Evening Star Newspaper, September 6, 1931, Page 49

Thrilling Detective Drama of the Air Staged as United « States Government Ferrets Out and Closes Down 1I- legally Operated Vireless Stations Communicating With Sea Smugglers of Rum, Narcotics and Other - Contraband. BY JOHN L. COONTZ WARNING—Syndicates and rum runners operating illegal radio stations. You are hereby notified this day that I have just . placed in full operation one of the most ! powerful radio detective stations in the world and that the continuation of your operation in deflance of the law imperils your freedom. (Signed) ‘UNCLE SAM. ND if the violators of the radio laws of the country do not believe there are teeth in “them there words,” let them, as Patrick Henry said to George III, profit by the example of others. Uncle Sam has already run to earth several ‘“bootleg radio stations” through smaller detective stations than the one he has just put in operation. These stations, of which there are nine cr more scattered throughout the country, are very effective within local areas. But the new station will reach around the world. No broadcasting sta- tion in existence will be able to slip by its delicately tuned ears; no wcrds whispered, however low or audibly. But how dces Uncle Sam ferret out these stations? you ask. How can he locate in a small room in a certain quarter of a large city in a certain section of the country a radio station—a radio station that has not been licensed and, as we know, operating on an unassigned wave length? The detector station, called by Uncle Sam a monitoring station, which does the work is a powerful receiving station into which come radio signals from every direction. Men sit with receivers over their ears at large receiving sets which lock like ordinary telephone switch- boards and are tuned-in constantly to all that is going on in the ether. Stations are broad- casting everywhere. Call letters are falling after every signoff. Operators soon come to know stations instinctively. Suddenly, in the midst of all the activity going on overhead, there comess in to the care- fully attuned ear at the controls a broadcast that has the earmarks of an unfamiliar sta- tion. The operator reaches for his call-letter book. This book is a published list of all the licensed radio broadcasting stations in the United States and abroad. Thumbing it, he awaits for the call-letter signoff. Here it comes! Unknown, unfamiliar, unlicensed, un- recorded! The first step in the detective drama of the air has been taken. ARD work is now ahead for the radio ex- pert. Out of the ether he must pull that broadcast, measure the frequency of the elec- trical impulse which carries it and trace it to its lair. The search has all the thrills of a criminal hunt. It may lead anywhere. With the frailest information to work on, the radio genius must scent out his quarry—and that quarry may be thousands of miles away, or it may be just around the corner. Like the true detective, therefore, the oper- ator gets all' the voluntary information pos- sible on his case. He does not start right out, / ) THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D C., SEPTEMBER 6, 1931, “SILENCE— Commands Uflc{e Sam 'T'o Bootleg Radio Stations hop into a radio-equipped automobile and burn up the roads in the direction from which the broadcast comes. He waits, first, for more broadcasts. In a few days, perhaps the next day at the same hour or the next week day at the same hour, he will pick up the broadcast again. That helps him. The radio detective, therefore, makes note of all the characteristics of the unfamiliar broadcast. He notes the ability of the radio operator and such peculiarities as mark his transmission of messages. He notes whether the “bootleg broadcaster” follows the pro- cedure prescribed by international law govern- ing radio and radio regulations. Here is evi- dence that the station surely is an unlicensed . one. The next step of the radio detective is to see if he can “horn in” on the conversation— find out to whom the operator is talking. This requires that he catch, if he can, the call letters of the station being talked to, and the determination of the ease with which com- munication is had between the two. Com- munication that is easily established and car- ried on without interruption or interference between two suspected operators indicates close proximity of the mobile station to some other mobile station or master control station. The next step is to make a record of the conversation that has been listened to. Every call letter, signal, word or group of words passing between the two operators is jotted down. This is done for the purpose of de- coding the message which has passed through the ether, cipher and code being the two prin- ° cipal methods of communication between ille-. gally operated stations. Code, as generally understood, is a pronounceable group of let- ters; cipher, an unpronounceable group of let- ters or figures or a combination of both. The messages having been copied, the next step is to decode them. This falls to the lot of code experts and cipher experts of the radio service. If a message is too hard for them, it is turned over to special agents in the United States Department of Justice, whose business it is to solve such messages for that branch of the Government. It is the message that gives a clue to the kind of business engaged In by the illicit radio station. The station may be one belonging to a rum-running syndicate; one used to com- municate with ships bringing in cargoes of liquor from foreign ports, as was the case in Louisiana. Or it may be merely a station set up for tips as regards racing at some horse track or for smuggling diamonds, opium and other customs revenue goods and articles. In the meantime, radio experts are at work on running down the station through deter- mination of the direction from which the broadcast is coming. If the information gath- ered indicates that the broadcaster is com- municating with a ship at sea, it is pretty certain that the station is somewhere along the Atlantic Coast. On this basis the radio detective goes out after his “man.” He trun- dles out the radio-equipped automobile and lit- erally begins to cruise the area in the direc- tion fyom which the broadcast comes. Let us say the detector station is at Baltimore—in fact, there is one there at old Fort McHenry. Broadcasts intercepted indicate that the station sending is north and east. The radio car cuts the line of reception at right angles. As it cuts the line it works its way northward and eastward along it. As it draws near Philadel- phia the broadcast becomes stronger. This car ncw goes to the other side of Phila- delphia and works away from it. The broad- cast becomes fainter the farther it gets away Outside the 12-mile limit rum-runners load small boats with their illicit cargo and then send messages through the “bootleg” radio stations of the departure of the smaller boats. from the city. Here is evidence that the fMlegal station sending broadcasts out to sea is located somewhere in the City of Philadelphia. The question is, where? Some shore station is, per- haps, keeping liquor-smuggling ships informed of the time to come in; some liquor-laden shin tossing out on the Atlantic is radioing in 1's cargo and the spot where it is to bs met. Fn where in the city of millions is the st~ hidden? The radio detective with his car gets b-.. in the city as he has been in the country sin~ he left Baltimore. He picks up the broadcast again on the city’s paved street, in the hurlv- burly of trafic and the press of hundreds of thousands of human beings. At the same time agents of the Department of Justice are working secr=tly on the informa- tion already gleaned by the radio detector® The broadcast gradually narrows down to s certain secticn of the city. It comes closer. 1t draws down to a certain block in that section. Governm:nt agents swarm the block. Soon there is a quiet announcement that a rum ring has been unearthed in Philadelphia, that ar- rests have been made, that a radio station operating illegally has bcen discovered and dis- mantled. The capture cf an illegal radio station some- times takes several months. It is a slow, tedious process. The job is a typical shoestring one. TODAY there are about 60 illegal statfems, for the most part along the Atlantic Coast and the Gulf Coast, that the Government is cut to silence. How many of these are rum- runner stations is hard to say. About all that Uncle Sam knows is that they exist and that be is determined to silence them. That is one reason why h: has built his great detector station—or monitoring station—at Grand Island, Nebr. This station is built on the prairie far from the habitation of man. It is seven miles to the nearest city, Grand Island, and covers a 50-acre site. July saw it placed in full opera- tion. The reason why the lonely prairies of Nebraska were chosen for the site of this most powerful station lies in that very fact. For the best reception the loneliest spot must be chosen. Grand Island won over other sections because little or no man-made interference was there, no telegraph, no railroads, power lines or residences within three miles of the station. And further, because at this point foreign stations, as well as American, were regularly received in preliminary tests without difficulty. The station is capable of measuring all the usable frequencies in the radio spec- trum. During tests more than 300 broadcast sta- tions were received at Grand Island as well as a great number of other services in the United - States. Foreign stations received were from Chjle, Canada, Cuba, Portugal, France, Eng- land, the Philippine Islands, Hawaii, Argene tina, Peru, the Netherlands, Brazil, Panams, - Costa Rica, Nova Scotia, Russia and elsewhere thr‘mxghout the world. All of Uncle Sam’'s radio activity does not, howevef; have to do with ferreting out illegal stations engaged in smuggling operations. A great part of it, the greater part, has to do with keeping the ‘“old home set” getting the local station every night. j All broadcast stations in the United States are licensed—or should be. Those that are not . we have just dealt with. Those that are—well, they are supposed to stay in the radio channel assigned to them. But, like watches, they get off occasionally. The business of Uncle Sam, therefore, with these stations is to get them back in their channels. © ‘Grmericht. 1421.)