Lee de Forest invented radio did these tests with an arc. NAA as we now it in 1913 in Califor- in Virginia and Bremerton, Wash- nia:159 he got his new vacuum tube ington monitored these transmis- to oscillate at radio frequencies, sions. Herrold’s private music proving it by heterodyning a trans- broadcasts were monitored off San mitted Federal arc carrier wave. Pedro and heard as far south as “On Ap[ril] 17, 1913, he rec[eive] San Diego.163 d signals at SF from Palo Alto by American Marconi aggressively oscillating audion” as George H. pursued new spark stations, seem- Clark put it.160 In ruling for de For- ingly oblivious to new technolo- est over Armstrong in 1934, Justice gies such as the arc. For example, Cardozo wrote for the Supreme Marconi expanded its station in Court: Eureka, California 280 miles up “… on April 17, of [1913] at the Coast from San Francisco164 for Palo Alto, California, he received marine work. a clear note, the true heterodyne On September 24, 1914 Ameri- beat note, from the radio signal can Marconi offi cially opened its station at San Francisco Beach… Bolinas, California rotary spark [thereafter in 1914, de Forest] re- station of about 300 kilowatts corded in his notebook … that he power, callsign KET,165 known as ‘had full proof that the audion acts the “rock crusher.” It was powerful as a generator of high frequency and advanced for a spark system currents.”161 The audion oscillating because it created almost a contin- doomed both the primitive spark uous wave. It provided the fi rst leg and the sophisticated arc. of the San Francisco to Hawaii to It would, however, take a while Tokyo circuit. But the arc and the for the new technology of the coming vacuum tube transmitters vacuum tube to triumph. In early had already obsoleted it. In 1914 1913, the Navy operated 16 radio- young Howard Armstrong in New telegraph stations on the West York, when demonstrating his new Coast (Pacifi c Ocean), ranging in vacuum tube regenerative Audion power from two to ten kilowatts, circuit, picked up a San Francisco including seven in Alaska. Call- wireless station. This was likely the signs ranged from NPA through KPH “rock crusher.” NPS, both on the Pribilof Islands. KET’s receivers were somewhat Mare Island used NPH. The Navy isolated at Marshall across the also operated stations in Hawaii Bolinas lagoon, where the opera- (NPM), Guam (NPN), the Phil- tors lived. Its Marconi-standard ippines (NPO, NPT) and China operators’ hotel at Marshall,166

Volume 24, 2011 265 West Coast Wireless refurbished now as part of the Mar- coni Cove State Park, was known among the operators as the Hotel De Gink.167 “Gink” was an old land- line telegraphers’ disparaging term for a bad operator. The San Francisco Panama Pacifi c International Exposition of 1915 featured wireless. AT&T and Lee de Forest exhibited there, with Fig. 26. The Marshall, California Mar- AT&T trying to ignore de Forest’s coni operators’ hotel when it opened contribution in the invention of the about 1917. vacuum tube triode, so important transatlantic radio-telephone tests to AT&T’s transcontinental long- in October.170 The transmitter lines. At de Forest’s “Wireless used massively parallel triodes for Telephone Booth” he monitored maximum carrier power. Doc Herrold’s San Jose music In this period, Amateur radio broadcasts,168 made to San Fran- continued to call out to the young cisco at Radio Inspector Lt. Ellery and technically adept. In 1915 Stone’s request.169 This astonished Charles V. Litton, then 11 years old the fairgoers. and the later founder of Litton In- In September, 1915 AT&T via dustries, operated his own amateur the Navy station at Arlington, Vir- radio station in Redwood City.171 ginia (NAA) conversed over radio- The offi cial callbook of 1913 listed telephone with Mare Island using just over 300 amateur operators in a vacuum tube transmitter. Wire- the Sixth District (California, Ne- less pioneer Lloyd Espenscheid vada, Utah, Arizona and Hawaii) monitored this traffi c in Hawaii. perhaps 10% fewer than the Sec- This test provided a preliminary ond District (southern and central success leading to the successful New York and northern New Jer- sey); Seattle’s Seventh District had about 75 licensees for Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.172 In 1914 an ama- teur radio station at the University of California at Berkeley began to operate, with Haraden Pratt as the principal.173 Somewhat later, in 1917 Frederick E. Terman, later the Vice President of Stanford Uni- versity and the father of electronics development in what became Sili- con Valley, as a teenager operated an amateur radio station in Palo Alto.174 Amateurs quickly heard the virtues of Lee de Forest’s audions. He wrote: “By 1915, the cult of ra- dio “hams” was growing rapidly…” making demands on de Forest’s fi rst manufacturer, McCandless. Fig. 25. Doc Herrold’s 300 mile radio- Westinghouse put McCandless out telephone tests of 1914. (Clipping of the vacuum tube business. As a from Mike Adams, CHRS)

266 AWA Review Lee result, wrote de Forest: “several 1916, notably in broadcasting the bootleggers sprang up over the 1916 early election results.177 country, chief and most mischie- Seasoned operators pushed vous of whom was Moorehead of the limits of old technology. In San Francisco.”175 He referred to 1916 Dick Johnstone, as a Mar- O.B. (Otis) Moorehead, manufac- coni operator at KPH on Hillcrest, turer of the “audiotron” triode. and Tom Lambert on the tanker Broadcasting also began to ap- J.A. Moffett, callsign WRE, com- peal in 1915, although the audience municated for the whole voyage was limited to wireless operators, to China, 5,000 miles, each us- both professional and amateur. ing only a galena crystal set for a A student of Herrold’s, Robert receiver.178 KPH handled much of J. Stull, set up a radio-telephone the Marconi company’s marine broadcasting station at the Univer- work but did not use a vacuum tube sity of California at Berkeley.176 De receiver until 1917. While KPH ran Forest in New York put the oscillat- fi ve kilowatts power, the wireless ing triode vacuum tube to work in on the J.A Moffett cannot have been more than a few kilowatts. Johnstone was a popular operator at KPH. Other well known KPH operators were Haraden Pratt, Frank Shaw dating from PH days and “Pop” Hyde, who like LM was an old landline telegrapher and a very early associate of Lee de Forest. In 1916 Howard Seefred also used a Galena crystal set for transpacifi c reception. He logged Funabashi, Japan, some 6,000 miles away.179 The ether was likely a whole lot quieter in those days, with little man-made noise and favorable geomagnetic conditions. In October, 1916, Electrical Experimenter magazine featured a young woman wireless operator on its cover in full color.180 The magazine declared Miss Kathleen Parkin of San Rafael, California Fig. 27. The genesis of the Cyril Elwell to be an “Expert Radio Operator and Lon Fuller’s world-wide Federal arc enterprise: Amateur wireless op- at Fifteen Years of Age.” She held erator Douglas Perham’s garage next a First Grade Commercial license to his Palo Alto, California house (the and the amateur callsign 6SO. She  rst “Silicon Valley Garage”). Later the made all of her own instruments company used all of this property. Lee including her ¼ kilowatt spark de Forest did his 1911-13 Audion de- transmitter. velopment work here. Perham worked for Federal and later established the In November, 1916 the Navy’s Perham Collections of early wireless transpacifi c radio telegraph circuit and radio artifacts, maintained with the opened to commercial traffi c. In support of David Packard and other January, 1917 San Diego’s Navy industry leaders, now part of History 200 kilowatt arc station fi rst went San Jose. (Photo in Perham Collec- on the air (S.N. Hooper, the early tions, History San Jose) Volume 24, 2011 267 West Coast Wireless publications, and many others, all popularized radio developments and enthused thousands of young men (and a few women) about the new art both before and after World War One. In April, 1916 Kilbourne and Clark’s manufacture of wireless gear in Seattle led to litigation with American Marconi. Lee de Forest’s old assistant C.B. Cooper acted as a principal in the trial.185 Killbourne and Clark won in 1917.186 Marconi as a British company faced dis- advantages in the United States. Only its absorption as part of the Navy-created RCA “naturalized” it as American. Fig. 28. One of a few young women The technology was changing interested in wireless, Ms. Kathleen rapidly. In San Francisco in 1916 Parkin of San Rafael, shown as the Otis B. Moorehead187 established cover-girl of the Electrical Experiment- er. She held both a commercial and what became his vacuum tube an amateur license at 16 year of age. manufacturing company in San Francisco, with backing from Navy wireless manager for San Elmer T. Cunningham. He manu- Francisco Earthquake traffi c and factured the earliest high vacuum now a high offi cer, worked the sil- tubes. Irving Langmuir at AT&T ver key).181 Hawaii and Canal Zone had discovered that high vacuum transmitters followed at the end of improved triode performance, the year. These arc stations as the contrary to Lee de Forest’s expec- Navy’s transpacifi c chain provided tations. But de Forest explains the backbone of the Navy’s Pacifi c Moorehead’s post 1918 success as communications.182 a result of a complex patent deal to In late 1916 Henry Dickow make audions188 as the only manu- founded the magazine Pacific facturer. Thousands of Morehead Radio News in San Francisco, the tubes were produced for use in fi rst issue of which was published the First World War during the in January 1917. He started as an domestic patent-war truce, notably amateur in 1907 and went to sea the Type B on a four-pin base, and as a newly licensed teenager in the tubular “Electron Relay.” 1914, after LM told him to wear Cunningham and George Haller long pants. Dickow also helped, in formed Haller-Cunningham Com- 1909, to found the San Francisco pany in San Francisco to manufac- Radio Club,183 and was an offi cer in ture wireless gear, primarily the 1921.184 Pacifi c Radio News evolved Impulse Excitation transmitter into the monthly Radio. Radio and also the HALCUN Type B and Television News in the 1950s receiver.189 Haller was the fi rst to ran a series honoring early wireless suggest a cylindrical plate for the operators such as Dickow, men- triode audions that he and others tioned in this note. The ARRL’s were bootlegging in San Francisco QST magazine from 1915, Gerns- very early.190 Cunningham later back’s publications, and Dickow’s made a deal with RCA, using the

268 AWA Review Lee leverage of a defect in an RCA- ters for “radio”) in San Francisco, owned patent, that gave him the which used the Scotty dog logo, right to cherrypick its vacuum tube and which lasted until about 1972. production as his own product191 The West Coast saw much other (e.g., the type 301 tube; RCA made manufacturing activity. For ex- the 201, de Forest made the 401, all ample, in Los Angeles, A.J. Edge- the same triode). Cunningham was comb opened The Wireless Shop known as a hard-nosed business- as a successor to Edgecomb-Pyle of man who later went to work for Pennsylvania. The Wireless Shop RCA.192 Cunningham founded the produced elegant “Audiotron” Remler Radio Company (“Elmer” receivers.193 backwards with a couple of “r” let- WORLD WAR ONE’S RADIO SILENCE In early 1917 the war in Europe

Fig. 29. Otis B. Moorehead of San Francisco, an early (1915) bootleg- ger of Audions, whom Lee de Forest considered the most “mischievous.” (Photo courtesy Radio Age). He worked with B.F. McNamee who had better equipment (and who went on to become the 1922 San Francisco Chronicle radio editor). His colleague George Haller suggested the cylindri- cal plate around a cylindrical grid in the tubular “Audiotron.” Elmer Cun- ningham  nanced him and saw the patent  aw that permitted the enter- prise to  ourish, and de Forest, as a result of the complex patent situation, Fig. 30. A 1916 advertisement for was able to use him to manufacture Moorehead’s Audiotron and Cun- his triodes circa 1918, thus making a ningham-financed Audiotron Sales friend of an old adversary. Company in San Francisco.

Volume 24, 2011 269 West Coast Wireless had been waged for almost three improvement and manufacturing years. America joined in April, of radio equipment and compo- 1917. Interception by British Intel- nents such as vacuum tubes fl our- ligence of the wireless Zimmerman ished. So too did schools. In 1917 telegram from Germany to Mexico and 1918 Doc Herrold at his school triggered the declaration of war. in San Jose trained a thousand Haraden Pratt was in charge of wireless operators for the Navy wireless on the West Coast for the and Army in World War One. His Navy. Working from San Diego College of Wireless earlier had and Los Angeles, and Texas, he earlier trained 1,200 maritime and triangulated the location of a Ger- man wireless station transmitting from Mexico.194 America’s entry into the Great War shut down all radio stations after April, 1917, especially ama- teur stations. There was great and justifi ed fear of German espionage and sabotage at the time. The war shut down even commercial radio in the United States, except that of the armed forces or stations operated by them. Widespread wireless and radio experimenta- Fig. 32. An Audiotron receiver made by tion stopped dead, but corporate the Edgecomb Wireless Shop in Los Angeles, a successor to Edgecomb- Pyle back east. (Photo from Adam Schoolsky, CHRS collection) commercial operators. 195 Circa 1919 after the war the U.S. Navy was the largest user of wire- less, with over a dozen stations in California (11th & 12th Districts), more than 20 in Oregon, Washing- ton and Alaska (13th District) and three in Hawaii (14th District), as well as a large station at Darien in the Canal Zone in Panama.196 In this period as many as 400 vessels equipped with wireless plied the Pacifi c Coast.197 American Mar- Fig. 31. A Los Angeles 1916 Audion coni, like the British Marconi com- bootlegger, Harry Roome. Roome pany, enjoyed a near monopoly in had been one of the boy wireless commercial maritime wireless. The interceptors of the Catalina circuit in Navy-created Radio Corporation of 1911. Whatever the patent situation, America (RCA; initially 80% Gen- the  ood of triode vacuum tubes be- eral Electric, 20% Marconi) soon fore and after World War One made the technology available to everyone swallowed American Marconi, as with an interest in communications a result of the Navy’s discomfort and its advancement, from RCA to with such a facility being owned every young man wanting to graduate by foreign interests. American from a crystal set. Marconi’s operations provided the

270 AWA Review Lee foundations for RCA’s worldwide for over one hundred years since communications networks, includ- 1909; it is now known as the San ing the Radiomarine Corporation Francisco Amateur Radio Club. of America as of 1927. In the twenty years since the In September of 1919 amateur 1899 message “Sherman in sight” radio operators came back on the wireless on the West Coast had air after World War One’s pro- evolved into major international hibitions.198 The San Francisco communications circuits, reli- Radio Club was incorporated in able ship to shore messaging, and May,1919199 in anticipation of the the beginnings of broadcasting. lifting of the wartime ban. It had Almost everyone involved had been active well before World War enjoyed amateur radio operation One as well but went dormant in as his introduction to the art. At 1917200 along with all other radio the November, 1920 Pacifi c Coast amateur enterprise. The club oper- Radio Convention, a hundred or ates today as it has continuously more men sat for a group portrait. Several clubs help up placards including: “SF Radio Club,” the “Bay Counties Radio Club” and the “Polytechnic Radio Club S.F.”201 (Dick Johnstone had attended Polytechnic High School). Typical of the new companies coming to the fore in the maturing technology of radio, Colin B. Ken- nedy founded his radio company in San Francisco in 1919. Wireless pioneer R.S. Ormsby was one of his engineers. Kennedy made custom as well as production models and was known as the “wireless tailor” for his custom work.202 After World War One, vacuum tube receiver technology dominat- ed. Commercial stations often used a one-tube receiver; regeneration could make for high sensitivity. For example, the Daly City, California station on Radio Ridge, known as Fig. 33. American Marconi advertised the Hillcrest Station, used a tubu- its high power circuit to Japan in early lar audion detector in 1919.203 1917. A.A. Isbell was the construction and operations superintendent of the Bolinas/Marshall “rock crusher” trans- THE BEGINNING OF BROAD- paci c station KEI.This was the last CASTING but loud last gasp of spark technol- In March of 1920 Lee deFor- ogy. The Navy took over the station in World War One. After that RCA est established a broadcasting put in Alexanderson alternators in station, callsign 6XA, at the Cali- its high power long wave operations. fornia Theatre in San Francisco The Navy used Federal arcs, then with a vacuum tube transmitted vacuum tubes as they evolved and he developed in 1915 and used in communications went to short waves New York in 1916. He moved the needing less power. station to Berkeley in the Fall.204

Volume 24, 2011 271 West Coast Wireless Doc Herrold and Ray Newby took One could not compete with ad- out a license for broadcasting as vancing vacuum tube technology, 6XF (and 6FE portable) in San especially as shorter wavelengths Jose. They also now used vacuum and high frequencies were found tubes.205 Broadcast radio as we so useful for distance work in the know it had come to the West early 1920s. The Alexanderson al- Coast, 21 years after the San Fran- ternators of the early decades (fi rst cisco 1899 demonstration of the conceived by Reginald Fessenden potentials of wireless. around 1904 and built at G.E. by De Forest and Herrold in North- Ernst Alexanderson ) also went ern California provided the leading obsolete. In the 1920s they were, edge of what was soon to be the however, for a while the backbone national radio broadcasting mania of RCA’s high power long wave of the prosperous post-war 1920s. transpacifi c service from Bolinas to It was facilitated by the triode Hawaii and Tokyo, installed at KET vacuum tube circuits derived from in 1920 and 1921, operating at 13.1 Lee de Forest’s Audion invention of KHz and 15.6 KHz. That very low 1906. Cheap reliable receivers (and frequency technology re-appeared transmitters) could now be con- in World War Two for communica- structed and then mass-produced, tions from Hawaii to submarines. benefi tting from the advances in A typical early radio broad- production during the war. “Radio” casting station of 1922 brings the took off as an American institution story back to Telegraph Hill in San of culture, news and entertain- Francisco. Ralph Heintz (having ment. formed his own radio company in At the same time, alternative 1921) established an AM Broad- means of generating continuous casting station, KFDB, on the waves as carriers or as signals North side of Telegraph Hill:206 by interruption (such as Morse “Two [50] foot wooden tow- code) fell by the wayside. Fed- ers and several smaller buildings eral’s massive arcs of World War appeared on the [Lombard and Kearny] corner in 1922. One building contained electronic gear, the other a well-padded studio, and all were for the radio station built by Ralph M. Heintz for the Mercantile Trust Company (now the Wells Fargo Bank). With its permit dated August 23, 1922 in hand, KFDB began broadcasting from its [1,000] watt transmitter (then considered the most power- ful on the Pacifi c Coast) and under favorable conditions [it] could be Fig. 34. The American Marconi soon heard as far away as Honolulu or to be RCA KPH Hillcrest, Daly City Atlanta. Broadcasting time was station in 1919, with its vacuum tube brief: only one hour each morn- receiver. (Hal Layer, CHRS photo). ing, afternoon and evening during KPH got its  rst triode receiver in 1917. KPH handled most of the marine traf c weekdays, while on Sunday the while KEI in Bolinas handled the long station was silent. The life of KFDB distance Hawaii-Japan circuit. KPH was short; by August 18, 1923 it eventually relocated to Bolinas. was off the air. The towers and

272 AWA Review Lee the buildings were removed and in that had been heard in Australia.” their place six fl ats were completed The Age of Radio Broadcasting in the summer of 1925.” had dawned with stations in Cali- The KFBD site was within blocks fornia as well as the rest of America of the site of the fi rst wireless ex- and the world. perimentation in April, 1899 from the Call building to the South side ACKNOWLEDGEMENT of Telegraph Hill. KFDB looked Many people have helped me out over the San Francisco Bay as with the research for this note. I had PH on Russian Hill more than am especially indebted to the late a dozen years earlier. James Maxwell, ARRL, for his Heintz recalled his 1922 radio encouragement and sources from station sixty years later in 1982:207 his collection and library, and I “The Mercantile Trust Compa- dedicate this note to his memory. I ny wanted to be able to broadcast have tried to acknowledge particu- produce, market quotations for lar people in the notes, especially advertising purposes, so I built photos and clippings and the like them a transmitter. It was on from Hal Layer and Paul Bourbin Telegraph Hill, with the call letters of CHRS. But I thank all those who KFDB. They put out the stock mar- have helped me, especially those I ket and beef quotations: so much may have inadvertently omitted for prime, so much for something from the references, gathered over else, and so much for baloney bulls. more than 20 years. It is an honor Apparently, bulls were used for to belong to this community of baloney in those days. And then scholars, historians and collectors. eggs and all that, all the commodi- ties, they did that, and then they NOTES AND SOURCES put on a program in the evening of 1 Thorn L. Mayes, Wireless phonograph records, mostly. They Communication in the United gingerly tried studio broadcasts. States (New England Wireless and This was in an old residence up on Steam Museum, East Greenwich, top of Telegraph Hill. It turned out R.I., 1989) is the definitive text pretty well as the fi rst American with respect to commercial broadcast station, as far as I know, operations. Arthur Goodnow, and Robert W. and Nancy A. Merriam of the Museum prepared it for publication. So to, Linwood S. Howeth, (Captain, USN), History of Communications-Electronics in the United States Navy (USN Bureau of Ships, Washington, DC, 1963) tells the complete story of the Navy’s wireless and radio activities and much else. It is now available on line: http://earlyradiohistory. Fig. 35. The Bolinas, California Ameri- us/1963hw.htm. can Marconi station low frequency Jane Morgan, Electronics in the antennas in 1917. The 1920-21 KEI West (National Press Books, Palo alternators used a different antenna Alto, CA, 1967) is also very helpful. system of a line of radiating vertical Hugh G. J. Aitken, Syntony and towers with long lines of wire between Spark [and] The Continuous Wave them acting as a high capacity “hat” to (Princeton, 1985), tells a complete permit very low frequency operation in story of the early technologies the range or 15 KHz. with attention to West Coast Volume 24, 2011 273 West Coast Wireless developments in two magisterial preserved by Professor Gordon B. volumes. Greb of San Jose State University, Richard Johnstone (Commander, available on microfi lm. The pages USN, Ret.), My San Francisco Story are not numbered. Professor of the Waterfront and the Wireless Greb in 1959 documented his (Privately printed, Sebastopol, conclusion that Herrold was the California, 1965) charms with color fi rst regular broadcaster. Gordon and detail from 1899 forward, B. Greb, the Golden Anniversary but Commander Johnstones’s of Broadcasting, Journal of recollections after as many as 65 Broadcasting, (Vol. 3, Winter 1958 – years fuzzed some of that detail; ’59) at 3 through 13. Professor Mike I am indebted to Diana Osborne, Adams of San Jose State University daughter of early wireless amateur and Professor Greb followed up Butler (Bert) Osborne, later W6US, with the book Gordon Greb and for my copy as annotated by her Mike Adams, Charles Herrold, father for greater accuracy. Inventor of Radio Broadcasting 2 Lee de Forest, Father of Radio, (MacFarland, Jefferson, N.C., (Self-published, Chicago, 1950) 2003). Adams also did a one-hour introduction at 4. De Forest video Broadcasting’s Forgotten provides a wealth a detail about Father for PBS in 1995, including early wireless and radio but his a late 1970s video interview with agenda to promote Lee de Forest Herrold associate and early wireless is clear and leads to omissions; amateur (and professional) nonetheless de Forest may deserve operator Ray Newby. The title of even more historical honors that he the Bay Microfi lm archive in fi ve was willing to bestow on himself. reels is: Papers on the Origin of 3 San Francisco Call, August 24, Radio Broadcasting in San Jose, 1899, front page; also Morgan, Calif: 1909 [etc.] #740883. Ch. 1, Wireless Waves and a Wild 6 Mayes, supra; the index provides Welcome, at 7. According to a 21 references, all favorable, sidebar in the Call, Charles M. to Shoemaker. He was widely Fisher was the telegrapher on respected then and now. board Lightship 70. Ashore, Lewis 7 Johnstone, supra, at 86; SWP McKisick and H.J. Wolters at the (see infra); Tom Kneitel, Radio Cliff House managed the receiver. Station Treasury, 1900-1946 (CRB The actual message as reported Research, Cormack, N.Y.). then was: “Sherman in sight.” They 8 Clark Radioana Collection, had suggested the experiment. Smithsonian, SRM 101 052 p. 1, 4 Cleveland Moffett, Marconi’s -101 017 (“daily schedule”). George Wireless Telegraph, McClure’s H. Clark (USN, Ret.) devoted Magazine (New York and London, his working life to documenting June, 1899) at 99 (a thorough radio history and gave his files, technical exposition); Lightship in hundreds of boxes, to the East Goodwin with antenna (and Smithsonian in the 1930s as story of use) at 108-09. This issue the Radioana Collection. The of McClure’s is archived in the equipment had fi rst been tested Maxwell Memorial Library at in New York in August 1899 to the California Historical Radio communicate with a lightship. Society. On April 28, 1899 the This experiment was also likely Goodwin suffered a collision and stimulated by the McClure’s used its wireless to summon help, Magazine report of Marconi and which was widely reported in the newspaper reports regarding the newspapers of the day. See http:// Lightship Goodwin. Regarding www.ramsgatelifeboat.org.uk/ Alcatraz, Dick Dillman, W6AWO, fi rst-radio-distress-call.htm now a principal in the Maritime 5 This and much else about Charles Radio Historical Society at the D. (“Doc”) Herrold comes from KPH site in Bolinas, has reported a archival materials selected substantiating interview recording 274 AWA Review Lee archived at the San Francisco by a depth of 95 feet. A modern Maritime Museum. factory building will be erected 9 Society of Wireless Pioneers containing 48,000 square feet of publication(s) especially Spark Gap fl oor space which will be devoted Times (California) -- hereinafter to the manufacture and perfection SWP – this published archive of wireless and radio equipment of primarily of reproductions and all kinds. San Francisco Chamber reminiscences is also voluminous of Commerce Activities, (Vol. 7 but random and scattered. Much No. 14, April 2, 1920), accessible of the information relevant here at www.archive.org/stream/ appears to come from Richard sanfranciscocham71920sanf/ Johnstone (see note 1, supra). sanfranciscocham71920sanf_djvu. 10 This widely studied event is txt. accessible in Bartholomew Lee, 14 Robert H. Marriott, “As it Was in Marconi’s Transatlantic Triumph – the Beginning” [his quotes in title] A Skip into History, 13 AWA Review – A Personal Narrative … Radio 81 (2000) and Bartholomew Lee, Broadcast (May, 1924) at 51; see The Marconi Beacon Experiment of also Radio Pioneers, (Institute of 2006-07, 21 AWA Review 1 (2008). Radio Engineers (IRE), New York, See, e.g., The San Francisco Call, 1945), Marriott was an IRE founder. December 15, 1901, front page: See also Radio-Craft (March, 1938, “Marconi Solves the problem of reprinted Vestal press, 1987 as Signaling Across Atlantic Ocean Jubilee Souvenir Number) at 559 Without Wires” (SWP). along with reminiscences of many 11 See, e.g., the solicitation of other early radiomen. See also investment in the Atlantic Radio Orrin E. Dunlap, Jr. Radio’s 100 Company, Modern Electrics Men of Science (new York, 1944, (March, 1909) at 419: $100 reprint 1970). Norwood Teague invested in Bell became $200,000. and Joe Knight, The 1902 Wireless 12 John Schneider, Voices Out of The Connection – Santa Catalina Island Fog, accessible on the California to San Pedro, California, 20 AWA Historical Radio Society’s Bay Review 97 (2007) tells the story in Area Radio Museum site, tells detail relying in part on Marriott’s the McCarty story in detail. www. account, which is, however, bayarearadio.org/schneider/ somewhat more colorful in Radio- mccarty. The web Virtual Museum Craft (March, 1938) supra, at 560. of the City of San Francisco has Lee de Forest also quotes Marriott archived McCarty newspaper in the more colorful version in articles of the day, e.g., www. Pioneer Radio Operators, CQ – The sfmuseum.org/hist/elwell, Commercial Radio Magazine (Vol. recounting Cyril Elwell’s work II, No. 8, April 1933) at 21, 27. on the McCarty system in 1908; 15 Mayes, supra, at 27ff. www.sfmuseum.org/hist/mccarty, 16 See, e.g., photo of George S. Corpe, recording McCarty’s April 1906 later W6LM, operating the Long offer of wireless telegraphy facilities Beach Station circa 1912 (from the in earthquake response. A 1905 collection of Paul Bourbin, CHRS). laudatory newspaper account in 17 James T. Pogue, Coast Guard Radio the San Francisco Call, September – A Guide … (Tiare Publications, 24, 1905, at 9, appears at http:// Lake Geneva, WI, 1990) at 15; chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/ Johnstone, at 93. sn85066387/1905-09-24/ed-1/ 18 SWP. seq-9/, reappearing at http:// 19 Haraden Pratt, Sixty Years of earlyradiohistory.us/1905mcca. Wireless and Radio Reminiscenses 13 In 1920, The San Francisco (typscript in the Perham Collections Chamber of Commerce noted: “… now at History San Jose, circa the National Radio Company has 1968). I am indebted to Will purchased property at Twentieth Jensby, WØEOM, CHRS, for my St., … having a frontage of 245 feet copy. Both Mayes and Morgan, Volume 24, 2011 275 West Coast Wireless supra note 1, rely in part on Pratt. the 1905 De Forest operator at 20 Signals photo showing the Mare Colorado Springs. He preserved island installation as of 1904 and this article in a remarkable a radioman. scrapbook. The large scrapbook, 21 Howeth, supra at 555; time from full of contemporary published Mare Island at 109. accounts of wireless success, is in 22 Ed Marriner, Wireless Point Loma, the Clark Radioana Collection at Ham Radio magazine, (April, 1969) the Smithsonian, Box 43. at 54. 33 Howeth, supra, at 113, quoting S.N. 23 Furlong had been a San Francisco Hooper. amateur wireless experimenter as 34 McCarty articles, supra. early as 1903 according to Haraden 35 Herrold papers. Pratt, supra, at 2, getting fi ve miles 36 SWP and photos. out a spark set and a detector of 37 SWP. “two carbons and a needle.” 38 Pratt, supra, at 2. 24 By December 12, 1901, John 39 Photograph of PH radioshack circa Ambrose Fleming, although he 1915 looking to the West from designed the Poldhu station, had Hillcrest; from George S. Corpe been sent back to London at the via the Paul Bourbin collection. time of the test. Accounts claiming Johnstone, supra, at 54, reports: he worked the key are wrong. two antenna poles, 250 feet high, 25 Father of Radio, Ch. 15: Overland a 500 foot long antenna between Wireless, at 163. them, the shack in the middle, a 26 SWP, and C.B. Cooper sources and galvanized wire groundscreen, photos. and a 5 kilowatt rotary soak gap at 27 San Francisco Examiner, January 240 cycles. 2, 1905, front page (I am indebted 40 KPH still operates (as KSM and also to George Patterson, CHRS, for as K6KPH) at Bolinas under the this original newspaper); Hugo aegis of the National Park Service, Gernsback, Editorial: Tree as a historical site, administered Wireless, Electrical Experimenter, by the Maritime Historical Radio (Vol. VII, No. 74, June, 1919) Society and its principal Dick at 98: wartime tree transmitter Dillman, W6AWO. See generally and receiver circuits worked for MHRS at www.radiomarine.org three miles, and trees as antennae for KPH history. permitted reception of European 41 Radio Station Treasury, supra; stations, all of which General Mayes, supra, at 75 for Pacifi c’s Squire reported to the Physical station SF. Society, according to Gernsback. 42 Richmond Banner [San Francisco 28 Johnstone, supra, at 5. newspaper], (August,1908), 29 SWP. from the Osborne family records 30 SWP. courtesy of Diana Osborne. 31 Tom Kneitel, Radio Station Treasury 43 Conversation with Diana Osborne, supra; SWP. Sonoma, California. 32 Denver Post, March 30, 1906, 44 Pratt supra; SWP. DeForest Wireless Telegraph 45 SWP. Company advertisement: 46 Glorious Days at Old “PH,” Pacifi c “DeForest Wireless Telegraph Radio News, (Vol. 1, No. 2, Company Comes to the Rescue February, 1917) at 58. of the Western Union Telegraph 47 Johnstone, supra, e.g., at 11, 21, 67, Co., The Postal Telegraph Co., the 75-76. Malarin, despite or perhaps Telephone Co., Businessmen and because of his seniority, later found Citizens of Los Angeles and San himself abused by RCA company Diego” noting the service at the politics (connectedness over request of the landline companies, competence) and went back to sea, and reproducing newspaper stories after warning his friend Johnstone. about the event. Early wireless Soon Johnstone suffered the same man E. N. (Elmo) Pickerill was sort of RCA company abuse, so he 276 AWA Review Lee rejoined the Navy in 1946. running 5 kilowatts on 975 meters 48 North Adams Herald, [Mass.], before 1912. Arthur Isbell Gets Wireless, 56 Pratt, supra. (October 23, 1906), tells the story; 57 Ellery W. Stone, Elements of Radio the clipping comes from the Rachel Communication (New York, 1919; Isbell Branch collection of family 3d ed. 1926). records, in the possession of Ms. 58 Maxwell papers, BCWTA archives, Branch, their curator, who has Constitution and By Laws, Art. III, made a video about her great Sec. II. uncle Arthur A. Isbell’s career and 59 Edward D. Stevens, They Used archives: KeySpark (Privately to Call it Wireless, San Diego produced, 2010, with support from Historical Society Quarterly, (Vol. Robert Merriam’s New England IX, 1963) reprinted SWP, Society of Wireless and Steam Museum, Wireless Pioneers, Year Book 1971, which holds the first Massie at 23. Stevens asserted himself station). Isbell asserted himself to have been the second amateur to be the fourth wireless operator wireless operator in San Francisco in the history of the art, going back after Larzelere. to August,1902 with Lee de Forest. 60 Pratt, supra and Maxwell papers: 49 Isbell kept a photograph of the BCWTA archives 1907 membership window with the bullet hole; list. Rachel Isbell Branch collection, 61 Maxwell papers: BCWTA archives, supra. Minutes, January 3, 1913 (74th 50 Howeth, supra, at 109; Mayes, meeting). By March of 1913, the supra, at 79 ff; see A.A. Isbell letter club had held 76 meetings over in Mayes at 221. more than fi ve years. 51 Johnstone, supra, at 22 in 1912; 62 Johnstone, supra. before 1912 Isbell “covered the 63 SWP. waterfront in those days by horse 64 List of Wireless-Telegraph Stations and buggy.” of the World (U.S. Navy, Bureau of 52 San Francisco Call, April 3, 1912 in Equipment, G.P.O., Washington, the Rachel Isbell Branch collection, D.C., 1907). supra; the bride’s picture as it 65 Glorious Day at Old “PH,” Pacifi c appeared in the newspaper appears Radio News, (Vol. I, No. 2, in Ms. Branch’s KeySpark video. February,1917), at 58. Pacific 53 Pratt, supra at 8. Radio News, which became a 54 SWP Radio Magazine, and similar 55 The late Jim Maxwell, W6CF, publications, played an important ARRL, CHRS, maintained an role in interesting young men and extensive library of radio history the public in general in the radio publications and archives. He arts. This was foundational to the assisted in the research for this broadcast radio craze of the early note over the years; sources he 1920s. provided are denoted “Maxwell 66 SWP. papers.” I am especially indebted 67 Johnstone, supra, at 8, and a $10 to him for providing me with premium for tanker service (at 32); materials from Pacifi c Radio News KPH operators got $90 a month, as well as the archives from the Bay with a $10 premium for the third Counties Wireless Association and trick, Midnight to 8 AM (at 57). other specifi c research assistance. 68 Modern Electrics (Vol. I, No. 1, Much of his library is now housed April, 1908; reprinted 1958) at 18 at the California Historical Radio and map. Society (CHRS) museum in 69 Herrold papers. the KRE building in Berkeley. 70 Pratt, supra at 5; SWP. The Bay Maxwell’s copies of many early Counties Wireless Association BCWTA documents apparently membership list circa 1908 shows came from the estate of Kenneth Ralph Wiley with the callsign SRW V. Laird, who used callsign SAL at 5 KW and C. Kellogg with the Volume 24, 2011 277 West Coast Wireless callsign SCM at 2 KW, both in San was blown out of the shack and Francisco operating spark sets stunned by a lightning strike in (Maxwell papers). 1916, coming “to out in the rain”; 71 Wireless Telegraph Contest Johnstone, supra, at 55. KPH was [monthly], Modern Electrics (Vol. destroyed and operated for a while II, No. 8, November, 1909) at 377. at the Army Presidio station WVY. 72 Gap to Hawaii Bridged by Wireless 90 List of Wireless-Telegraph Stations Men, San Francisco Call, Oct 12, of the World, 1907, supra. 1908; this clipping comes from the 91 Pratt, supra, at 7: CH took over for Rachel Isbell Branch collection, PH when it discontinued at Russian supra. Hill and moved to Hillcrest in Daly 73 SWP, Pratt, supra, at 7. City; photo from Mayes. 74 Howeth, supra, at 171. 92 Johnstone, supra, at 11. 75 SWP & photos. 93 Glorious Day at Old “PH,” supra, 76 Pratt, supra, at 15. at 58. 77 SWP. 94 Radio News (September, 1931). 78 George H. Clark Radioana Collection. 95 Morgan, supra, at 23. Meneratti’s recollections and his 96 Ross G. Miller, Youthful Wireless log from the 1908 period are Operators in San Francisco, San indexed as SRM 134-469A and Francisco Chronicle, December 26, pages following. I thank Mike 1909 at 3. The story appears to be Adams of CHRS for retrieving generic, into which San Francisco these materials. Haraden Pratt also details have been inserted. heard Meneratti’s music, but not 97 Morgan, supra, at 42. well; Pratt, supra at 5. 98 See Federal Telegraph Company 79 Clark Radioana, SRM 134-469A at pamphlet for the Pacific Radio paragraph 15. Exposition, circa 1920, with a 80 Rough Log of Herbert J. Meneratti photograph of the Beach Station. … 1908, Clark Radioana SRM 134 Federal calls itself: “Builders of 517 p:1 [ff] at May 26 [1908]. the world’s largest radio stations.” 81 Clark Radioana, SRM 134-469A at It offered radio-telegraph service paragraph 19. between Seattle and San Diego 82 Clark Radioana , near 1345-469A and cities in between at “15 words but unnumbered. for the usual price of 10.” For 83 Johnstone, supra, at 10-11. communications with ships at 84 Herrold papers. sea, it listed its stations KFS San 85 Wireless Operators Monument, Francisco, KEK Portland and KOK Battery Park, New York; Veteran Los Angeles. Wireless Operators Association 99 SWP. photograph, 1992. 100 Morgan, supra, at 32. 86 SWP. 101 Stone, supra (1919 ed.) at 202. 87 Johnstone, supra, at 62. 102 Herrold papers, EI affi davits. 88 The Sinking of the Roanoke, 103 Modern Electrics (Vol. III, No. 5, Wireless Age (July, 1916) at 691, August, 1910) at 274, photo. poem at 692; stories of rescues 104 San Jose Mercury News interview, follow at 695ff. Herrold papers. Johnstone notes 89 For example, San Francisco (Fort Newby’s service on eleven vessels Miley) Massie station operator to 1925, at KPH at Hillcrest, and Duncan died from a lightning strike, at TK in Nak Nek, Alaska in 1911; electrocuted while transmitting, Johnstone, supra, at 136. according to Bert Osborne’s notes 105 SWP; Johnstone, supra, at 83; on Johnstone, supra, note 1. Cf. 106 Fong Yee, the Wireless Expert, All Radio Heroes are Not Found Popular Electricity (Vol. IV, at Sea, Electrical Experimenter, No. 2, June, 1911), reprinted as (Vol. IV, No. 42, October, 1916) High Power Wireless Equipment at 413: Astoria, Oregon operator (Lindsay Publications, Bradley, IL, severely burned manning his post 1988) at 94. His exploits gave rise in a storm. Dick Johnstone at KPH to the legend of “Dragonwings” in 278 AWA Review Lee the Bay Area Chinese community, Collections, now archived at including a book, Laurence Yep, History San Jose. Dragonwings (Harper Collins, New 114 Mayes, supra, at 67. York, 1975) and a play by Yep of the 115 Cf.Mayes, supra, at 55. same title at the Berkeley Repetory 116 Mayes, supra, at 69. Theater in 1992. San Francisco 117 TVRN. Chronicle, December 17, 1992 118 SWP, Pratt, supra. at C-3. Fong Yee’s name is also 119 Perham Collections, now archived reported as Fong Joe Guey, Feng at History San Jose. Mayes, supra, Ru, Fong Yue and variants. at 113. 107 Seattle Boy Takes World Record, 120 Perham Collections, now archived Seattle Sunday Times, (October at History San Jose. 30, 1910) front page (reprint, 121 Herrold papers, License. Radio-Craft (August, 1935) at 122 Herrold papers. 121; see also photo of Dubilier’s 123 Pratt, supra. 300 foot high antenna mast in 124 TVRN, SWP. Electrical Experimenter, reprint: 125 Photo from the collection of Hal High Power Wireless Equipment, Layer, CHRS supra, at 93. 126 SWP, Pratt supra. 108 Radio’s 100 Men of Science, 127 See Bartholomew Lee, How supra, provides a biography at 231. Dunwoody’s Chunk of ‘Coal’ Saved 109 SWP. Marconi and De Forest, 22 AWA 110 C. Howard Bowers, Wireless Review 135 (2008). Operators of Old, Radio and 128 Johnstone, supra, at 45ff; Television News, 1953-54: “Carbon Rule number two prohibited Copy,” March, 1953 -- Bowers as unnecessary talk between the 1915 operator on the “Yankee operators at sea. Mail Boat” Sonoma between 129 SWP, Pratt, supra. San Francisco and Sydney; “Mr. 130 Johnstone, supra. Wireless” Edwin W. Lovejoy, 131 TVRN. December, 1953 at 173; John O. 132 TVRN. Ashton, of Palo Alto, sine JO, who 133 Seefred log, supra, newspaper enjoyed a distinguished career and clippings; Modern Electrics who was a member of the IRE, (September and December, 1911); and who claimed to have heard see Bartholomew Lee, Radio Spies, Marconi’s “S” from Poldhu in 1901, 15 AWA Review 7, 9 ff. March, 1954; R.S. Ormsby, since 134 Seefred log, supra. 1911, who also recalled the strike 135 Mayes, supra, at 145; Federal of wireless operators, April, 1954 charged two cents a word vs. at 83; Ralph L. Hazelton, since 16 cents a word by the cable 1910 in Santa Cruz, starting with companies. gear from the 1910 EI catalog, 136 SWP. later a high official of the Civil 137 Mayes, supra; as of 1915, the Aeronautics Board, April, 1954; Marconi company operated station Sydney J. Fass, since 1909 with KDC at the Cooper Queen mine in Haraden Pratt and Dick Johnstone, Douglas, Arizona with a range of June, 1954 (with photos); John M. 75 miles. The Yearbook of Wireless Boyle, who recalled checking in Telegraphy and Telephony – 1915 with Lawrence Malarin (LM) at (Marconi Publishing Corporation, the Merchant’s Exchange Building New York, 1915) at 347. in San Francisco for assignments 138 Father of Radio at 277 ff. De circa 1912, June, 1954. This series Forest for this circuit also invented is cited herein as TVRN. what we call frequency division 111 SWP; TVRN. multiplex transmission, which 112 Mayes, supra, at 67. In 1912 he called “diplex,” using a fast Marconi took over 70 United switch alternately to provide Stations. two operators of one arc with 113 Howard Seefred log, in the Perham Volume 24, 2011 279 West Coast Wireless two different frequencies for transmission.” See also 303ff , simultaneous operation. recording his notebook entry: “This 139 SWP. day I obtained the long-sought-for 140 Pratt, supra. beat note phenomenon.” It was 141 TVRN. on this entry that the dispute with 142 Glorious Day at Old “PH,” supra, Armstrong turned. at 58. 160 George H. Clark typescript “About 143 Glorious Day at Old “PH,” supra, DeForest 1924 +-”, Radioana at 60. Collection, unnumbered, near SRM 144 Herrold papers. 124-973A. This event persuaded 145 Glorious Day at Old “PH,” supra, the Supreme Court of the United at 58. States (Justice Benjamin N. 146 Glorious Day at Old “PH,” supra, Cardozo writing for the Court) to at 58. give de Forest patent priority over 147 Glorious Day at Old “PH,” Edwin Howard Armstrong because supra, 58; cartoons in the log oscillation was primary and earlier illustrated static and caricatured invented and regeneration but an the operators. application of it, as next set forth. 148 Seefred log, supra. 161 Radio Corporation of America vs. 149 Clinton B. DeSoto, Two Hundred Radio Engineering Laboratories, Meters and Down (ARRL, 293 U.S. 1-14 (1934), i.e., volume Newington, Conn., 1936, 1981) at 293 of the United States Reports 31ff. of Supreme Court cases at pages 1 150 SWP, Pratt, supra. through 14; the quotes comes from 151 Howeth, supra, 150: De Forest 293 U.S. at 14. Radio telephone Company, 1907. 162 Electrician and Mechanic 152 Experimentation continued. Magazine data reported in Mayes, In December, 1912 successors supra, at 19. to McCarty (probably National) 163 Herrold papers. conducted wireless telephone 164 New Wireless Plant is Being tests between Los Angeles and Installed Here, The Humboldt Point Loma, San Diego, 135 miles. Times, October 29, 1913, front Herrold papers. page:“…a duplicate of the Hillcrest 153Herrold put the arcs into liquid station in San Francisco.” I am hydrocarbons, which permitted indebted to Sterling K. Jensen a sustained arc. Herrold (like de for this story. See photo, “Radio Forest and especially early wireless Eureka Calif – 1913 – “ from the pioneer John Stone Stone) was also collection of Hal Layer, CHRS. quite mathematical in his approach 165 Marconi companies Yearbook … to many problems. Herrold papers. – 1915, supra, at 33, 346. 154 Herrold papers. 166 Marconi Conference Center, 155 Institute of Radio Engineers, 50th Marshall, California advertisement Anniversary Proceedings, (IRE, and photograph of the refurbished 1962). hotel. 156 Radio’s 100 Men of Science, supra, 167 Conversation with pioneer wireless provides a biography at 250. operator William Brenniman, a 157 Father of Radio, at 375, Ch. 40: principal of SWP. “Gink” was a 19th Historic Litigation, regarding the century term for as hobo as well. dispute with Armstrong. 168 Morgan, supra, at 64. 158 Gerald F.J. Tyne, The RJ-4 169 Herrold papers. Ellery Stone Mystery, Antique Wireless had been a member of the Association (AWA) Monograph Bay Cities club as of 1912. His (NS. No. 1, 1978). personal amateur callsign was 159 And rightly proud of it he was; LM. (Another later San Francisco Father of Radio, at 293ff: “ … a Radio Inspector in the club was discovery which was destined Bernard Linden, callsign HP). a few years later to completely BCWTA, Minutes, April 12, 1912 revolutionize the entire art of radio in Maxwell papers. True to form, 280 AWA Review Lee de Forest in his autobiography Moorehead bootlegged triodes (at does not mention this 1915 event, 332). Articles with photos of the but rather concentrates on how factory appear in Radio Age (Vol. he had to claim credit for the 16, June & September, 1991) and vacuum tube amplifiers that cover. made transcontinental telephony 189 See, e.g., Haller Cunningham possible because AT&T did not Company Closes Important Marine mention his contribution. Father Contracts, Pacifi c Radio News (Vol. of Radio at 328ff. Similarly he 1, No. 2, February, 1917) at 61. risked death on the wartime high 190 Conversation with Thorn Mayes, seas to travel to Paris to claim due Jr. credit for the transatlantic radio- 191 SWP, Pratt, supra, at 20. telephone tests of 1916. Father 192 Pratt, supra, at 20. of Radio at 333ff. Lee de Forest 193 I am indebted to Adam Schoolsky was not one to keep his candle of CHRS for providing me with a (or audion) under a bushel, cf. large series of photographs that tell Matthew 5:15: “Neither do men the story of Edgecomb. light a candle, and put it under a 194 Pratt, supra, at 18. bushel, but on a candlestick; and 195 Herrold papers. it giveth light unto all that are in 196 Howeth, supra. the house.” (King James version). 197 SWP. 170 Howeth, supra, Appendix A 198 De Soto, supra at 55, Ch. 9: Back Timeline, 1915, at 525-26. on the Air. 171 Morgan, supra, at 68, 95, 145. 199 Incorporation document from the 172 Callbook of 1913 and Supplements archives of the California Secretary 1, 2 & 3, reprint Old Old Timers’ of State, 1919. Club (circa 1960s), from Maxwell 200 The S. F. Radio Club, Pacific papers. Radio News, supra (Vol. I, No. 1, 173 Morgan, supra, at 58 January, 1917) at 7. Pacifi c Radio 174 Morgan, supra, at 68, 89. News publisher and editor Henry 175 Father of Radio at 332. Dickow, a founder, was very active 176 Herrold papers. in the club. 177 Father of Radio at 338 201 SWP Sparks Journal (Vol. 8, No. 178 Johnstone, supra, at 54-55, 60. 1, Sept. 20, 1985) at 20-21. 179 6000 Miles on Galena, Pacific 202 SWP. Radio News, (Vol. 1, No. 2, 203 Photo from the collection of Hal February, 1917) at 61. Layer, CHRS. 180 The Feminine Wireless Amateur, 204 Father of Radio, at 354ff. Electrical Experimenter, Vol. IV, 205 Herrold papers; the vacuum tubes No. 42 (October, 1916) at 396 and were made in San Francisco, likely cover. by Moorehead. 181 Howeth, supra, at 224. 206 David Myrick, San Francisco’s 182 Howeth, supra, at 224. Telegraph Hill (Howell-North 183 TVRN. Books, Berkeley California, 1972) 184 Pacifi c Radio News (Vol. III, No. at 201. 3, October, 1921) at 103. 207 Ralph M. Heintz: Technical 185 SWP. Innovation and Business in the 186 Killborne & Clark, Pacifi c Radio Bay Area, 1982 interview by Art News, (Vol. I, No. 1, January, 1917). L. Norberg, Bancroft Library, 187 Moorehead had been a wireless University of California, Berkeley, operator working for A.A Isbell on History of Science and Technology Alaska stations that Isbell put into Program; I am indebted to the late service with the lower forty-eight, Hank Olson, W6GXN, CHRS, for before Moorehead got into the the Heintz quote and source. vacuum tube bootlegging business. Pratt, supra, at 19. 188 Father of Radio at 326, 354; before this deal the “mischievous” Volume 24, 2011 281 West Coast Wireless ABOUT THE AUTHOR Red Cross deputy communications Bartholomew (Bart) Lee, lead from September 12 to Septem- K6VK, xKV6LEE, WPE2DLT, ber 21, (the ‘night shift trick chief’). is a long time member of AWA He has served as the Liaison Offi - and the California Historical Ra- cer for the San Francisco Auxiliary dio Society, for whom he serves Communications System (ACS – as General Counsel Emeritus. RACES) and as an ARES Emer- He has enjoyed radio and radio- gency Coordinator. He presently related activities in many parts of serves as an ARRL Government the world, in the last year in Italy Liaison and Volunteer Counsel. and Sicily (radio from North Af- Bart is a litigator by trade, having rica is fascinating even though it’s prosecuted and defended cases in mostly in Arabic). Radio technol- both state and federal court. He ogy and history have fascinated also taught Law & Economics for him since he made his fi rst crystal 20 years, including the economic set with a razor blade and pencil history of telecommunications. He lead more than 50 years ago. He is a graduate of St. John’s College is especially fond of those sets (the ‘Great Books School’) and the of which it is said: ‘Real Radios University of Chicago Law School. Glow in the Dark.’ Bart is a widely Bart’s son Christoffer Lee is also a published author on legal subjects licensed amateur radio operator and most recently on the history and is now fi nishing law school. of radio. He has, in many forums, Bart invites correspondence at: including most recently the annual !"#$%%&'()*+,-.( meeting of the American Vacuum Society, written about and lectured on early radio technology, radio intelligence activities (‘episodes in the ether wars’) from 1901 into the latter 20th Century, wireless telegraphy especially Marconi’s early work, wireless developments in California and the West Coast since 1899, short wave radio, radio ephemera including radio stamps, and radio in emergency and disaster response. Since 1989 he has made some 20 presenta- tions to the AWA conferences on his research interests including the development of television in San Francisco in the 1920s. The AWA presented its Houck Award for documentation to him in 2003 and the California Historical Radio Society made its 1991 ‘Doc’ Herrold Bart Lee. Photo by Paula Carmody taken in Indonesia; copyright Bart Award to him in connection with Lee 2009. his work for the Perham Founda- tion Electronics Museum. In 2001, during disaster recovery opera- tions in New York after the ‘9/11’ terrorist enormity, he served as the

282 AWA Review