Radio News, March, 1923, pages 1623, 1742-1743:
The Passing of "NOF" as a Broadcast Station
BY S. R. WINTERS
The radio-telephone broadcasting station NOF, the Anacostia Naval Air Station, at Anacostia, District of Columbia, ceased functioning as such on January 3, 1923. Originally established as a research laboratory devoted to studies affecting the problems arising from the use of wireless apparatus on board air craft, its facilities are rededicated to the primary object of its existence, since the above-mentioned date.
The concerts of the Marine and Navy Bands, as well as educational information originating with the Public Health Service, Veterans' Bureau, Childrens' Bureau, Bureau of Education, and Department of Commerce, and formerly broadcast by NOF, are now assigned for dissemination to NAA--the wireless station of the United States Navy Department at Arlington or Radio, Virginia. The dispensation of the services of the Naval Air Station as a Government broadcasting point automatically increases the burdens of NAA in this particular. The transmission of time signals, news items, crop and market reports, weather forecasts, naval business, communications for the Signal Corps of the United States Army, and occasional speeches of celebrities, are the items suggesting the variable services of this high-power radio-telegraph station. As recent as December 19, 1922, Representative Vincent M. Brennan of Michigan introduced a bill in the House of Representatives, which if favorably acted upon, would authorize the broadcasting of the proceedings of Congress from Arlington.
The concerts of the Marine and Navy Bands, heretofore periodically broadcast from the Anacostia Naval Air Station, have been undoubtedly the popular feature of the services of NOF. Quite naturally, novices and amateurs in the wireless game will inquire, "Is the music from the Marine and Navy Bands to be discontinued?" The United States Navy Department is prepared to assure interested parties that no such procedure is contemplated. In fact, already plans are shaping preparatory to the broadcasting of these concerts from NAA--Arlington or Radio, Virginia--on a wave-length of 710 meters. A microphone is being installed in the band room at the Marine Barracks near the Washington Navy Yard, and concerts given by these musical aggregations will be relayed by conventional telephone line to Arlington, about seven miles distant.
The preliminary program indicates that on each Monday afternoon at 4:30 o'clock and each Wednesday evening at 8:30 o'clock the Marine Band will play for the benefit of an invisible audience, which Commander S. C. Hooper, head of the Radio Division of the Bureau of Engineering, United States Navy Department, has estimated to be composed of millions of hearers in the aggregate. The Navy Band will give a musical performance each Friday evening at 8:30 o'clock. Music from both of these aggregations, unless present plans are modified, will be transmitted on a wave-length of 710 meters. Also educational material, such as public health lectures, and other informational data originating with the various Government departments, and formerly broadcast from the Anacostia Naval Air Station, will be radiated on the same wave-length.
Since the band of the Marine Corps of the United States Navy Department introduced its concerts on May 31, 1922, about 2,500 voluntary letters have drifted into Washington complimentary to the character of its musical renditions. These testimonials have their sources in sixteen States--from Maine to Florida--with scattering letters of praise from Ontario and Quebec, in Canada. The national anthem, "The Star Spangled Banner," as the concluding rendition of the evening program of the band of the Marine Corps has not only been valued for its melodious strains but in isolated farmstead as well as huddled city apartment such music has increased our patriotism and made for a homogenous people.
The passing of NOF as a pioneer Government broadcasting station, for sentimental reasons alone, is bound to bring a sense of regret to the nightly audience of hearers by radio-telephone receiving sets, an invisible audience which approximated 200,000 at times. The Naval Air Station at Anacostia was the first Government radio laboratory to yield to the demands for a broadcasting service, assigning its powerful transmitting equipment to this purpose. Now, the insistent demands for renewed efforts in research studies affecting the problems of wireless installation on board air craft make it expedient for a return to the fulfillment of the primary object of its existence. NAA, Arlington, with an elaborate antenna system of a half dozen aerials, capable of operation simultaneously, has the capacity for handling a vast amount of traffic.