Road Trip Update - WCC Chatham Marconi Maritime Center Activation - August 13, 2021

Yesterday, August 13, I was invited to activate EME communications from FN51 from the grounds of the historic Chatham Marconi Maritime Center: https://www.wccara.com/wcc

This site was built in 1914 by the Marconi company, but because of World War I, was never activated my Marconi.  It was not possible to ship radio equipment from Europe to Cape Cod during the war.

The site was completed by a new company that became the iconic American brand, RCA.  RCA was founded to re-organize the assets for the Marconi Company in the U.S.: https://www.rca.com/us_en/our-legacy-266-us-en

This site became one of the most important message traffic sites for communicating with commercial ships at sea.  From the 1920's until 1997 when HF radio communications with ships was retired and replaced with satellite communications, this center known as WCC used CW only to handle traffic from thousands of ships.  The Cape Cod WCC focused on the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean.

A sister station in California, KPH, headquartered in Point Reyes handled the Pacific Ocean and shared coverage of the Indian Ocean.  Several years ago I visited several of the historic West Coast sites as a guest of the owner who purchased several of the historic radio sites.  

The Point Reyes station is operated regularly by an active group of amateur operators:  https://www.nps.gov/pore/learn/historyculture/stories_communications.htm

The photo above is the buiding that was used by operators who handing ship traffic using the callsign WCC until 1993.  The building is now a museum.  One of my hosts was a CW traffic operator at WCC.  He is also a 12th generation decendent of the founder of the town of Chatham from the year 1712.

During World War II the WCC was operated by the U.S. Navy and was the primary station that intercepted U-Boat radio traffic that was decrypted and used to win the War of the Atlantic.  

In 1914 a 1-mile long receiving antenna supported by six 300 foot towers was built at the site.  In the 1920's as long-haul communications started to transition from spark to CW medium-wavelength communications, the antennas were replaced with aerials more familur to us.

Well, I guess we would all like to have a curtain array for all bands supported by a central 300 foot tower running to the "short" 100 foot towers.  Keep your eyes on the triangular 100 foot tower between the two buildings on the left.  It appears later in this blog.

When I arrived at the site I was invited to set up anywhere.  I chose a location next to the 100 foot tower on the left in the 100 year old photo above.

The 2M EME array is visible at the left in the photo above next to the 100 foot tower.  On top of the tower is a nest with two very large and very noisy Osprey chicks.  While I was setting up the station in the 90 degree heat, a small group sat in their folding chairs, in the shade, watching me work :-)  Station setup took 40 minutes, tear-down 30 minutes.

Here is another view of the station setup with the Museum in the background

I had many visitors during the day and gave them QSL cards.  I was interviewed live for an Instagram feed.  Not sure what that is, will ask my son...

The original site in 1914 covered hundreds of acres.  Something I have never seen before at a museum in an "Antenna Trail".

The trail was about 1km long and included the current HF antennas for the WA1WCC amateur station on the property and the remaining towers and tall poles used for the rhombic receiving antennas.

There were several historic radio systems on display.  Below is a 10KW CW transmitter typical of the what was used at the transmitting station.  The station operated full duplex with the transmitters 4 miles Northeast of this location which is the receiving location.  WCC originally used 20KW spark transmitters and was one of the first large stations to transition to CW.

The station in the photo below is an actual working station built in the late 1950's and used aboard the Hospital Ship USS Hope.  The station outputs a very conservative 200W and the museum regularly operates the station on 40M CW.

One of the trustees of the Museum suggested that I should go to the site of the very first Moon Bounce operation in New Jersey, "Project Dianna"  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Diana

He suggested he could arrange for me to activate my EME station at the site of this first Moon Bounce activation.  I may do this in late September.

Special thanks to the staff and trustees of the WCC for their hospitality, questions, and particularly the amazing stories they told about the history of Radio.