When Winter Field Day was a YL lifestyle

Fantastic look back at what our future may be. Not so crazy to envision a day when cell phones don't work and the copper wire infrastructure of POTS (plain old telephone service) fails. Stories like this along with those of WWII resistance radio operators are an inspiration to continue being prepared for the worst.

 

Need more of this and less of other things to get back in touch with reality!!!

 

I'm always fascinated of stories from people who must endure harsh weather, and the radio is the lifeline to civilization. What a story. Thanks.

 

Thanks so much to W0PV for posting this fascinating story. I am old enough to remember BTV (Before TV) when we all listened to the radio. Even after we had a TV, listening to radio was much more exciting to me as a youngster growing up. (Of course there were only a few programs on the TV for a few hours a day. Now we have several hundred channels to choose from and most of it on demand). I was lucky to have shortwave on the family radio and that led to getting me in Ham Radio. Fascinating that the nearby, or as near as they could be to these people, commercial broadcast station broadcast messages to them and even had a scheduled show for them for a time.

A special Thank You to KP4SX for finding the teacher's call sign. (I would have spent hours searching old call books for that).

This really makes you appreciate how easy most of us have it today. I don't think I could ever have done that. I spent many formative years (ages 6-12) in Buffalo, NY and the winters there were as terrible as I ever want to see. These people were truly brave and hearty pioneers and show the greatness of the people that in little ways helped make our country what it is today. The Parks website is full of books and videos about life in this harsh environment from the first settlers until modern times. Dorothy's Diary is the only book listed with multiple printings. It is now in its' 5th printing, showing how interesting her writing and observations about life were.

73,
Tom AJ4XM

 

Thanks Tom and to all for the kind words. Very glad others enjoy this story as much as I do.

Special kudos to Bill @KP4SX for searching out Dorothy's call sign W9LFP so quickly. I was stymied by that and it certainly adds a great deal of extra meaining to the saga. Apparently she did not maintain her license very long as her two student girls are still seen in call books much later.

I noted and also wanted to comment about the use of commercial pubic broadcasts in a non-real-time yet still interactive mode of communications of vital info with the amateurs. They coordinated with WHDF in Houghton MI.

Surely there are still many of us Boomers from northern states that remember fondly as I do getting up early after a blizzard and tuning to the local AM station, in my case clear channel big gun WCCO, listening intently for SCHOOL CLOSINGS

The Isle Royale YL's were probably using CW Morse code for communication with W9YX which in turn relayed messages by whatever appropriate means. Certainly this was real-time interactive and traffic passed bidirectionally, but some info came via the alternative path as mentioned in entries such as December 10 and December 25, 1932. This mode was utilized and depended upon so much to evoke the following entry later,

January 29, 1933
Well, today is a black and sorrowful day for all of us for at 1 o’clock we heard that WHDF is to be closed Tuesday night, for three months, probably permanently. It was like hearing of a death in the family.

WHDF, which allegedly started in 1929, is now WCCY on 1400 KHz AM, still going strong. It's azimuth antenna pattern shown on Radio-Locator barely makes it over to Isle Royale!



Lastly, way at the end of my OP, easily missed, is a link to a PDF of Wireless Weekly, that contains mention of the YL's own radio production, here is the full text of that,

2CH 8.0 "GIST" PLAY. No. 6. THE MOOSE OF ISLE ROYAL Most people think of an amateur radio operator as a boy In short trousers. or else as a scientific sort of fellow with a hankering altar gadgets. If that's YOUR picture, you can change It now, because the story contained In this night's episode Is about two YL's. In the language of the "Ham." YL means Young Lady, standing for any female operator who isn't married. To -night's YL's are Violet and Vivien Johnson (sic), still going to school, who own and operate station W9PCU. at Chippewa Harbor on Isle Royal, way out In the middle of Lake Superior. off the north coast of Michigan. and the session tells the true story of how they saved the lives of a valuable herd of game starving in the icy wastes. PRODUCTION-DION WHEELER.

73, John, WØPV

 

"I'm trying to remember the name of a book I read circa 1958 or there abouts. It was a story about a young male ham on Isle Royal who talked to the radio ops on the iron ore carriers on Lake Superior. Does this jog any memories?
Thanks and 73, de Garry W0ELH"

Sorry, I don't know how to post a quote so I just copied and pasted Garry's post.

I remember that book! My mom got it for me from the library when I was a kid. The book is entitled "Isle Royale Calling" by Helen Cloutier, W8GJX published in 1957. It's a mainly children's book with many references to ham radio. A full description can be found on Amazon. I also remember all the books by Walker Tompkins. They all bring back fond memories and a lifelong hobby.

73, Kirk K9WW

 

Another fascinating biography! It seems at that time the Upper Peninsula of Michigan was a breeding ground for adventurous and high achieving YL's !

As she (Helen) stated..."Ham radio, a bigamist (!), two husbands, many hobbies, some which later became a part of my '17' careers, any one of which could have been a life's work." A dancer, hair dresser, amateur radio operator, author, commercial radio ticket, free-lance writer, commercial radio broadcaster, photographer, educator, teaching, painting – College Grad, Motorola writer & music.

Check out the online tributes for Helen W8GJX,

http://hamgallery.com/Tribute/W8GJX/

http://www.oldqslcards.com/W8GJX.pdf

 

It as my privilege to know Helen toward the end of her life when she was living in Manistee, MI. I would occasionally go and visit her and share a cup of tea. She would laugh at me for running a bug with my left hand and writing with my right.

I believe that the local repeater still bears her W8GJX call

 

Wow - great Michigan history. Thanks.

 

The "lost comet" was wrongly blamed for bad propagation, but not much was known about the ionosphere then.
1932-1935 was at the solar cycle minimum, so HF/MF propagation would have been less than optimum for Dorothy W9LFP in Isle Royale.
It took a lot of skill and work for a radio operator to keep a station like that on the air.
The prime modes for hams then were AM phone or CW morse.
AM phone would have been quite difficult using low power (less than a kilowatt).

 

One other tidbit of INFO that a "AUSTRALIAN" group of EXPLORERS (MAWSON)@ the (So. Pole) had setup a CW station to work the scientists back in Australia in "1903"!!! But transmitting in the (2000 meter region) was definitely NOT ALWAYS RELIABLE !!! :-/

 

Great Article!
AF4RK

 

Great story, today we have many other ways to communicate with each other
that we forget how the beginnings were.
It would be excellent to tell these stories to our children.

KD2SKC