WIFX - Jamestown College Radio

I do love a mystery. What I know of WIFX mostly comes from this QRL card. A QRL is not the same as QRS. QRL is just asking if a frequency is occupied. The normal response is "yes", or silence. The "PH" on the card specifies voice mode.  So as you would imagine, this is not something that makes sense to do by mail. The card gives two calls, one Ham, one apparently broadcast AM or FM; WIFX and W8ZET. That they are in different radio bands is very uncommon The date is August 18th, 1948, 9:10 PM central time. 

The ham calls are based in Ashland, OH.  WIFX were receiving in Jamestown, ND which is about 100 miles west of Fargo, ND, which is to say basically nowhere... it's a small town. The population today is about 15k. If the kids were masquerading as a college radio station on the 10 meter amateur band at 28 Mc it'd be very unusual, but not impossible. Voice is permitted on 28.200 - 29.300 MHz even today. [SOURCE] But despite that context I don't think that's the case. I think what we have is a college radio station reporting QSL because they also listen on the 10 meters band.

The community of Hams are pretty good at preserving information so we know exactly who W8ZET is. The call sign started with Jack Hire in 1929, then to Jim Hire, then Jim's wife Janeen Hire who held them until her death in 2002.  [SOURCE] At the bottom is a note "Sorry Jim QRM put us out better next." It seems clear from the note that Jim Hire had the call sign by 1948.

This is not the WIFX you are looking for

 There is a lot of Ham lingo on here which makes it clear the card is from WIFX to W8ZET.

1. 73 - Best regards
2. VY  - Very 
3. DE - From
4. DX - Long Distance
5. Ph - Phone/voice mode 

But in consulting the 1948 Broadcasting Yearbook, I see less than a page of stations in North Dakota: KFYR, KDLR, KDIX, KFGO, WDAY, KVNJ (CP), KFJM, KILO, KNOX, KVNW, KDJB, KGCU, KLPM, KOVC and KWBM (CP). That's just 15 stations, two of which were still CPs. But there really was a station in Jamestown. It was KSJB owned not by the university but the Jamestown Broadcasting Co. The university had a station, 88.1 KJKR. It was founded in 2012, then was sold to a christian satcaster in 2019 for a measly 20k. It's never had any call sign other than KJKR. More here. 

Then the obvious dawned on me. A "W" station shouldn't be on this side of the Mississippi as late as 1948. There are a handful of exceptions but generally speaking, not a thing. There is a WIFX today in Jenkins, KY. That station was founded as WREM in 1970, and changed calls to WIFX in 1981, and has stuck with that for 45 some years now. That has nothing to do with this station.

My theory is that Jamestown College had a carrier current or part 15 station in 1948 and it's operator(s) also sent out QSL postcards. I have little evidence except for a footnote on the university website campus map. [LINK] The entry describes Orlady Hall, built in 1941. 

"The lower level housed the Jimmie Grill and student union until Westminster Hall was built in 1960. In the 1950s, a campus radio station was also located in the lower level. The building continues to house biology, chemistry, math, and physics facilities."

It's hard to say who may have been involved with so little documentation but  the former staff announcer from KSJB and owner of KEYJ, Robert Richardson was also a radio instructor at Jamestown College from 1956-1960.  If the station survived as late as 1956 or 1958 he'd be a likely candidate to have been involved, especially having been a student there previously. I'd ask him, but he died last January. [LINK]  The 1952 Directory of College Courses in radio and television has an enticing entry, with just one more name: Robert E. Dressler. I think he's Robet Eugene Dressler, formerly of Northwestern University. [LINK] He was only faculty from 1950 - 1953, so he was likely replaced by Richardson, but just as likely to have been involved with WIFX. But all of that post-dates the post card.

But that 1950s foray into carrier current college radio wasn't even that wasn't Jamestown College's first foray into broadcasting. The is a record of a student debate between Concordia and Jamestown Colleges way back in 1922. Because of an ad in Radio News in June, 1923 I know they were using an ESCO motor generator for their broadcasts, presumably experimental. In an issue of The Wireless Age I did find a listing for 9BVR belonging to Byron E. Fahl at Jamestown College in 1922; then in a Department of Commerce listing of 1924, a Raymond L Ringuette with 9EDU. 9BVR was active from about 1920 - 1922. By 1924 those calls were assigned to the Fort Dearborn Radio Co in Chicago. 9EDU only appears in a few guides in 1924. It was reassigned in Republican City Nebraska by 1927. 

It's strange that I can find more information about amateur radio at Jamestown College in the 1920s than their carrier current station in the 1950s but that's currently the case.