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"Wavescan" is a weekly program for long distance radio hobbyists produced by Dr. Adrian M. Peterson, Coordinator of International Relations for Adventist World Radio. AWR carries the program over many of its stations (including shortwave). Adrian Peterson is a highly regarded DXer and radio historian, and often includes features on radio history in his program. We are reproducing those features below, with Dr. Peterson's permission and assistance.

Wavescan N542, July 14, 2019

Chicago Shortwave Station in Indiana [Mackay Radio WMEC]

In our program today, we are as it were, Back Home Again in Indiana, this time to tell the story of the Chicago Shortwave Station that was located in the western area of northern Indiana. This shortwave station was on the air for a period of some ten years, stretching from 1933 up until it was closed as an international security measure during World War II.

This new shortwave station in Indiana was established by Mackay Radio, and its first operator was Lewis Coe, who became well known in the pre-World War II era as a prolific radio historian. He went on to write several books on early radio history in the United States in which he presented valuable information from both the technical as well as the operational point of view.

Back during the year 1932, the Mackay Radio Company established a line of shortwave communication stations stretching from New York, across the United States to San Francisco, and onward to Honolulu, Guam, Manila and China. In order to ensure reliable communication in Morse Code across the United States, Mackay needed an intermediate relay station somewhere in the middle of the continental United States. Chicago and its environs were chosen for this purpose; and specifically, two country locations just across the state border in Indiana.

The location for the combined operating facility and receiver station back at that time was on an isolated 120 acre tract of land in a remote area in Merrillville, Indiana where the only access was at the end of an unmarked dirt track. The experienced Morse Code operator Lewis Coe took part in the startup of this Mackay Radio Station and he became their first Chief Operator. Morse Code communication on shortwave from this station under the registered callsign WMEC was made in both directions as needed, towards Mackay stations WSF in New York in the east and KFS in San Francisco in the west.

Soon after this Indiana station was inaugurated, it took part in a double monumental and historic event. This is how it happened.

Back during the early 1930s, there was a space race on between the United States and Russia, to see who could be the first to fly the highest in altitude. In a joint project between the National Geographic magazine and the United States army, a high altitude balloon was launched from a country location near Rapid City, South Dakota on July 28, 1934. A second attempt was made on November 11 during the following year (1935), and a record height of 74,000 feet, a little over 14 miles, was achieved.

On both occasions, the attached gondola carried a small shortwave radio transmitter for live communication with the ground below. The signal was then relayed to shortwave stations W9XF in Chicago, and to W3XL and W3XAL in New Jersey for worldwide coverage.

The airborne transmitter made its broadcasts on 13050 kHz and it was registered with the callsign W10XCX on the first occasion, and with the callsign W10XFH on the second occasion. The radio station on the ground below was identified with the callsign W10XCW on the first occasion and as W10XFN on the second occasion, and it transmitted with 200 watts on 6350 kHz.

The Mackay radio station WMEC in Indiana participated in the transmission tests from the air borne gondola Explorer (1) and Explorer 2 on both occasions. These test broadcasts were designed to discover what is the effect of super high-altitude on the transmission of a shortwave signal.

The transmitter facility for Mackay Radio-Chicago was installed in the center of a 90 acre marginal farm property at St. John, Indiana that had been obtained at a bargain price. There was a 10 mile separation between the two facilities for Mackay Radio-WMEC, with the receiver station at Merrillville and the transmitter station at St John, some 24 miles south east of Chicago.

During its 10 years of communication service, several shortwave transmitters were installed at St. Johns, including one at 10 kW, which was considered at the time to be quite high powered. In 1938, operator Lewis Coe was re-appointed by Mackay management as the Chief Operator in the transmitter station at St. John.

With the American involvement in World War II in the middle of last century, changes came to the shortwave radio scene also. Some stations were taken over by the government, some were abandoned. Station WMEC was closed in June 1942, as a wartime requirement, and then it was taken over by the American Army Signal Corps.

Beginning on August 1 (1942), the Signal Corps leased station WMEC from the Mackay Radio company with the intent of opening a radio circuit with an American air base located at Churchill on the edge of Hudson Bay in Canada. However, when the Hudson Bay project was cancelled, Lewis Coe was then required to remove the electronic equipment from the Indiana station and ship it to the large Mackay Shortwave Station at Brentwood on Long Island, New York. The equipment was then rebuilt and shipped again, this time to Algiers in North Africa, where it was installed as a new Mackay shortwave communication station rated at 50 kW.

The last project that Lewis Coe worked on for Mackay Radio was the re-furbishing and re-opening in 1945 of their New York shortwave station WSF, which had been closed during the war.

The Mackay properties in Indiana were sold off after the war. The location of the receiver station for Mackay Radio WMEC at Merrillville, Indiana is now in use as a large shopping complex, the Southlake Shopping Mall, at the southeastern corner of Lincoln Highway and Mississippi Street. The location of the transmitter station for Mackay Radio WMEC at St. John in Indiana is now under water all year round at a small lake on the north side of West 93rd Avenue, opposite West Oakridge Drive, we would suggest.

Ancient DX Report 1918 - 2

For a period of more than four years, World War I had been claiming the lives of untold millions of people in continental Europe, resulting in the destruction of a multitude of cities, towns and villages, together with vast areas of land becoming unproductive. The wastage of human life and resources had never before been seen at such a high level as this upon planet Earth.

The summer of the year 1918 had turned into autumn, and both sides were drained and exhausted, except for the participation of the newly arriving American forces. Consequently, during the second weekend in November (1918), peace discussions took place in France, and wireless station FL on the Eiffel Tower broadcast up to date information as the flow of news became available, particularly on Sunday, November 10.

At 5:15 am in the morning of Monday, November 11, a declaration of peace was signed by the western allies and their German counterparts. This memorable ceremony took place in a railway carriage in a forest near the city of Paris.

Eiffel Tower Radio broadcast this information, declaring that the Armistice would become effective at 11:00 am on the 11th day of the 11th month. However, in spite of the widespread coverage of this highly anticipated news, some commanders required the continuation of aggressive fighting right up until the final minute.

At the time of the declaration of peace, the Royal Air Force in England had 600 planes still in operation, each of which was fitted with two-way voice radio.

Around the time of peace discussions in continental Europe, a new Radio Building on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, D.C. was officially opened for use by the American Army Signal Corps and NBS, the National Bureau of Standards. The army communication callsign was WUQ, and the callsign for the new NBS station was WWV, a sequentially-issued callsign. Two external flat top antennas were in use for experimental transmissions, and an indoor Loop Antenna was in use for the reception of longwave transmissions from Europe.

Right at the end of the year 1918, and after the November armistice in Europe, Mr. M. V. Jordan in Louisville, Kentucky began the broadcast of music records over his amateur radio station. Earphones were provided to patients in the nearby Waverly Hills Hospital. Jordan's amateur callsign was 9LK, and his broadcasts are listed as the earliest beginning for mediumwave station WLAP.

The Ebell Club in Los Angeles procured a small low power longwave transmitter and a set of gramophone records, together with 50 small radio receivers and donated them to an American Base Hospital in France. This radio equipment enabled wounded soldiers to hear recorded music as a morale booster during recovery from their war wounds.

During the year 1918, the American navy inaugurated a large new longwave transmitter at Balboa in the Panama Canal Zone, station NBA at 200 kW. This station began the regular broadcast of time signals as an aid to local navigation.

Work commenced on another powerful radio station during this same year (1918), and this was under the auspices of the Pan-American Wireless Company. The location for this new communication radio station was at Monte Grande, a dozen miles from Buenos Aires, and it was planned by the Marconi Company in England as the largest in the world. However, it would take another 6 years before the station was completed.

The first communication station in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific was opened for service on September 2 (1918). This new station was located on the capital city island, Rarotonga. The first transmitter was a spark wireless unit manufactured in Australia; the receiver was the latest version of a crystal set, and the callsign was VMR.

A very early black and white postcard in 1918 is thought to be an original early QSL card. The photo-postcard shows the ship Philadelphia steaming in the Atlantic, with a brief message from the radio operator typed in blue on the picture side of the card. This message states simply: Radio Operator, Oct 12, 1918. Although the card does not say it is a QSL, a cursory reading of the message seems to imply that the card was used to verify a QSO contact between the ship and another wireless station.