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Nation's last morse code station comes back to life

With the way most 'high-tech' radio stations have treated the 'call letters / city of license' FCC requirement like we treat junk mail, I find it curious that nowhere I've tuned in have I heard something like
. _ _ _ _ . _ _ . . _ . . _ _ . . . . _ , . _ . _ . _ .. . . . _ . . . _ . . . _ . . .

(WQDD Girardville)

the way a wee licensed station some friends had up this way years ago used each hour. It used the regular, spoken ID, of course. That gave the calls, COL, and 'serving (three other localities in the signal area)', and ran :08. Often we'd use it to nail the vocal of a song. But the series of those long distance / short wave image beeps, moderately punched to run discreetly for :14 seconds, were sheer added image. The station was easy listening Standards that was designed to sound like some tropical grass hut on a shore for 9 months, and a log cabin chalet for three in winter. Same music all year.
The small WQDD used them just for added effect -- a bit of nostalgia style, so no problem there. For example, WTIC in Hartford CT, instead of a TOH time tone, uses that reassuring, quirky 4-beep Beethoven's 5th riff.
Now, from what I've heard and read, Morse Code ID's on FCC licensed stations are valid and legal. It would seem possible for some stations to actually ID the station that way if they desired.
So many radio ads regale patience with senselessly auctioneered obedience to the disclaimer mandates. Many bury the calls and some distasteful, tertiary, shoehorned COLs as quickly as can be arranged in compliant disgust. So why not give an equally rapid-fire, super World War 2 'fist' of a legal Morse ID instead? The five or six seconds it would take could be mixed with or under anything ; music, jingles, disclaimers, show-theme pads ..... would tend to stand out and cause some curiosity ..... and (engineers here, pls?) might benefit AM radio stations. Especially at DX time, hi.
I pose that last muse as a question, because those solid 100% modulation tones really cut through the clutter on DX tests (I think the 800 hz ones are more incisive than the 1000 hz ones are, but that's by the by).
Engineers here: Just curious. Would PPM meters in a moving NYC car tuned to a shoehorned Class A *FM* frequency with alternating and oft-overlapping signals -- 92.7, 94.3, 107.1 and the like -- and given that all are PPM encoded when they transmit -- tend to respond, recognize, and count a tone more readily than other music or voice audio?

In any event, God Bless KPH. The @$$umption here is that they'll be starting at 8:01 EDST, so I should find a decent SW radio between now and then.
 
Surely you must know that that "quirky Beethoven riff" was the World War II "V for Victory," don't you? The BBC used it first, and continued using it for years after the war on several of its shortwave services.
 
CTListener said:
Surely you must know that that "quirky Beethoven riff" was the World War II "V for Victory," don't you? The BBC used it first, and continued using it for years after the war on several of its shortwave services.
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VVV is also used as a test transmission.
 
AH....the good old days.

When I went to USN Radio 'A' school in 1962 we were required to learn Morse code up to 25 WPM (a 'word' was considered 5 characters). Once in the fleet though everything was encrypted teletype. Never used code except to practice. My toughest speed was 14 WPM for some odd reason. I aced every test with the exception of 25 WPM when I missed one character. Doubt I could do that today.
 
Back in the early 2000's I was building a 50kW AM station with a four-tower directional that had something like 340kW into the main lobe. When testing the site at night, I emailed the National Radio Club the test schedule that after midnight I'd be switching between DA and Non-D modes. The only audio I ran during the tests was a loop of the call letters and coordinates in 10 WPM CW with a one-minute pause between.
 
Cool. I'll have to tune in and listen some time tonight. Looks like they're using the K6KPH call, in the 80, 40, 20, 17, and 15 Meter Bands.
 
boombox4 said:
Cool. I'll have to tune in and listen some time tonight. Looks like they're using the K6KPH call, in the 80, 40, 20, 17, and 15 Meter Bands.
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Since the story is from a West Coast newspaper, I assume that the 5:01 p.m. start mentioned within is Pacific Daylight Time. So I'll be listening starting in about three hours here in New England. It's 4:54 p.m. now.
 
WAND-TV Decatur, Ill., once operated a repeater in Danville on channel 70, I think, that gave a morse code ID every hour. It might have been the only ID.
 
CTListener said:
Since the story is from a West Coast newspaper, I assume that the 5:01 p.m. start mentioned within is Pacific Daylight Time. So I'll be listening starting in about three hours here in New England. It's 4:54 p.m. now.
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I was thinking the same. I tuned in maybe 10-15 minutes before 11 p.m. here (PDT) on 7050 & 14050, didn't hear anything. Static on 14050 and a couple California hams (with W calls) on 7050. So I guess I missed the action. I didn't try the 80M frequency, though.

I did hear an Australian guy on the NSW / VIC border talking to US stations on 20 Meters, though (VK2VH, 14260 kHz). He was about S4 on a scale of S1-S5. Pretty cool to hear. I suppose that was a decent consolation. The 20 M band otherwise was strangely dead, though. There was some DX -- some unid. EU stations, possibly French or Russian, sending superfast CW in the lower reaches of the CW section of the band (I couldn't read the callsign). Amazingly few signals overall, though.
 
In the early '80s I was in Washington DC. I drove to Annapolis (over a much more modest road than it is today) and was completely blown away by the delightful spectacle of Greenbury Point Naval Communications Station. One of those "almost drive off the road" moments that happen when a radio person sees towers.
 
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boombox4 said:
I was thinking the same. I tuned in maybe 10-15 minutes before 11 p.m. here (PDT) on 7050 & 14050, didn't hear anything. Static on 14050 and a couple California hams (with W calls) on 7050. So I guess I missed the action. I didn't try the 80M frequency, though.

I did hear an Australian guy on the NSW / VIC border talking to US stations on 20 Meters, though (VK2VH, 14260 kHz). He was about S4 on a scale of S1-S5. Pretty cool to hear. I suppose that was a decent consolation. The 20 M band otherwise was strangely dead, though. There was some DX -- some unid. EU stations, possibly French or Russian, sending superfast CW in the lower reaches of the CW section of the band (I couldn't read the callsign). Amazingly few signals overall, though.
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I tried around midnight Eastern on the 80, 40 and 20 meter frequencies on two WebSDRs (Utah and Pennsylvania) and heard nothing. You're right, the bands were dead. For a sunspot cycle peak, this has been a very disappointing summer for shortwave reception due to the frequent solar flares. But even when the sun is normally active and not spewing torrents of sun stuff our way, 10 meters, which is usually jumping during cycle peaks, has been poor. 20 meters at night has been the most active band, I've found.
 
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