by Dan Greenall

While visiting friends this past weekend in Kingston, Ontario, my wife and I paid a visit to the Great Lakes Museum where we had the good fortune to tour the S S Keewatin, a Titanic-era passenger ship that served the Great Lakes between 1908 and 1965. It is now a floating museum and permanently docked in Kingston.

One of the first stops on our 1.5-hour tour was at the original wireless station, call sign VGMC, which originally began as VGC. I snapped a few quick photos before being whisked away past the amateur radio station that has been set up and occasionally goes on the air, call sign VA3VGC.

The call sign commemorates the ship’s original maritime radio call signs, which the SS Keewatin used starting around 1911 with its Marconi wireless equipment. A couple more photos were hastily taken, as the tour moved quickly along. Additional information about the equipment that is on display here can be found at: https://greatlakesmuseum.ca/wp-content/uploads/VA3VGC_Photo-Gallery-compressed.pdf

Later on, while viewing some of the passenger cabins aboard the Keewatin, I spotted an old issue of Electronics Illustrated from October 1959 lying on a bed.

You can read a copy here: https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Electronics-Illustrated/Electronics-Illustrated-1959-10.pdf

I would encourage anyone visiting the Kingston, Ontario area to take a tour of the S S Keewatin. I suspect there are other Museum Ships out there with a Wireless station set up and would be interested to hear about any of these.

73

Dan Greenall, Ontario, Canada