A History  of W3DF

During the first few months I was on the air as W3DF, I had numerous people call me thinking I was George Sterling.  After this happened several times I asked some of the local old timers about George and discovered that he was well known among old timers in amateur radio, espically in the Baltimore -Washington area.  I received several QSL cards from old friends of George.  An example is shown above, a QSL card I received from Jules - ZD7YO who I worked in the 1977 CQWW DX Contest and who apparently knew George or worked George when he held the callsign W3DF.  I hoped I would run across George on the air but unfortunately that never happened. During the past few years I have learned more about George and have compiled his history.  During this time,  I was fortunate to meet Prose Walker - W4BW.  Prose was a close friend of George when they both worked for the FCC in the 1940s.  Prose provided a lot of the history about George including an autographed copy of his book "The Radio Manual" and a photograph of George taken in 1942 shown below.  Recently I have been contaced by some of George's grandchildren who have also provided additional information and photographs.  So here's some of the history of the first radio amateur who held the call W3DF.

George Edward Sterling was born on Peaks Island located off the southern coast of Portland, Maine on June 21, 1894.  He was the son of Wesley and Annie (Tatman) Sterling.  George attended public school on Peaks Island.   In 1908, the year amateur radio was born, at age 14, George was among the first amateurs who hit the airwaves.  In the beginning, amateurs were un-licensed. : They were people who were interested in experimenting with the new wireless communication demonstrated by Marconi a few years earlier.  At age 18, George received one of the first amateur radio licenses (1AE) issued by the Department of Commerce Radio Service, Bureau of Navigation, after the passage of the Radio Act of 1912.  The Radio Act of 1912 was the first attempt by the government to regulate amateurs.  The new law required amateur radio operators to apply for a license to operate their transmitters and abide by the newly enacted radio regulations.  The new regulations required amateurs to limit the DC input power of their transmitter to one kilowatt and limit their wavelength of operation to the 200 meter band.  George operated a spark station with the callsign 1AE during these pioneering days of radio.  To hear what a spark signal of the period sounded like click here.  For those who don't copy cw, here is the text sent in the audio clip... "AAA AAA Well hams heres a record of the sounds of real wireless as she was spok in the good old days when DX with a KW was about 200 miles and shortwaves were 200 meters and most hams were using the present broadcast band AAA Broadcast stations being non existant iii"

After he graduated from high school, George enlisted and served in the Maine National Guard with the 2nd Maine Infantry.  The 2nd Maine Infantry Regiment was federalized for deployment along Mexican border in 1916 and served as a security force in places such as Loredo and Zapata Texas.   It patrolled the Texas border during the Pancho Villa raids on the mexican border towns of Texas.

In April 1917, George was a junior operator on the passenger steamship Philadelphia of the Red-O-Line operating out of Brooklyn, New York to Puerto Rico and several ports in Venezuela.  It was on this ship, in February 1902, that Marconi had demonstrated that wireless communication could be achieved across the Atlantic Ocean.

On April 6, 1917, during the return voyage from South America, his ship received coded orders to paint the ship in Navy colors and sail without lights.  The United States had declared war on Germany.  Immediately upon his return to New York, George tried to enlist in the Navy but was told  that  he had to be discharged from the Maine National Guard before the Navy would take him.  He felt that his experience as a radio operator could be better utilized in the Navy.  Later that year he asked for a transfer to the Signal Corps but his commander would not release him.

In September of 1917, the 2nd Maine infantry set sail to France as the 103rd infantry.  In France, George was sent to the French Corps Specialist School where he learned French Army Signal tactics.  After completing this training he was assigned to the Army Signal Corps as an instructor of wireless at the 1st Corps school in Gondrecourt, France.

During his tour of duty in Gondrecourt, France he revived a boyhood interest in aviation.  After several unsuccessful attempts to transfer into aviation as an "observer", one who corrects artillary fire by wireless signals from an aircraft, he was assigned to General Pershing's headquarters in  Chammount, France.  From there he went to the front line to help operate the newly formed radio intelligence service.  This service located enemy radio stations and intercepted their message traffic.

During World War I, George spent some time in England.  It was during this time that he met a ballet dancer named Margaret Farray who would later become his wife.  George and Margaret were married in a church in Welland, Ontario on Christmas Eve in 1924.  The two photos of Margaret were taken around 1920.


After World War I George continued his association with radio by working as a radio operator in the Merchant Marine.  In the early 1920s after the wavelengths shorter than 200 meters were pioneered by amateurs and transatlantic HF communication was demonstrated, George held the call W1AE.  It was during this time that spark was prohibited due to its wide bandwidth and increasing interference on the bands and CW became the norm when the vacuum tube became readily available to amateurs.  To hear what a CW signal of the time sounded like click here. The first CW transmitters were built with a single 5 watt vacuum tube oscillator which was keyed directly in the cathode or grid circuit.  For those who don't copy cw, here is the text sent in the audio clip... "AAA This CW signal is made by one small vacuum tube using 45 volts keying in grid circuit with practically no voltage at key contacts iii This signal is audible only because it was received on an oscillating vacuam"

George began his federal career in 1923 with the Bureau of Navigation, Department of Commerce where he worked as a marine radio inspector in Baltimore, Maryland and attended John Hopkins University Night School and Baltimore City College.  It was during this period that he acquired the call W3DF.  He continued to work as a radio inspector in Baltimore in the 1920s.   From 1927 to 1936 he worked for the Federal Radio Commision (the predecessor to the FCC)  as Radio Inspector in Charge at Fort McHenry for the third radio district.   In 1937 he was promoted to Assistant Chief of the Field Division of the engineering department of the Federal Communications Commission in Wahington, DC.  The Field Division handled the administration of the 21 field offices and several monitoring stations.

During the 1940s George Sterling made many contributions to the rapidly expanding radio industry.  He was promoted to head the FCC's Radio Intelligence Division (RID), established on July 1, 1940 after playing a key role in it's establishment and organization.  The RID, established as the National Defense Operations Section of the Field Division, was founded to investigate and monitor clandestine radio operations in the United States and it's possessions and to train military personnel and intelligence agents in radio intelligence, monitoring and radio direction finding techniques.  Also during this period he established a special branch of the FCC to handle amateur radio affairs and was  promoted to Chief Engineer of the the FCC's Intelligence Division.

The photograph on the left is of George Sterling in the Punch Bowl crater, Honolulu (an extended Volcano).  The photo was taken by another RID employee, Prose Walker - W4CXA (laterW4BW), in March of 1942.  Prose Walker came to work for the FCC in 1940 and began his long time friendship and close association with George during this period.

The Hawaiian primary monitoring station was located in the Punch Bowl.  It is now a national cemetary for the victims of Pearl Harbor.  Hawaii was not a state at that time and there was martial law for about a year after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. 

Two days after Pearl Harbor the RID identified and located a clandestine radio transmitter in the German Embassy in Washington, DC before it was able to communicate with it's homeland.  Click here to view a  newspaper article that appeared in the New York Times on May 12, 1942 detailing testimony given by George Sterling at a Congressional hearing in Washington DC relating the accomplishments for the RID in controling clandestein radio activity in the U.S. during the beginning of World War II.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the FCC was called upon to support military radio intelligence efforts.  In early 1942, George, Prose Walker, and a group of RID personnel boarded a navy ship in San Francisco and sailed to Hawaii to begin the process of setting up a network of monitoring stations on the western front.  Later during this trip Prose Walker was appointed supervisor of the Radio Security Center in Honolulu, with responsibility for the communications security of the territory. 

For a year and a quarter after Pearl Harbor, the Radio Intelligence Division carried the full load of military radio intelligence in Alaska, where the Army was not able to station a radio intelligence company until late 1942. With RID support, a fully operational monitoring station was established in Alaska in the spring of 1943.  The RID radio-patrolled the Alaskan coast by sea.  It participated in military intelligence elsewhere, most notably in Hawaii and on the west coast.  In San Francisco it set up an Intelligence Center where officers of the military services were on duty around the clock. The RID identified and tracked the radio-equipped fire bomb balloons which the Japanese launched against our west coast.  It discovered the location of a Nazi weather station on Greenland, which the Coast Guard was able to destroy.   It trained military personnel who eventually took over most of the the military duties assigned to the RID.  It prepared instructional booklets and monitoring aids and supervised military radio intelligence activities until the military was able to operate without assistance.

Since the Federal Communications Commission had a network of radio monitoring and direction-finding stations in place to police the domestic airwaves, during World War II, it  was given its full share of duties not called for in its job description. It ran a rescue service for planes lost in black-outs and bad weather, locating them by their radio signals and furnishing them with their location.  More than 600 planes, many of which would have otherwise been lost, were given FCC emergency fixes before Army Air Force personnel were trained to take over the job.  The RID monitored enemy commercial radio circuits and furnished the Board of Economic Warfare with hundreds of leads.  To meet requirements of the Eastern, Gulf, and Western defense commands, the Commission's legal responsibility for apprehending unlicensed radio stations was extended to surveillance of the coast by radio patrols for signs of clandestine radio traffic in support of our air military forces.  The RID monitored foreign radio broadcasts, setting up the organization which later became the Foreign Broadcast Information Service.  The RID was dissolved in 1946.  In April 1947 George was promoted to the position of FCC Chief Engineer.

In January 1948, after the extremely successful era of the RID, President Harry Truman appointed George Sterling as Commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission to replace Commissioner Ewell K. Jett who resigned to become vice-president and director of the radio division of  the Baltimore Sun Newspaper.  The following year, George was nominated by President Truman and confirmed by the Senate to serve a full seven year term as Commissioner.  George served as FCC Commissioner from January 2, 1948 to September 30, 1954.  He has been the only amateur radio operator to work his way up through the FCC ranks and serve as FCC Commissioner.  Shown below is George's business card as FCC Commissioner.

During the late 1940s, the United States was experiencing explosive growth in the television industry.  In 1948 a black and white 19 inch RCA console television cost about one thousand dollars.  This was a large investment for the average working person yet television gradually swept the country coast to coast and changed American social habits in many ways.  One social habit that was forever changed by television was the family dinner hour.  People didn't want to miss their favorite TV programs while they ate dinner so the "TV tray" was born and meals were eaten around the TV set.  George Sterling was the first person to introduce and demonstrate the operation of a television receiver to the residents of Peaks Island.

In addition to his distinguished federal career, George Sterling was a well known author.  During the early years of his federal career he authored "The Radio Manual", a reference book which covered all aspects of radio communication in the early days of radio.  This book became the recognized standard textbook of the radio industry.  The first edition was published in 1928 and was re-printed several times through the third edition which was published in 1940 and reprinted several times during the 1940s.  Many of the book's chapters were written and edited by George's colleagues who were recognized experts in their field.  "There is a lot of radio history in this book, most of which cannot be found anywhere else." - Prose Walker

In addition to his book, George wrote about his experiences during his distinguished career.  At the time these articles were written, they were published in classified publications.  Many of his classified writings have been de-classified and made available to the general public.  Two of George's RID collegues, Merle Glunt (W3OKN) and Al Evangelista (W3ZIP) have complied George's notes and files and published a document about the Radio Intelligence Division which describes the history and accomplishments of the RID.  Copies of this material can be purchased through Merle (W3OKN).

George retired from the FCC on September 30, 1954.  A write-up announcing his retirement and highlighting his career appeared in the "It Seems to Us" column of the November 1954 issue of QST.  Click here to view the article.

After his retirement from the FCC, George returned to his home in Peaks Island, Maine.  There he spent time with his family, enjoyed fishing, amateur radio, and writing articles which appeared in various publications describing his many experiences during World War I, with the RID during World War II,  and his long career with the Commerce Department and FCC.  The photo above left is George enjoying some fishing on Peaks Island in 1968, he also enjoyed lobster fishing.  The photo above right is of George and his wife Margaret at their summer home on Peaks Island in 1963.  During his retirement years, George was active in the QCWA Yankee Chapter #112 and Pine Tree Chapter #134, the Old Old Timers Club (OOTC) and The First Class Operators Club (FOC).  During the 1960s George resided in Sarasota, Florida during the winter months where he was a member of the Sarasota Amateur Radio Association.  During this time he held the call W4AE and W1AE.  In 1985, George received the QCWA Hall of Fame Award.  George lived on Peaks Island until his death in November 1990 at the age of 96. 

In the 1920s and 1930s during his career as a radio inspector with the Federal Radio Commission, and later the FCC, George lived in Baltimore, Maryland..  Later in his career he lived near Washington DC in Silver Spring, Maryland, only a few blocks from where I worked during 1992 to1996 for the Department of Commerce/NOAA.  George also spent some time in Falls Church, Virginia.

In May 2001, by sheer luck and the thoughtfulness of Charley Schwartz, W1TE, I obtained one of George's original QSL cards.  Charley, who is a collector of old QSL cards, found George's card in a collection which he purchased at a local hamfest.  Charley contacted me and asked if I was interested in having the card.  I did not hesitate to accept his kind offer.  Per Charley, this card was sent to W1GZ, John H. (Henry) Robishaw in Ipswich, Massachusetts for a contact made on 20 meters on April 24, 1957.  At that time, George was retired from the FCC and was living in Peaks Island Maine using his original callsign - W1AE.  Pictured below is the front and back side of the QSL card.  If any of you reading this know where I can find other QSL cards from George Sterling I would greatly appreciate hearing from you.

In early January 2002, I received an autographed copy of George's book  given to me by it's previous owner, Prose Walker - W4BW.  During one of our regular QSOs on 80 meter CW Prose had mentioned that he had an autographed copy of George's book, "The Radio Manual".  During one of our 80M CW QSOs in November 2001 Prose asked if I was interested in having George's book.  I told him I would be honored to have the book and thanked him for offering it to me.  I told him that it would be handled with care.  Earlier in 2001 I had purchased a 1928 edition of the Radio Manual to read some of the chapters that Prose had talked about during our QSOs.  His favorite was the chapter on vacuum tubes.

During one of our 80M QSOs Prose told me the story of how he acquired this book.  During a visit with George in 1955,  Prose and his wife Ellaine had stayed with George and his wife Margaret for the new year celebration.  On New Years day, Januray 1, 1956, George presented this autographed copy of his book to Prose.  Forty-six years later, Prose passed the book along to me.  I was honored to accept this momento of the past.  Prose said George would be pleased to know that the holder of his callsign would be the second owner of his book.  Prose inscribed a note to me next to George's on the inside leaf.  The inscriptions were made 46 years apart "to the day."  As a point of reference, I was six years old the day George presented this book to Prose and it would be another twelve and a half years before I would obtain my first amateur radio license.   Above is a photo of the leaf of the book, signed by George Sterling and Prose Walker.

 George has appeared in the issues of QST over the years.  The photo on the far left appeared in the November 1953 issue of QST.  George is on the left.   The photo on the near left appeared in the January 1969 issue of QST.  George is the on the left.  I was told by an old time amateur in Baltimore that George had appeared on the cover of QST some time during the 40s or 50s.  I contacted the ARRL's technical information service and they were kind enough to do a search for me, unfortunately the QST cover photo was not found.  During my search for this information, I found numerous references to George and his book "The Radio Manual" in QST, however the photos on the left are the only photos of George I have found in QST.

In July of 2002 I located a series of articles that George wrote and had published in the Spark Gap Times, the news letter of the Old Old Timers Club (OOTC).   I am continuing to search for anything written by George.  If anyone reading this can help me in this pursuit I would be very grateful.

The information on this web page was made possible by Prose Walker - W4BW.  The photos below show two of Prose's QSL cards.  The first QSL was from my first contact with Prose in 1970.  At that time I was stationed in Scotland with the U.S. Navy and was operating under the call GM5ASI.  The second QSL is from our first contact in 1997 (see next paragraph).  The picture on the card was taken in 1992 when Prose was 82 years old and living in Tallahassee, Florida.   Prose moved to Rochester, New York in 1999 to be closer to his family.  He remainded active on the air keeping schedules with his old FCC and Collins Radio colleagues.  In July of 2002 he fell ill and passed away in the hospital on August 8, 2002.  Prose turned 92 in February of 2002.

I "ran into" Prose one evening in November 1997 on 40 meter CW, shortly after I had returned to the airwaves after being inactive on the HF bands since 1984.  During our first QSO he said it was very strange to hear the call of his old friend and asked if I knew of George Sterling.  I told him "yes", I knew of George but did not know much about him.  That is where this story began and I started searching for more information about George.  Prose and I kept in touch via regular QSOs on 80 meter CW and I would "pick his brain" about George whenever I could.  Prose gave me great insight into the life of George Sterling and was very kind in providing a lot of the sources for the material I have gathered on George E. Sterling, the original holder of W3DF.

Prose will be missed by many.  He was recognized as the godfather of the "WARC bands" --30, 17 and 12 meters-- at the Dayton Hamvention in Dayton, Ohio in April of 2000.

In March 2004, George's grand daughter Suzanne Hilton generously provided material about her grandmother and grandfather.

As I learn more about George I will update this page.  If you have or know of additional information about George Sterling's history I would greatly appreciate hearing from you.  If you would like to read about my radio history, please see the page titled Ham Radio Nostalgia.

I can be reached at w3df@arrl.net.

We had our first QSO in 1970 while I was in Scotland.

Prose in 1992.

Prose in 2002.