Category: History, Mon Valley Miscellany, Radio Geekery || By

Do any of you Norwin Senior High School graduates remember the radio station that used to be next door?

Whuh? A radio station in North Huntingdon? Yeah, that got your attention.

Yep. It turns out there was a radio station on Mockingbird Hill in North Huntingdon Township from 1951 to 1983.

If'n yinz don't remember the swingin' sound of Wonderful WCM in North Huntingdon, grab a cookie and a juice box, and sit down while Grampa Jason tells a story.

. . .

Once upon a time, when I was a geeky, socially awkward teen-ager (unlike now, when I'm a geeky, socially awkward adult) a gang of us used to hang out in the basement of a buddy's house in Whitaker, telling jokes, listening to music, and screwing around with electronics projects.

That's because none of us had a steady girlfriend, mainly because we were always hanging out in the basement, telling jokes, listening to music, and screwing around with electronics projects.

Late one night --- it seems to me it was over a Christmas break --- we hooked up someone's 1970s-vintage shortwave radio to an old CB antenna to see what we could hear.

Now, many, many moons ago --- say, the 1940s through the '60s --- many foreign countries had at least one English language radio service aimed at North America, and it was relatively common for people to own a radio that could pick up overseas broadcasts.

By the time of my misspent youth in the late '80s and early '90s, satellite communications had obviated the need for, say, Norway to send shortwave radio broadcasts to the United States. Who wanted to fight their way through the static to listen to the BBC when they could watch the BBC on cable TV?

Practically all of these services have now moved to the Internet, and the shortwave band is mainly a wasteland both day and night of right-wing American preachers who rant about the apocalypse. (I am not making that up. I have no idea who listens to that stuff.)

. . .

Anyway, in the early '90s, there were still English-language shortwave services on the air from the Voice of Fondue Sets for Namibia or whatever, and when I tired of listening to those, I could eavesdrop on ham radio operators.

When that got boring (and it got boring quickly: "VE3WTF, this is K5FU, what kind of equipment you running there?" "Running a modified Yae-Wood 5900KLABC SSB into a Ten-Com amplifier with a 12-element Yagi beamed north-by-northwest, over, how do you read me?" "Five-by-five, WTF, what's the weather like?" etc.) I started dialing around to see what else I could hear.

Suddenly, through the static and birdies came the distinctive sound of a telephone ringing --- not the bell, but the so-called ringback signal you hear when you call someone else.

Hmm! I dialed back and fiddled with the reception until I could barely make out what sounded like a phone conversation.

Then an operator came on. Another connection, another telephone ringing, another conversation, barely audible.

I listened long enough to hear the station identify itself --- it turned out to be a ship-to-shore telephone relay operated by AT&T, and they gave an address in Manahawkin, N.J.

. . .

Well, I wrote, and got a very nice reply from the manager there, with a folder full of information about ship-to-shore radio.

For many years, if you were on a boat and needed to send a written message or place a call, your communications were handled by one of these stations, which for a fee could either send a Telex message or make a long-distance telephone connection.

This sort of operation was becoming an anachronism by 1991, of course. Although I don't think I knew anyone who had their own cell phone, I was seeing plenty of car phone antennas, even in the Mon Valley. Within a few years, satellite phones were available, and now you can place a call or send email right from a boat.

AT&T discontinued its old-fashioned ship-to-shore service in 1998, and while there may be a handful of these operations still around somewhere, I haven't heard one on the air for years.

. . .
Fast-forward to the present: An acquaintance of mine named Scott Fybush has carved out a niche reporting on TV and radio both for national trade papers and on his own website, NorthEast Radio Watch. For those who really want to get their geek on, he also reports on radio towers around the country.

Last week's tower entry reports on a site near Scott's home in western New York that was once used by one of these ship-to-shore radio stations communicating with boats on the Great Lakes.

He also linked to a website for something called the Inland Radio Marine History Archive, which includes a page on "River Stations," and that's where I found out about WCM in North Huntingdon.

Remember? This is a song about Alice?

Uh, I mean ... this is a story about a radio station in North Huntingdon?

. . .

According to a history at the IRMHA website, WCM was built in 1951 by the marine radio division of RCA. The 1,000-watt station on the shortwave band served boats traveling the Monongahela and Ohio rivers around Pittsburgh.

In 1967, RCA sold the station to an outside investor. By now, the cost of radio equipment had gone way down, and many towboat operators were running their own networks. WCM began losing money and was sold again to its biggest customer, Ohio River Company (ORCO). It also served other important river shipping clients, including Ashland Oil's depot in Floreffe.

An article from the Jeannette News-Dispatch describes operations: "For the most part, the radio operators at WCM provide 24-hour communications to and from the river vessels ...

"While most of the communications are with cargo tows, the radio operators at WCM have occasional contact with pleasure craft, or well known vessels such as the Delta Queen. WCM also completes telephone patches to any watercraft, in cooperation with the special marine operators.

"WCM will become involved in emergencies when the need arises. For instance, flooding conditions may result in barges breaking loose. Such situations require rescue by any boats available."

. . .

WCM upgraded its equipment to single-sideband operation in the 1960s, then began offering VHF-FM communications (the same way that modern police and fire radios operate), but demand for the station's services continued to decline.

In 1983, Ohio River Company's parent company transferred the remaining operations to its headquarters in Cincinnati and closed the North Huntingdon site.

By 1995, satellite and cellular service linked the towing company's boats with headquarters and each other, and WCM's license was canceled, the website reports.

An aerial look via Google! Maps shows no obvious evidence of the station, but I may take a field trip later this week and snoop around myself.

There's a list of WCM employees online, too, at the IMRHA website, and I think I recognize a couple of names.

If anyone remembers this thing, or knows anyone who worked there, I'd be interested to talk with them.

Hey, we geeks have to stick together.