Communications on the waterways

Great info about the "Dark Ages" of communication on the river. And I also remember the lines at the dockside phone booths. I would usually head up the hill for a post office phone where there was no line. To find a post office, look for the American flag. I don't think they put phones in post offices any more.

Before cell phones, etc.

Thanks for that great site Bob, haven't had time to read through it but just the home page shows its scope. And those telephone lines(of people) that Lexie mentioned: I kept a log book of my DQ trips, and one of the essential notations was where the pay phones were. As a passenger, I usually had a head start to them over the crew, but I tried to find some that were farther away from the boat that wouldn't have crew lines. Back in those days, I had an ATT long distance card, so no money would be needed, just punch in several hundred digits plus the phone number, and you were connected. One time in Cairo, there was such a crew line at the only obviously available phone, that I went into an insurance agency and asked if there were any other phones in town. When they found out I had the charge card, and was a passenger on the DQ, they told me I could use their phone - only they escorted me into a large back office that was the owner's! I told them to come down to the boat and I'd show them around later, which they did. Oh, the good old days when we could do that! Every time after that, I'd head to the airconditioned insurance office with DQ souvenirs and made my phone calls in comfort. Just think, sometimes we went a whole 48 hours without contacting anyone by phone - how did we survive... my main purpose for taking my first DQ trip was to get away completely from being able to do anything for work. That would be impossible now...

Cap'n Kelly's Call

Communications using the Marine Radio Operator service were crude by today’s ease of phoning home. Of course, everyone on any nearby boat within radio range would also switch over to the same channel and listen-in to the entire conversation. Sometimes those calls could get pretty personal and often racy; especially when the old boy on the boat had been away from home for a while and either was missing the other in a special way. Often the calls told of tragedy such as a death in the family. Whatever was on the air, everyone in the area shared in the news-- both good and bad.

Captain Albert Kelly lived in Louisville and he always called his daughter on the marine radio channel as the DELTA QUEEN was unbound at McAlpine Lock to have her meet him at the landing at the foot of 4th Street when the boat tied up. On one particular trip, as Kelly was anxiously awaiting a return call from home, he kept his ear closely glued to the radio for an indication that the operator was calling, when, suddenly, the floating bollard gave a loud squawk. Believing the operator was on the line, Captain Kelly, eighty-some years of age, sprang from his tall chair, grabbed the handset, and yelled back,

"Y...E...E...S...S...S...S!!!!"

Captain Roddy Hammett loved to tell and re-tell this story, but he, of course, mimicked Kelly’s voice and actions exactly in the comically-amusing way the scene played out in the pilothouse on that long-ago day in McAlpine Lock.

I dunno Judy, I just told the city that the boat was out of cell range, seemed to work--actually, their coverage is so bad , we WERE often out of cell range!!
And then, of course, the phone fell behind the dresser, and I left it on the boat!! OOOOOPS!
S'
David D.
PS That's another benefit of "brown water" sailing--no contact with the outside world. . .Though I do suffer from email withdrawal!

When I made my first deckhand trips in 1941-42, a very few boats carried radios, generally using Morse code. When we needed something somebody, usually the captain, went up the hill to find a telephone. I remember going to the Sinnott Hotel in Paducah with the captain. He was looking for an Ohio River trip pilot. I was kept busy finding quarters for the long-distance calls. Other than shore phones communication was by whistle, hand signals or yelling. Lights and whistles were used at locks.

Captain Paul Underwood loved to tell this tale. On a trip to Chattanooga on the Gordon C. Greene, C. W. Stoll, fictitious third clerk, was sent up the hill to make a call in Decatur, Alabama, by Captain Tom Greene. He was riding deadhead on a ten-day river cruise. When he came back to the boat he demanded, and got, the telephone toll charges! Tom Greene saw to it that everybody in the crew heard about it.

I know this isnt communications but I remember when we got the first VCR and a couple of movies on the DQ and the movies were Caddy Shack and the Deerhunter. Toots Malloy was in charge I believe. I think we bought a movie or 2 a week out of the crew fund. Thank goodness for all those tours.

What a neat site, I immediately went to WFN and did it bring back memories. WFN had some awfully good people back in the day, Lem Greer, Roy Harmon, Paul Hise, Terry Byrly just to name a few. When I first started dispatching some 40 yrs. ago, all communication with the boats was through WFN. They would run 5 schedules a day. Not like today with computers and satelites, it was people talking to people; you got to know people and their personalities. The 0930 schedule was mostly dedicated to crew traffic and some of it was quite humorous. I used to save the funniest..such as:
From the JAMES L. HAMILTON: "21:30 found the cook curled up on the shelf in the pantry. The little people were after him. Too much vanillia extract".
From the PAT BREEN: "02:15 put the mate and a deckhand off in the weeds at mile 914 with sore fists".
Some were what I call cold: From the J.E.ALQUIST: "03:30 cook said he wasn't feeling good and was going to stay him his bunk.
05:30 checked on cook, found he was dead.
06:45 put cooks body off to the Tiptonville sheriff.
Please set up new cook for Memphis, ETA 1800".

Shipyard, you're right, you could hear anything and everything listening to the phone calls on channel 26. I remember one that went like this:
"MR. CHARLIE WALKER to WFN......I'd like to make a call to Paducah....Hello, dear, my relief didn't show up here in Louisville so I'll have to stay on the boat for 2 or 3 more days".
"MR. CHARLIE WALKER to WFN.....I'd like to make another call, a local one to Louisville...Hey, sweetie, my relief just showed up. I'll be getting off in about an hour, I'll be overthere in about 2 hours."

Coffee Can Account

A well-known Cincinnati undertaker took a short trip on the DQ to escape his other half, but she found him via the Marine Radio Operator some ways down the Ohio River from where the gentleman was trying to escape. When the fellow was summoned to the pilothouse, early of a morning, he couldn't get the hang of talking on a radio which is much different than using the telephone in that you had to allow the other party to finish speaking or else two people talking at the same time will nullify both conversations.

Their conversation started like this:
Him: Hello
Her: Hello
Him: Hello
Her: Hello
Him: Hello, Hello, Hello......

After several attempts to education the frazzled mortician to wait until his sweetheart-of-too-many-years had finishing talking, some headway was made, but he simply could not master the push-to-talk button; so I had to hold the handset up to his ear and operate the button when it was his turn to talk. He was thoroughly upset with the entire matter and especially peeved that his river hideaway had been discovered by the very person from whom he sought refuge. The whole amusing affair, though, gave Captain Harry Hamilton and me a break from the ordinary routine of the midnight watch and we thoroughly enjoyed the whole shebang. Obviously, I am still retelling the tale though I am still several counts short of Handsome Harry’s tally, and he’s been gone for some time now.

Then there was a pay telephone in an outdoor booth along a lonely side street in New Madrid, Missouri where the informed could make a free long distance call just for picking up the receiver and dialing any number within the continental United States. For obvious reasons the peculiar phone was not reported to its rightful owners, and by sheer luck I found it when inquiring of a local idler where I might find a place to call home. As he was one of the few living beings in Southeastern Missouri who knew the secret of that telephone, and when he realized I was off a passing towboat and unlikely to snitch, he shared his secret. Greedily, I called everyone whose phone numbers I remembered, but later asked a few I'd called to see if the charges had been reversed, as I began to suspect, but as my friends had not been billed, I had hit the telephone jackpot that night. Had I been held accountable for all those phone calls, my coffee can savings account would have been irreversibly depleted.

I used to listen to river radio. One night I heard a pilot say: "Queen City to the boat following me into the Louisville Canal."
N "Northern back."
Q "Does that boat back o.k?"
N "I reckon she does alright."
Q "Then you'd better start doin' it. I just now shut down."