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Wanted: A Recording of a 1965-era WWV Signal

Aug 14

Written by: Paul McLane
8/14/2012 10:40 AM

Hey, radio history buffs! Here’s a note from a Radio World reader, maybe you can help.

Dear Mr. McLane,

I am hoping you can point me in the right direction to locate a recording I need for a documentary film we are producing about Robert Manry and his 1965 single-handed Atlantic crossing.

I need a recording of an authentic WWV time signal from that era (one he might have heard in 1965). It needs to be legible, but not necessarily clean; in other words, it can have a bit of static or hash, as long as it’s clear enough to understand.

I listened to a lot of shortwave radio on my Hallicrafters back then, and remember it well, but have not been able to find a vintage recording of the broadcast.

Manry did not carry a transceiver on his 1965 voyage, but there a few radio-related details that will add depth to the sound track. He used WWV and BBC time signals for setting his watches for navigation.

I also hope to find a recording of a “Victory Girl” distress transmitter — he demonstrates this at one point in the film he made; I haven’t yet determined if the SOS signal was automated or had to be keyed, but if there’s a recording I’d like to find one.

Interestingly, journalist Bill Jorgensen tracked Manry, a Cleveland Plain Dealer copy editor, down in mid-ocean and interviewed him, scooping Manry’s own colleagues. Manry had no idea that his little voyage had become an international news feeding frenzy and wasn’t aware that his paper’s reporters were awaiting his arrival in Falmouth. While racing back to England, Jorgensen made a ship-to-shore-to-phone patch call to Cleveland to send the news. So we’ll be constructing some sort of background sound track for that as well.

Anyone interested can find out more about the project at the Robert Manry Project website.

Thanks very much for any help you can give. A successful submission will receive a stock footage credit in the film.

Best regards,
Steve Wystrach

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5 comment(s) so far...

Re: Wanted: A Recording of a 1965-era WWV Signal

I was about to suggest that he simply tune into today's WWV, because the voice announcements are the same...but they're not. The difference is that prior to the 1966 move of WWV to Fort Collins from Beltsville, Maryland, the time announcements were for Eastern Standard Time. After the move, time announcements have been made in "Coordinated Universal Time." Good luck!

By Dan Roberts on 8/15/2012 12:17 PM

Re: Wanted: A Recording of a 1965-era WWV Signal

Are you sure that the distress transmitter you seek is really called a "Victory Girl"? Just about the only references I can find to a radio transmitter going by that name are in connection with Manry. On the other hand, there was a very famous SOS transmitter called the "Gibson Girl". They show up on Ebay from time to time, there is a Wikipedia page about them, and you can see numerous images of them through a Google image search. Hope this information was helpful.

By Earl Higgins on 8/15/2012 12:18 PM

Re: Wanted: A Recording of a 1965-era WWV Signal

Re; Earl Higgins post. You are correct. I just compared photos of the "Gibson Girl" with the photos Manry took, and they appear identical. He always referred to it as a "Victory Girl" in print and in filmed interviews. Thanks for helping to solve that mystery, because I've never been able to find any references to one other than his own.

So I'm looking for the sound of a "Gibson Girl". In a (silent) scene he filmed, he demonstrates using the device, handcranking it clockwise, while tapping out SOS on the black button on the front. Any idea what the automatic signal would have sounded like?
Thanks for the info.

By Steve Wystrach on 8/15/2012 1:46 PM

Re: Wanted: A Recording of a 1965-era WWV Signal

Somewhere around here, I have recordings from WWV from the 70s and possibly the 60s.. not sure. Back in 2009, I did this for the old W0KIE Satellite Radio Network:
recnet.net:8080/rec/audio/w0kie/tick_tock_techno-64k.mp3

Dan: The voice used today is different than even in the 1980s when the converted from the drum to the digital voice player.

By Michi Eyre on 8/25/2012 11:28 AM

Re: Wanted: A Recording of a 1965-era WWV Signal

If you need only the sound of a time station droning on, yes, a recording of today's WWV will be identical to that heard in 1965. The time might be off by a few seconds, drifting over the years, just a little. The voice announcement back then was an analog recording of a human. Today's voice is either a digital compilation of that voice, or completely synthesized, like the NOAA weather radio robot.