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(erielack) EL Radio Communication

The EL Hoboken Dispatcher had a fairly powerful radio, but didn't use it too 
much.  It could be heard in Suffern.  One day I was working second SF, and 
the Croxton Ordinary was west of WJ.  Jimmy Farrell was in the West End 
seat, and he gave me a set of detailed instructions to relay to the Ordinary 
about its work program at Hillburn and Mahwah (Ford Plant Yard).  Usually 
the Mahwah yardmaster conveyed the Ford Yard part of the night's 
festivities; I forget why I had to get involved with it that evening.  
Anyway, the instructions were fairly complex and I got something mixed up.  
Farrell heard what I told the Ordinary over the radio and immediately came 
on, saying that I was out of my mind, and here's what you really have to do. 
  OK, perhaps I exagerate a bit, but Jimmy could get a little grumpy (Bob 
Wands and Artie Erdman were the best; it was very hard to make them grumpy; 
and Bob Burns on 1st West End stayed pretty calm too.  Collins?  He could 
get a little cynical, and sometimes he would keep you in the dark; but he 
wouldn't jump all over you)(and as to the late Norman Reddy -- grumpy at 
first, but a good guy once you got used to him and vice versa).  Anyway, 
that was the only time I heard Hoboken talk to a train at Suffern.

Around the time MQ Tower went out in late 71 (or was it 72?), the EL set up 
a radio system allowing the Hoboken West End Dispatch to talk to trains on 
the Graham Line via a transmitter somewhere just east of MQ Campbell Hall 
(eventually had 3 transmitters, at NJ, MQ and Otisville).  That was a rather 
strange set-up; it was tied into the old OS line for towers between Hoboken 
and Port Jervis.  So, tower ops listening to the line could hear radio talk 
between Hoboken and trains on the Graham.  Hoboken would activate it via the 
same coded system that rang the "wake up" bell in the tower, where you heard 
relays clicking in your tower and if you were the one wanted, it would be 
immediately followed by "brrrrr-iiiiiiii-nn-gggg".

As to radio repeaters for Hoboken, I never heard of that; I was told that 
the dispatcher's office had a good antenna on the Terminal Building, 
allowing it to get thru to Suffern, but not much farther.  The tower at 
North Newark was a microwave set-up, or so I was told while hanging out at 
WR Tower West Arlington.   Supposedly the old wire lines to the dispatcher 
along the Greenwood Lake Line east of OJ had to be taken out sometime in the 
late 60s -- something about power lines being installed along the right of 
way, which messed up the old telephone pole lines.  So a mini-microwave 
setup between OJ and Hoboken was set up as to patch-in the line from west of 
OJ/North Newark.  Don't think it went any farther, don't remember any mw 
towers at Great Notch.  Well, that's what I was told; ready for 
clarification/correction.

Jim G.

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