Category Archives: Nostalgia

ELWA Monrovia, Liberia – Then and Now

by Dan Greenall

Radio ELWA (Eternal Love Winning Africa) is a Christian ministry station that has been on the air from Monrovia, Liberia since 1954. When I first heard them in the 1970’s from my listening post in Ontario, Canada, they were using 10 and 50 kw transmitters to broadcast their programs to targets in most parts of the African continent and the Middle East. A couple of old recordings I made captured their interval signal and a station ID in Arabic: https://archive.org/details/elwa-monrovia-liberia-1970

They sent me this attractive QSL card in 1970.

The 1971 Communications Handbook profiled the station on page 14.

From 1989 to 2003, Liberia was embroiled in a couple of lengthy civil wars, and ELWA was forced off the air at least a couple of times. This simple folded paper QSL, that included their program schedule, was issued during this period for reception in 1994.

The station also endured a major Ebola outbreak and the Covid 19 pandemic as described in this link: https://www.elwaministries.org/radio/

Today, ELWA broadcasts programs primarily to the city of Monrovia on 94.5 FM. However, these programs are simulcast with one kilowatt on 6050 kHz shortwave for the rest of the country. They can be tricky to hear in other parts of the world. In recent months, a co-channel Chinese station made reception difficult, even through the use of remote KiwiSDR’s. However, this past week, I have found them in the clear (in English!) for up to 2 hours before 2230 UTC sign off, using a KiwiSDR in the Azores Islands.

Five separate recordings made between September 17 and 20 can be found at this link and embedded below:

ELWA 1

ELWA 2

ELWA 3

ELWA 4

ELWA Sign-Off

I have also been able to hear their signal recently using SDR’s in Cape Cod, MA and Bonaire, Netherlands Antilles.

You can listen to ELWA 94.5 FM online at: https://radio.galcom.org/?station=ELWARadio

Reader Research Request: WBW Burrwood, Louisiana

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SWLing Post reader Nathan Woodruff is researching his late grandfather, a US Navy radio operator in WWII who later worked as a maritime radio operator for the United Fruit Company.

Family photos suggest his grandfather spent roughly six months, around 1947, working at the WBW coastal radio station in Burrwood, Louisiana — the former Tropical Radio Telegraph Company station that, according to most records, ceased operations decades earlier when United Fruit consolidated its coastal network.

Nathan’s key question: how long did WBW actually operate as a relay station? If WBW shut down in the 1920s or ’30s as records suggest, then either the family timeline is off, or a smaller facility carried on under that call sign (or a related one) into the post-war years. If you have any information about WBW, Burrwood, or Gulf Coast coastal stations operating into the 1940s, please leave a comment below. I’ll pass along anything useful to Nathan — and I’ve included the photo of the station from his grandfather’s album above.

A Glimpse of Korean War Clandestine Radio in Operation Chromite

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Mark Hirst, who writes:

Thomas,

I spotted a movie in a local charity shop recently called “Operation Chromite”, a Korean production featuring Liam Neeson as General MacArthur.

A fictionalised depiction of the true story behind preparations for the Incheon landings during the Korean War, much of the film follows members of a military intelligence unit known as the Korea Liaison Office (KLO). Their task is to secure information about the mine defences, which posed a significant danger to the already audacious plan to land UN troops against the North Korean army.

Clandestine radio communications between the KLO and General MacArthur’s staff appear regularly in the film. One such scene which I enclose [above], shows a female KLO operator receiving crucial last-minute orders from the UN forces.

Mark

“Holocaust” 1978 TV Mini Series Underground Radios – Warsaw Ghetto

Radio Prague: “Microphones against tanks”

Radio Prague International: How Radio Became a Cold War Weapon

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor David Iurescia for sharing this article from Radio Prague International, which explores how radio quickly became one of the most powerful tools of influence in the years following World War II, tracing the rise of Cold War broadcasting and the battle for listeners across Europe: https://english.radio.cz/captured-airwaves-how-postwar-broadcasting-became-propaganda-weapon-2-8889747

Visiting the Kon-Tiki Museum: The NC-173 Lives On

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Robert Yowell, who writes:

Hi Tom – some years ago, you posted an article about the famous Kon-Tiki expedition and the use of the National NC-173 on board.

Well, today during my first-ever visit to Oslo, Norway, I stopped by the Kon-Tikki museum – devoted to the r expeditions of Thor Heyerdahl.

And sure enough, right there in the Kon-Tikki raft exhibit you can see the actual radio he used! In fact, the radio operator was a radio operator named Knut Haugland, who was also a radio operator for the Norwegian resistance during World War II. There is a photo in the museum of him operating the NC-173, which I am also including here.