The Philip B. Petersen Collection Broadcast April 3, 1991

     There are about a half million radio amateurs in the United States and about 40,000 of them are ladies and young girls.  They fully enjoy all of the various activities in amateur radio such as using Morse code, radiotelephone, and packet radio with their home computers.  They come from all kinds of occupations and ways of life such as homemakers, secretaries, schoolteachers, aviators, doctors, engineers, scientists, astronauts and of course many more.
    In amateur radio, the ladies and girls are called YLs for Young Ladies.  Married women are called XYLs.  These are ways to speed up transmission when using Morse code but has been carried over into other kinds of radio communication.
     The first two YLs to obtain an amateur radio license were Gertrude Tarr Reed and Margaret Campbell of Rockport, Massachusetts.  In 1912, when they were both juniors in high school, Gertrude got very interested in her brother's science books.  She and Margaret built a silicon detector receiver and picked up Marconi's first overseas radio station at Wellfleet on Cape Cod, listening to the Morse code messages.
     Up until 1912, radio station licenses were not required.  Anyone could build a station and go on the air.  For station call letters, the radio amateurs generally used their personal initials, but this all changed.  The first radio act of 1912 required that all commercial and amateur stations must obtain station licenses and all radio operators must pass government operator's examinations.  In a telephone interview with Gertrude Reed, at her home in the spring of 1991, she vividly recalled those early days.
     She said, "We had been listening to the Wellfleet station and copied their Morse code until we were ready.  Margaret and I have never been to Boston alone before, but we had to be tested at the Boston Navy Yard.  There a navy officer, with so much gold braid I thought he must be an Admiral, gave us the test.  He put Margaret and I on opposite sides of the room testing us in code until we were up to speed.  After passing the written test, he said, `you two ladies are the first two licensed lady radio amateurs in the United States.'"  She continued, "I received the call letters 1OG.  I don't remember Margaret's call.  She died about ten years ago and I really miss Margaret."
     "During the summers, the navy radio operators would operate on our wavelength and come ashore to meet us. -- They really were nice boys" she said.
     Gertrude later became a commercial telegrapher with the wire services.  She said, "I shook hands and talked with President Wilson when he came in a chauffeured limousine to send a telegram."  She added, "I'll be 96 years old on the 5th of July in 1991 and I am a member of the Old Old Timers Radio Club."
     Gertrude Tarr Reed, 1OG, the first licensed lady radio amateur, participates in meetings of the Cape Ann Amateur Radio Club in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where she tells about her experiences during the early years in amateur radio.

April 3, 1991

** Broadcasts recordings preserved and presented here by Mr. Robert Buss and Mr. Bernie Ricciardi, Phil's friends and fellow Marconi Chapter 138 QCWA members **

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