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The Human and Scientific Legacy of Project Diana

HAM RADIO - WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS

7/31/2020

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My father's ham shack adjoined the bedroom I shared with my sister Leslie when we were very young, so the soft beepity-beep of Morse code was as cozy and familiar to us as the sound of the furnace turning itself on and off or the hum of the vacuum cleaner. I've seen walk-in closets larger than that tiny room, but it had a window, and it was big enough for his rig, his telegraph key, and his QSL cards. It was also big enough for a crib, which had to be squeezed in when Sherry arrived in 1948, and the beeping became her lullaby.

​Perhaps this is why I've never minded machines that beep at me.
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Amateur radio had many progenitors - pioneers without whose inventions and discoveries it could not exist - not only iconic names like Maxwell, Hertz, Marconi, but also mavericks like Samuel Morse, an American portrait painter who in a moment of inspiration brilliantly stumbled into the concept of telegraphy - the original digital code.

But in the distinctive form we know today, ham radio dates back to the first decade of the twentieth century. It was then that the relevant equipment and components became commercially available (1904), the first magazine aimed at encouraging amateur radio and “home-brew” equipment, Modern Electrics, was launched (1908), the first amateur radio club, The Junior Wireless Club, Limited, of New York City, was formed (1909), and call letters or call signs came into use (1909). It was also then that the curious term “ham” entered the vocabulary - probably as a pejorative. as in "ham-fisted amateur", but it was eventually embraced by skilled operators who knew that the correct opposite of “amateur” was not “professional” but “commercial”; hams were doing it for love, not money.


Note that although in those early days (and even in my own childhood) Morse code was almost synonymous with ham radio, voice communication was also possible almost from the beginning.

In 1910 a bill introduced in the Senate to prohibit “amateur experimenting” was roundly defeated thanks to the lobbying efforts of the Junior Wireless Club. (A similar effort in 1919 to limit wireless communication to the Navy and exclude amateurs altogether was also quashed.) The succeeding decade saw the introduction of licensing (1912), frequency restrictions and operating instructions (driven in part by the shocking sinking of the Titanic in 1912), the regularization of call signs (1913), and the proliferation of ham jargon (boatanchor, ragchew), as well as CQ (“seek you” - an early version of texting shorthand) and the Q signs (QRZ [who are you?], QSO [did you hear me?], and dozens of other abbreviations that facilitated rapid coding). QSL cards confirming a contact, often quite creative and artistic, were first used in 1916 and became more standardized in content (sending and receiving call signs, date, time, frequency, mode of transmission, and signal report) in 1919.

All amateur radio activity was forbidden during World War I but sprang back when the War ended. By 1920 there were around 6,000 licensed hams including a handful of women (officially dubbed "YL" - Young Ladies - by the American Radio Relay League in 1920; yes, really). In 1923, following assignment to the "useless" higher (short-wave) frequencies by the government, amateur radio operators accomplished the “impossible” - dependable wireless communication between the US and Europe using relatively low power. DX - hamspeak for sending messages over long distances - had truly been achieved.
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My father was licensed as an Amateur Class radio operator in 1929, when he was fourteen years old. His call sign was W2AXO, in accordance with an elaborate lettering and numbering system indicating that he resided in New York. My mother always insisted, though I cannot prove it, that he was the youngest person to be licensed at the time. Of course, records are made to be broken, and many younger hams have been licensed since then, including some as young as five years old. 
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Radio Club, Brooklyn Technical High School. King Stodola, front row left
To earn a license in those days, a candidate had to complete an essay-type question and demonstrate his or her (mostly his) ability to tap out at least ten words per minute before a Radio Inspector at a field office of the Department of Commerce. ​Radio clubs like the one my father belonged to at Brooklyn Tech (see photo) were formed in high schools not only to provide members with the opportunity to practice their Morse code skills and prepare for the licensing exam but also to learn to build and repair the equipment they used. These clubs with their obvious geek appeal were a natural nursery for engineers, and it's hardly surprising that three of the five members of the core Project Diana team - DeWitt, Stodola, and Kauffman - were hams.

Any opportunities my father and his colleagues might have had for pursuing or sharing this interest during their years with the Signal Corps, however, were cut off a month after the attack on Pearl Harbor, when as in World War I, all ham radio licenses were suspended to prevent spying. (An exception was made for VHF operations on 112 MHz by around 250 hams who were part of the War Emergency Radio Service.) Because of a clash over postwar frequency allocations - mainly between radio titans Armstrong (FM Broadcasting) and Sarnoff (RCA/NBC TV), but also threatening access by amateur radio (represented by ARRL) - US hams were not allowed back on the air until November of 1945. 
The success of Project Diana two months later captured the imaginations of hams everywhere. Project Diana is still revered in ham radio circles as the locus classicus of a popular form of amateur radio communication known as Earth-Moon-Earth. EME involves the use of the moon to relay radio signals from one station on earth to another - the main difference, conceptually trivial, being that the object of Project Diana was to return the outgoing signal to its point of origin. By the end of the 1950s, military use of the moon, a direct outgrowth of Project Diana, was discontinued in favor of the newly-developed artificial satellite technology, and EME became available for use by amateurs. 

The amateur radio community has participated in and benefited from satellite technology as well, in the form of satellites built by and for the amateur radio community, starting with OSCAR I (Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio) in 1961 and continued by AMSAT, an umbrella designation for amateur radio satellite organizations all over the world. AMSAT launched its first satellite in 1970; its most recent satellite was put into orbit in 2018.

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When the Stodolas moved from New Jersey to Long Island in 1956, my father set up his ham equipment in his den and erected an elaborate wooden structure that my brother Bob dubbed the "Eiffel tower," somewhat to the detriment of Bob's backyard ballgames. I was too preoccupied with navigating my own adolescence during those years to pay close attention to what went on in the den, though I remember occasional boring (to me) conversations with other hams comparing their respective Memorial Day parades or Fourth of July fireworks displays. My father also added mobile capability during that period, and Bob recalls endless hours of riding in the car listening to his CQ calls. And although he seldom used Morse code anymore, he always kept a telegraph key with his gear "just in case." 

In the 1970s, CB started to fill the niche that had been occupied by ham radio in my father's life, and call sign "W2AXO mobile" was joined if not replaced by his CB handle "Road King." By then he was living in Florida, and CB was in its heyday. Because CB had no licensing requirements, it offered a larger if less selective field of prospective contacts and a built-in conversation topic of mutual interest to nearby drivers (though as Bob remarked, it's impossible to imagine our dad saying, "Hey, good buddy, there’s a smoky near exit 5...”). He had also started using a computer by this time, and I don't think he ever again set up a station in his home.
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Because of the trend in amateur communications to use voice or digital technologies, but perhaps also with a nudge from the popularity of CB, the Morse code requirement was dropped for technician (entry level) licenses in 1991 and for all classes of licensure in 2007. Although purists lamented the loss of what had once been the hallmark of ham radio, the source (to many of them) of its cachet, the removal of this hurdle gave the hobby a much-needed boost, and applications for new or upgraded licenses increased substantially. 

Nevertheless, among the questions that pop up upon googling relate to the relevance of ham radio in an age of digital technology, whether it can survive, and even does it still exist? That last one is easy - yes, it definitely still exists. ARRL still registers over 3/4 million licensed hams in the US, with over two million more worldwide. Facebook groups on ham and amateur radio have many tens of thousands of members who contribute hundreds of posts per day.

Questions about the future and relevance of ham radio are more problematical. After all, many of the things that today’s older hams could do when they were young that seemed so magical at the time - phone calls around the world! free! - can now be done using cell phones, no training or license required.

Does ham radio have a future? Despite the healthy census of licensed hams, many are admittedly getting long of tooth, and efforts to recruit younger members via field days, Scout merit badges, or connecting them with “Elmers” (mentors) typically yield only a few new enthusiasts, and even those often fall away after the initial excitement fades.


Is this really a legitimate worry? One ham, after browsing through amateur radio magazines of the 1940's and 1950's, commented on complaints about the lack of youngsters taking up the hobby: "It seems to have been a 'new' problem for a long time." ​To be sure, it is the kind of activity that will always have a specialized and limited audience - STEM types who also like activities with a hands-on component - but isn't that also part of its appeal?  

If the goal of recruitment is to enable the hobby to continue unchanged, frozen in amber, it is almost certainly doomed. If on the other hand the activity is encouraged to evolve, while retaining its central focus on electromagnetic theory and communications - and on engineering new and clever ways to bring them together - then there is less reason for despair. Tell them that the new software-defined radios (SDRs) have enhanced signal processing and detection capabilities for both receivers and transmitters, bringing ham radio fully into the computer age. Tell them they don't need a pricy transceiver, that low-cost "hand-helds," in conjunction with repeaters that pick up weak signals and amplify them to extend their reach, will let them make contact and join networks on the go. Tell them about AMSAT and point out that Elon Musk isn't the only one who can send communications satellites into space. Tell them that almost all astronauts have ham licenses so that they can educate classroom and museum groups about their mission, or just call home, while circling the globe.  

Worries that children will give up hamming when they discover cars and sex strike me as misplaced. Isn't that often the way with childhood interests? I gave up piano lessons when I was fourteen, over my parents' protests, but have returned to music again and again at various times in my life and am grateful for the pleasure it has brought me over the years. And my husband Ovide, who was licensed in his teens only to stop altogether during his career-building years (though he credits the basic electronic knowledge he acquired as a ham with enabling him to set up his lab), resumed and greatly upscaled his ham activity after retirement. (See below for the long version.)

And why limit recruitment to kids? It's a hobby that can be taken up and enjoyed anytime in life. Women in particular, who might have missed out on amateur radio as children because it seemed to be so exclusively a boy-thing, would seem to represent an obvious target for recruitment (preferably with an updated vocabulary in which women hams are hams, not YLs!) and might even bring some fresh new perspectives to the field. 

What better time to promote a "nerd-magnet" than when Silicon Valley is "cool"? What better time to drum up interest in a new hobby, one you can work on alone if necessary, than in the midst of a pandemic? 


Is ham radio relevant in the age of cell phones and social media? If you're looking for meaningful communication with your fellow humans, try random dialing your cell phone and see what that gets you. Or try having an in-depth conversation on Twitter. And yet hams calling CQ can readily connect with technologically sophisticated people all over the world.

The answer most often offered, however, is the importance of ham radio to civil defense. When faced with a disaster, we rely heavily on a complex network of cell towers that could fail or become overloaded under extreme adverse conditions. Amateur radio, operating independently of this fragile infrastructure, can be counted on - as hams like to say - "when all else fails." This was the rationale for the War Emergency Radio Service (WERS) during World War II, as noted, and for the formation of Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES) in 1952, developed within government agencies as a volunteer public service to maintain communications in times of extraordinary need. ARRL also maintains its own civil defense unit, called the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES).

Arguably, the need to produce new generations of people with the skills required to respond in times of crisis is in itself a reason for attracting young people to the hobby. Tell them it's their chance to be a genuine superhero!

Though “when all else fails” usually refers to a breakdown of infrastructure due to weather, war, earthquake, or other major emergencies, a less dramatic instance of ham radio being the available technology occurred in my own family in 1962 when my sister Leslie spent the summer as an exchange student in Chile. Because telephone calls were prohibitively expensive, my dad suggested she call her family at home by visiting a ham friend of her host family who would then make contact with an American ham who could then phone my parents - awkward, but better than nothing for a homesick teenager.
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During his long quiescence as a ham, Ovide had kept his license active. So when shortly after our retirement the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum sent out an appeal to all local hams for help in setting up a ham radio station for kids, he expressed his interest, and a seed was planted. Not long after, we went to visit an old friend from my Northport High School days, who just happened to be dating the owner and editor of a popular ham magazine. Our new acquaintance lured Ovide to his ham shack, which Ovide as a licensed ham could legally operate, and sent him home with a backpack full of books on antenna design.

Suddenly, much of the energy and brainpower Ovide had thrown into his scientific research was diverted not only to the study of radio equipment and antenna design, but to electromagnetic theory, astrophysics, meteorology, and other such esoterica. Fortunately, his XYL (ex Young Lady - cringe - that is, his wife), having grown up surrounded by receivers and transmitters and steeped in the lore of Project Diana, wasn't fazed by the prospect of investing in an office full of radio equipment or planting a hex beam next to the house.

It turned out to be the perfect hobby, combining his fascination with electromagnetism and radio propagation with his extrovert's love of interesting and wide-ranging conversation (and no, it isn't all about radio equipment or whose tower is taller!). He has now talked with hams in 165 countries and counting, including a commercial airline pilot flying 40,000 feet over the North Pole enroute to China and a lonely sailor in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on a solo trip around the world. Some of his contacts are brief, but others are extensive and repeated, occasionally blossoming into genuine friendship.

Meanwhile, finding myself immersed once again in all things ham, I did a little research and discovered that no one had claimed my father's callsign since 1992, the year he became a "Silent Key" (SK). So I signed up for HamTestOnline, a self-paced programmed-learning course, spent a couple of weeks intensively cramming, and presented myself to the Witch's Hat Depot in South Lyon, Michigan to qualify for the technician (entry-level) license. The exam itself consisted of 35 multiple choice items drawn from a pool of 400 questions, so there were no surprises; the only thing that varied was the order in which the answer choices were presented, to prevent a test-taker from memorizing only the letters associated with each question.


As of March, 2011, the proud old call sign W2AXO is now back in Stodola hands, waiting for a member of the next generation to take up the mantle. But don't expect to find me by calling CQ; I'm happy to leave broadcasting to my more gregarious husband.
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when edwin met beatrice

7/2/2020

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The history of the Stodola family in the United States began with my grandfather's grandparents, who were part of a wave of German immigration in the mid 19th century in response to war and turmoil in Europe. A subset, like Henry ('Hy,” which likely started off as Chaim) and Barbara Stodola, were Ashkenazi Jews who in addition to fleeing civil unrest were seeking to escape antisemitic persecution. Hy arrived in Boston from Prussia on July 21, 1849, and then made his way to New York City. Barbara arrived a few years later; they must have met and married in New York. Their first child, Malia, was born in 1855, their second, my great grandfather Joseph, was born in 1858, followed by Lena in 1860 and Samuel in 1862. In the 1870 census, Hy's occupation was listed as "baker." Barbara died in 1908, by then a widow.

On May 29, 1881, Joseph, a dry goods merchant, married Bertha Eilau. Joseph and Bertha had three children, Gilbert Isaiah (born in 1883), my grandfather Edwin Sidney (born in 1885), and Ruth, the baby (born in 1892). Gilbert listed himself as an editorial assistant on his World War I draft card but also stood as proof of a scientific bent in the family, having published an article in the January 1923 edition of the Scientific American about an ingenious device he’d invented for installation in taxicabs to allow the fleet owner to determine the time and distance covered in each trip. So my father’s engineering abilities and love of gadgets, though they probably surprised his artistic parents, apparently didn’t come from out of nowhere.

My grandfather must have displayed a gift for music early in life and was evidently encouraged to pursue it. By the time he was in his late teens or early twenties, he had achieved critical acclaim as a concert artist, including the obligatory Carnegie Hall recital, and was also working as a piano teacher. His advanced training included six years under the tutelage of Henry Holden Huss - largely forgotten now, but in his day a well-known American pianist and composer, and performances of his pieces can still be readily heard on youtube. They evince a conservative taste in music and are quite free of avant grade rhythms and dissonances. (It is worth remembering that Brahms lived until 1897, when my grandfather was age 12 and Henry was age 35, so the romantic tradition was hardly ancient history during that era.) The Henry Holden Huss collection is housed in the Music Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

I’m not sure when these six years of study with Huss began and ended. My family “archives” includes a tattered photo of Henry Holden Huss and his wife, the American soprano Hildegard Hoffmann (clearly a marriage made in HHHeaven!), dedicated on the reverse “To my dear pupil Edwin Stodola” and dated June ’04. Or at least I think it says ’04. If so, it was likely a token or souvenir of Henry and Hildegard’s marriage, which took place in that same month and year, and the six years my grandfather studied with him must have included if not started with 1904.
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At the end of his training with Huss - shall we guess around 1910? - my grandfather left his native New York to join the faculty of a conservatory in St. Joseph, Missouri. It was sometime during this period that he met my grandmother, a native of Missouri. Did they become acquainted after he arrived there, or did he meet her elsewhere and move there to be near her? I cannot say.

(Florence) Beatrice King, born in 1889 in Savannah, Missouri, was the doted-upon only child of Arthur and Vergetta Sayers King. Like Edwin, she found her calling early in life and participated in theatrical performances as a child. Her training was in a profession that almost doesn't exist today, as an elocutionist or diseuse; perhaps the closest modern equivalent would be a performance artist. After finishing her secondary education she attended the Chicago Conservatory of Music and Dramatic Art, followed by postgraduate work at the Columbia College of Expression and the American School of Expression and Oratory. She then returned to Missouri and coached students in drama and public speaking. She also painted and wrote poetry and plays. She was sociable and effervescent and had a wide circle of friends. She must have dazzled the quiet Edwin.
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Beatrice, age 9, costumed for a theatrical performance.
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Beatrice on her wedding day, January 11, 1913.
Edwin and Beatrice married in St. Joseph on January 11, 1913. It was clearly a love match, but one that came at great personal cost to my grandfather. When he proposed to my grandmother, her parents, after duly inquiring about his moral character - probably of Henry Holden Huss! - welcomed him into their family. His parents, however, were unable to accept this connection, and sadly all contact ceased.
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One of my most treasured souvenirs is a charming brochure assembled by Beatrice and Edwin, apparently to help in recruiting students. This brochure, with a “Beatrice” column and an “Edwin” column, is actually the source of much of what I know about both my grandparents’ training. Since the brochure lists my grandmother’s name as Beatrice King Stodola, it must have been published shortly after their wedding. (In fact it might even have replaced an earlier version that did not include my grandmother’s married name.)

Not long after, their Missouri saga came to an end, and by the time my father was born in October of 1914, they were living in Brooklyn. 
Now that my grandfather was back in New York, I wish I could report a reconciliation with his parents, but alas, that did not happen, then or ever. Edwin’s brother Gilbert, so far as I can tell, never married, and his sister Ruth, marrying late in life, never had children. So my father and (later) his two younger brothers were Joseph and Bertha's only grandchildren. My grandmother made a couple of valiant attempts to visit her in-laws, hoping the sight of their adorable little grandson would melt their hearts, but she was not invited in. Only now, through the miracle of ancestry.com, am I slowly piecing together my grandfather’s story and even tracking down a few cousins on the Stodola side.​

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Upon returning to New York City along with his bride, my grandfather resumed his association with Henry Holden Huss and Hildegard Hoffman Huss in the capacity of "pupil-assistant" of both, which apparently included serving as an accompanist for their other students.

This ushered in what might be called the Golden Age of my grandfather’s career, as a google search turns up several reviews of concerts and recitals in which he played pieces I could only dream of tackling. The oboist and musicologist Lisa Kozenko, in a doctoral dissertation focused on this era, describes “a musical reception in honor of the American baritone David Bispham (1857-1921) along with the Husses. The guests included the Vincent Astors, Carolyn Beebe, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, the Hermann Irions, Hugo Kortschak, Mrs. Ethelbert Nevin, and others. In its April 7, 1917 issue, Musical America reported that Huss was asked to improvise ('A thing which he does fascinatingly'). His student Edwin Stodola suggested “D B” as theme honoring Bispham: 'It was on that that Mr. Huss built his splendid improvisation, which won warm favor from all present.'”
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So we have now arrived at the May 6, 1918 concert in Rumford Hall and my grandparents’ subsequent move to Boston, as described in my most recent blog post. Although I concluded in that essay that they had not moved to escape the pandemic, they almost certainly also did not move to advance Edwin’s career as a concert artist; if anything, probably the opposite. Although Boston was once the hub of the national chamber music scene, the center of gravity had by now shifted to New York City. Had he been bent on pursuing a concertizing career, my grandfather should have stayed put and remained under the wing of the Husses.  

“Being a musician is not an easy profession in any era,” wrote Kozenko in her dissertation. "[By 1920], the competition from radio, recordings, jukeboxes and movies confronted anyone attempting to pursue a career in music.” The May 6 concert appears to have been almost a swan song. With a growing family and a pandemic emptying concert halls, he had likely decided it was time to shelve the dream of supporting his family as a musician and move on to a different life plan. 

This is not to say that he abandoned music altogether. Performances in Boston included a musical accompaniment to a lecture on “The Relationship of Poetry and Music” by my grandmother at the Boston Public Library in April, 1922; piano music in a radio broadcast in October, 1922, "Rhymes and Music for Little Folks," also featuring readings by my grandmother. Similar notices appeared occasionally in the Kingsport Times during their few years in Tennessee, where he ran a print shop. His 1957 obituary states that in addition to teaching and concertizing, he served as director of music for the [New York] Veterans Administration, where he assisted in the training of veterans studying music at Columbia University, Juilliard, City College, and New York University.

But there is nothing to suggest that he ever gave up his day jobs, in which he used his keyboard skills as a “typewriter” and a printer. Music had become an avocation.

Despite the disappointments that beset them, theirs was a happy union. My grandfather was a gentle man and a gentleman, quiet and reserved, but he never passed my grandmother's chair without touching her shoulder. He even enjoyed "helping" her with her garden, which mostly consisted of planting seeds and pulling weeds under her direction. 

By the time I knew him, his hands were rusty with arthritis and disuse, and he had grown hard of hearing. He never willingly played the piano in my presence, and when he was cajoled by my grandmother into accompanying family musicales it was clear to me even as a child that his skills had sadly atrophied. Yet so far as I know, he was content with his lot.
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    CINDY STODOLA POMERLEAU

    I was just shy of 3 years old when the US Army successfully bounced radar waves off the moon - the opening salvo in the Space Race, the birth of radioastronomy, and the first Earth-Moon-Earth (EME) communication. I was born on the Jersey coast for the same reason as Project Diana: my father, as scientific director of the Project, was intimately involved in both events. Like Project Diana, I was named for the goddess of the moon (in my case Cynthia, the Greeks' nickname for Artemis - their version of Diana - who was born on Mt Cynthos). Project Diana is baked into my DNA.

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