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| ISBN-13: | 9780299218744 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Wisconsin Press |
| Publication date: | 06/27/2017 |
| Pages: | 424 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d) |
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9XM Talking
WHA Radio and the Wisconsin Idea
By Randall Davidson
THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN PRESS
Copyright © 2006
Randall Davidson
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-299-21870-6
Chapter One Early Wireless Experiments at the University of Wisconsin 1909-16
These antennae wires pick up the disturbances in the aerial medium.
In the decade before World War I, experimentation with wireless telegraphy was underway at many U.S. colleges and universities, including those in Wisconsin. Beloit College in far southern Wisconsin began experiments with wireless in the summer of 1908. Less than a year later, on May 8, 1909, Charles Culver, a Beloit physics professor, performed a public demonstration in Beloit during a track meet. He sent wireless telegraph reports of the event from the athletic field to receivers on campus and one at the office of the Beloit Daily News. Once the University of Wisconsin began experimenting with wireless telegraphy, Culver would assist in tests of the transmissions.
By 1910 a 1,000-watt wireless station was in daily operation at Beloit. On February 3, 1913, Beloit began regular transmission of time signals from the college's observatory, and college administrators claimed that Beloit "had taken a step ahead of all other educational institutions in the world" by doing so. Within a week of the first such transmissions, twenty wireless-equipped high schools in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana had applied to the college to be recipients of these time "broadcasts." After the Radio Act of 1912, licenses were required for all wireless land stations. The initial Department of Commerce list of licensed wireless land stations, dated July 1, 1913, shows that Beloit College was assigned the designation 9XB.
Commercial wireless operations were also underway in the state, with two in Milwaukee and one in Manitowoc by late 1909. These commercial "stations" transmitted private telegraphic messages from point to point for a fee (a point-to-point communication is essentially a conversation between two parties, albeit not a private one when conducted by radio waves; its opposite is a broadcast, which is a one-way communication to all who are listening).
A real burst of interest in wireless followed the sinking of the Titanic in the spring of 1912. The role that wireless telegraphy played in both the distress call and the rescue operation caught the public's fancy and demonstrated that it was more than just a toy for hobbyists.
At the University of Wisconsin some experimentation with wireless was underway in 1909, although some references cite classroom wireless experiments as early as 1902. In 1914, Professor Edward Bennett of the electrical engineering department assembled an amateur wireless telegraphic set and applied to the Department of Commerce for an experimental license. The license assigned Bennett the call letters 9XM: 9 for the north central region of the United States, X for experimental, and M for Madison.
Shortly thereafter, physics professor Earle M. Terry approached Bennett and said he wished to "borrow" the license for some experimental wireless telegraph equipment that he and his students had begun building in the spring of 1915. Bennett recognized the value of the license to the experiments and gave it to Terry. In June 1915 the license was transferred to the university. The July 1915 Radio Service Bulletin, published by the Navigation Bureau of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is the first issue that shows the University of Wisconsin as holding the license for 9XM.
Terry became the driving force behind the wireless operation at the University of Wisconsin. He was born in 1879 on a farm near Battle Creek, Michigan, and arrived in Madison in 1902 after receiving his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. During his student days Terry studied the classics, giving him an unusually broad education (years later he was still able to tutor his son in Latin). As a graduate student in Madison, he was first a graduate assistant and advanced to instructor after he earned his master's degree in 1904. While in graduate school he met A. Hoyt Taylor, a colleague in the physics department who shared his interest in wireless. In 1908 Taylor took a year's leave of absence to pursue postgraduate work in Germany. He received his doctoral degree in 1909 and became head of the physics department at the University of North Dakota at Grand Forks. He and Terry stayed in touch. In the years to come the two scientists would send many wireless transmissions between their respective campuses to test their equipment.
Terry earned his doctoral degree in 1910 and was promoted to assistant professor. That same year he began directing the basic physics course required of all engineering students, in addition to teaching advanced courses in magnetism and electricity. In the spring of 1915 Terry began teaching a course in radio. Terry was an acknowledged expert in several fields, particularly electricity and magnetism. However, the attitude of his physics department colleagues toward his radio work could best be described as indifferent, particularly in later years. Although the senior members of the department respected Terry's ability as a physicist, they regarded his wireless work as taking him more in the direction of applied science or engineering rather than pure research, which was their preferred focus. Some went so far as to dismiss wireless as a mere plaything. Younger staff members in the department were not as critical of Terry, but self-interest kept them from displaying much enthusiasm for his activities with wireless. The prevailing attitude meant that Terry's wireless operation could not be at the expense of the department's other laboratory activities, and Terry and his students assembled much of the early wireless equipment from ordinary material in the laboratory and whatever they could scrounge. Terry's former students remembered him as an unpretentious and modest person who did not tell his students of his own successes. They also remarked on his skill as a teacher and his wry sense of humor. He seems to have been a favorite of his students'.
During the spring of 1915 the wider university community was introduced to the technology of wireless telegraphy. The university exposition was held that March, and Commendant P. G. Wrightson of the University Cadet Corps arranged for the display of a temporary wireless transmitter and receiver. It was used to demonstrate long-distance reception and "every visitor to the Exposition will have an opportunity to send a wireless telegram to any station within 500 miles." An article in the Press Bulletin said, "The antennae wires which will pick up and transmit the messages will be four in number and will be swung from the flagstaff of the YMCA Building to the flagstaff of the University gymnasium. After these antennae wires pick up the disturbances in the aerial medium, the messages will be transported into the University gymnasium and recorded in the Electrical Engineering exhibit."
The original wireless equipment was assembled by the physics department in the basement of Science Hall in what is now room 55; this would be the home of 9XM until 1918. The antenna was a wire strung from the tower of the building to the chimney of the adjacent Mining and Metallurgy Laboratory building, which had once been the university's heating plant.
The transmitter had a power of 5,000 watts and transmitted wireless telegraphic signals at 475 and 750 meters (631 kHz and 400 kHz). Terry built the station with the assistance of students Carl Kottler, a former commercial wireless operator, and Malcolm Hanson. The equipment was operating as early as the spring of 1915, but the public did not become aware of it until the fall. A November 3 Press Bulletin article described the apparatus and said that it was receiving signals from as far away as the Arlington Naval Station in Virginia. The powerful Arlington station had been on the air since 1912 and operated at 2,500 meters (120 kHz) with the call letters NAA. One regular midday transmission from Arlington was a signal that provided a standard time reference. The original function of these telegraphic time signals (for five minutes at 10:55 a.m. Central Time) was to synchronize clocks aboard ocean vessels for navigation purposes. Various navy facilities had sent the time signals since 1905, and they were popular among wireless enthusiasts. Also, these transmissions had led to the development of a nonhobbyist market for wireless receivers. Equipment manufacturers were marketing simple receivers to jewelers so they could use these signals to offer the exact time when setting the clocks and watches of their customers.
Terry had a personal reason to tune in to the signals: his hobby was building precision grandfather clocks. Always the scientist, part of Terry's interest was in making the timepieces as accurate as possible, even going so far as to account for the effect that changes in temperature would have on the pendulum. To check the quality of his work, he would use the 9XM equipment to receive the daily wireless time signals.
The day-to-day operation of the station was the responsibility of a half-dozen physics and engineering students who came to be known around campus as the "wireless squad." They were avid wireless enthusiasts, and most ended up with careers in communications or electronics. The squad worked mostly in the evening and overnight hours because the noise from the equipment interfered with other teaching and scientific activities in the building. At this time, 9XM was using a rotary spark gap transmitter, which generated electromagnetic waves by interrupting a current flow in a wire. This apparatus had a motor-driven disk with electrodes around its edge. Sparks were generated between fixed electrodes and the electrodes on the disk and the speed of the motor controlled the wavelength of the transmission. This type of transmitter was known for producing a deafening sound and dangerous voltages.
Through this early period the 9XM transmitter was used solely for point-to-point messages and only in the dots and dashes of wireless telegraphy. On December 30, 1915, Arthur Ford, a professor in the electrical engineering department at the State University of Iowa at Iowa City, sent a letter to the University of Wisconsin. Ford wanted to use his university's wireless station, 9YA, and Wisconsin's 9XM to report the results of an upcoming basketball game between the two schools scheduled for January 10, 1916. However, the plan was not for play-by-play nor for "broadcast" to a general audience. Instead, wireless operators at each campus would take turns sending telegraphic messages to each other until the final result of the game was in. Operators at the Iowa station planned to "call" Madison for five minutes at 8:25 p.m., 8:35 p.m., and 8:45 p.m. at 750 meters (400 kHz), with 9XM operators calling the Iowa station for five minutes at 8:30 p.m., 8:40 p.m., and 8:50 p.m. at 2,000 meters (150 kHz). Of course, a postgame telephone call from Iowa City to Madison could have provided the score as well.
Chapter Two Early Broadcasts from 9XM 1916-17
You can't tell how many are listening.
As experimentation with wireless telegraphy continued, two views emerged as to how the technology could be used. The majority opinion, held by industry and the government, was that it would be useful only for point-to-point, private communications. Business people and government officials envisioned its use for the military, maritime applications, and in other instances where wired communication was impractical, such as to and from moving trains. However, early private wireless transmissions were, of course, heard by others. Part of the fun for amateur wireless enthusiasts was listening in to the Morse code messages sent from point to point. This led some to believe that the true value of wireless telegraphy was to use this eavesdropping phenomenon to efficiently send a single message to many people at once. The student operators at 9XM occasionally experimented with this concept when they were testing the equipment. As part of some point-to-point transmissions, they would ask anyone who heard the message to respond. In addition to providing valuable information about the performance of the transmitter, the number of responses suggested that many amateurs were listening in. This helped reinforce the notion that wireless could indeed be used for broadcasting a message. The term broadcasting predates wireless and had been appropriated from agriculture, where it meant a scattering of seeds-casting them over a broad area. The navy had begun using the term around 1912 to describe telegraphic messages meant for all ships or for anyone listening; previously, they had used the term radiating. Some experiments with wireless telegraphic "broadcasts" had already been attempted. The New York Herald was sending out telegraphic "newscasts" for reception by wireless enthusiasts as early as 1915.
Some foreign wireless operations had been thinking along the same lines. During World War I the German government used wireless for what some claim were the first propaganda broadcasts. From powerful transmitters in Nauen, Eilvese, and Norddeich, the German government offered special telegraphic newscasts several times a day, fully expecting that radio hobbyists in the United States and other neutral countries would hear them. On March 3, 1916, 9XM received "war news from Berlin." Student Carl Kottler was at the 9XM apparatus when he listened in to a message as it was being sent from Eilvese to Tuckerton, New Jersey. Another example of the potential for broadcasting came on June 18, when a commercial wireless station in Milwaukee sent a general message: "Serious trouble on border. Wisconsin National Guard ordered to mobilize and be in readiness for instant service." At 9XM Malcolm Hanson of the student wireless squad happened to be monitoring the airwaves when the message came in late in the evening. Hanson kept odd hours at the station, and Terry had entrusted him with a key to the room.
In the fall of 1916 Terry decided to rebuild the station to use a different wavelength. The 9XM transmitter had been operating regularly at 900 meters (333 kHz) but was encountering interference from a commercial wireless station in Milwaukee. The rebuilt equipment would allow transmissions at 1,700 meters (176 kHz), and it was ready for operation by mid-November.
Because the equipment had been modified, the station had to get a new license. However, because the university itself now held the license for 9XM, the relicensing had to go through the office of the university president, Charles Van Hise, who contacted Benjamin W. Snow, chair of the physics department, for information. Snow referred Van Hise to Terry, adding that "the establishment and installation of our wireless station are due entirely to Terry's initiative and interest, and I am certain that he can give you, much better than I, the information you desire." Snow even invited Van Hise to drop by Science Hall to get a demonstration of the 9XM equipment. He wrote: "I hope you may be able to come down some afternoon and see what [Terry] has done, and have him explain to you, as he has many times to me, the mechanisms by which the marvelous achievement of wireless transmission is made possible." After meeting with Terry, Van Hise gave his approval for the application. The new license was issued in December and continued to use the 9XM designation.
Terry had wanted to operate the new transmitter on a regular schedule to provide some material that would be of use to the general public. He decided the weather forecast would be easy to obtain and would have value to many listeners, especially the state's farmers. Several farmers who had wireless receivers had already contacted Terry to say they'd heard an experimental transmission he had made from 9XM to the wireless operation at the University of North Dakota. The Wisconsin State Journal of March 6, in the article that told of receiving the war news from Europe, also mentioned Terry's interest in building a wireless operation for weather "broadcasts."
By this time others had begun experimenting with sending out weather information by wireless telegraphy. As early as 1900 the U.S. Weather Bureau (then a division of the Department of Agriculture) had been interested in the possibility of using wireless for collecting meteorological data as well for as transmitting weather warnings and forecasts. The agency hired wireless pioneer Reginald Fessenden to conduct wireless experiments. Wireless telegraphy of weather information began July 15, 1913, when the naval wireless stations at Arlington, Virginia, and Key West, Florida, started their regular telegraphic broadcasts. On June 1, 1914, the Arlington station added material for the Great Lakes during the lake navigation season, and in April 1917 this forecast was transferred to the radio facility at the Great Lakes Naval Station north of Chicago.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from 9XM Talking by Randall Davidson Copyright © 2006 by Randall Davidson. Excerpted by permission.
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Table of Contents
Illustrations Preface Prologue: Voices through the Air: A Brief History of Radio- Early Wireless Experiments at the University of Wisconsin, 1909-16
- Early Broadcasts from 9XM, 1916-17
- Wartime Radio Experiments at the University of Wisconsin, 1917-18
- Telephonic Broadcasting by 9XM, 1919-20
- Regular Voice Broadcasts on 9XM, 1921
- WHA Begins, 1922-29
- WHA Comes into Its Own, 1929-30
- The WHA-WLBL Merger, 1930-31
- More Hours on the Air, 1930-33
- More Challenges from Commercial Stations
- The Political Education Forum
- A New Home, 1933-36
- Budget Woes and New Programs, 1935-41
- The War Years and After, 1942-47
- The FM Network
- From Educational Radio to Public Radio, 1947-70
- The Era of Public Radio, 1971-78
- WPAH/WLBL, the Other State Station, 1923-51
- The Farm Program
- The Homemakers’ Program
- The Wisconsin School of the Air
- The Wisconsin College of the Air
- Chapter a Day
- To Today, 1979-