Category Archives: Radio History

History of the Armed Forces Radio Service

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall being interviewed by the Armed Forces Radio Service (Source: Wikipedia)

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ron, who shares this article from Radio World:

We can’t fully appreciate the importance of news from home to those who served in World War II. In the Pacific campaigns, G.I.s, sailors and Marines fought bloody island-hopping battles; as each island was cleared, garrison troops and hospitals moved in and carried on their own war against mosquitoes, isolation and boredom. The island fighters were fortunate if dated mail caught up with them before they moved on to the next target. Timely personal-level communications were pretty much absent.

Radio programming from America was available but only on shortwave. And shortwave radios were not generally available. The fortunate few had been issued “Buddy Kits” that included a radio, a small PA system and a record player for discs sent by mail. But for most there was no way to receive short-lived information such as news and sports. They were left with enemy radio propaganda such as Japan’s “Orphan Ann/Annie” (aka one of several Tokyo Roses) and the “Zero Hour” program.

No wonder that the idea of having a local island radio station doing “live from home” was so fiercely supported. Enlightened commanders saw the idea as a terrific morale-builder. The only problem was how to pull it off.

A solution, not uniquely, came from within the ranks. It started with the work of some bored but talented soldiers in the Panama Canal Zone who in 1940 built a couple of 50 W transmitters and put them on the air without authorization, labeling them “PCAN” and “PCAC.”

In Alaska, 7,500 miles northwest of Panama City, what started as programming through a loudspeaker system became a bootleg radio operation at Kodiak. Coming on the air in January 1942 and calling itself “KODK,” it delivered a whopping 15 watts to the troops. Sources with hindsight later said that the Armed Forces Radio Service (“AFRS”) was born here, when one of its progenitors visited the Alaska operations and “came up with the idea.”[…]

Click here to continue reading the full article at Radio World.

“BBC’s secret World War Two activities revealed”

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributors Fred Waterer and Mike Hansgen who share the following article from the BBC:

A new archive has revealed the BBC’s role in secret activities during World War Two, including sending coded messages to European resistance groups.

Documents and interviews, released by BBC History, include plans to replace Big Ben’s chimes with a recorded version in the event of an air attack.

This would ensure the Germans did not know their planes were over Westminster.

BBC programmers would also play music to contact Polish freedom fighters.

Using the codename “Peter Peterkin”, a government representative would provide staff with a particular piece that would be broadcast following the Polish news service.

Historian David Hendy said: “The bulletins broadcast to Poland would be deliberately short by a minute or so and then a secret messenger from the exiled Polish government would deliver a record to be played.

“The choice of music would send the message to fighters.”[…]

Click here to read the full article at the BBC.

Guest Post: The National Association of Armchair Adventurers (NAAA)

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Bob Colegrove, who shares the following guest post:

National Association of Armchair Adventurers (NAAA)

as recalled by Bob Colegrove

Those of you who were into SWLing in the late ‘50s or early ‘60s may remember the NAAA. It was an engaging promotional effort by the National Radio Company to generate interest in shortwave listening. This was done through ads run in magazines such as Popular Electronics, and displays in stores. Yes, shortwave radios were once sold in brick and mortar stores. The very proper gentleman depicted below, replete with khaki uniform, pith helmet, jackboots and calabash pipe is none other than Sir Oswald Davenport, Chairman of the Board, and a consummate SWLer of his time who never left the comfort of his own armchair in order to tour the world as it was virtually possible to do at that time. For those too young to appreciate the connection, a “davenport” was a genericized trademark meaning couch or sofa in today’s parlance.

As the ad indicates, for fifty cents you were admitted to the Association. This included a nice booklet containing an introduction to shortwave listening by Jack Gould, radio-TV critic for the New York Times, a sampler of stations ‘currently’ broadcasting around the world, log sheets and a large certificate of membership suitable for framing and signed by Sir Oswald himself.

The certificate reads, “this is to certify that (name) is a privileged member of the National Association of Armchair Adventurers… and is hereby entitled to explore the four corners of the earth, to sail the seven seas, to cross, in the comfort of a favorite chair, the six continents and to visit freely without passport, the 260 countries of the world. Permission is also granted to eavesdrop, whenever possible, upon aircraft and satellites in outer space, ships at sea, the activities of local police and fire departments and the conversations of radio amateurs throughout the world. This experience in international espionage entitles all members to pose with authority as experts on world affairs and to expound at large on the solution of all problems. Membership and participation in all privileges is authorized for a lifetime of pleasure, or as long as said member is the owner of a National Shortwave Receiver.”

The radio depicted in the ad was the then new National NC-60 Special, a 5-tube ac/dc, entry level receiver, which was a direct competitor of the Hallicrafters S-38E. This writer recalls standing in front of the two mentioned receivers on display at the local ham shop in downtown Indianapolis in 1959 trying to decide on which radio to invest his hard-won sixty dollars. The salesman wasn’t pushy, it came down to a coin flip, and the Halli came home with me. Although I’ve never regretted it, I still wonder what exotic mysteries lay behind the NC-60’s dial. Although my pen-and-ink name has long since faded, the NAAA certificate still hangs prominently in the shack.

“When Switzerland broadcast Esperanto around Europe”

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, David Iurescia (LW4DAF), who shares this article from swissinfo.ch regarding the history of the Esperanto language service of SWI. The following is an excerpt:

Esperanto

Esperanto (literally “one who hopes”) was the brainchild of Polish Jewish ophthalmologist Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof, who published his first brochure in the language in 1887. He wanted it to become a second language for everyone.

The Swiss Esperanto Society was founded in 1903.

The Universala Esperanto-Asocioexternal (Universal Esperanto Association) was founded in Geneva in 1908. It is now based in Rotterdam.

The association says: “Based on the number of textbooks sold and membership of local societies, the number of people with some knowledge of Esperanto is in the hundreds of thousands and possibly millions”. Around 1,000 people speak it as their first language.

Esperanto has a relatively simple grammar with no exceptions to its rules. Its vocabulary is derived primarily from Romance languages and to a lesser extent from Germanic and Slavic languages.

“Beyond Europe, no regular Esperanto broadcasts take place,” the memo noted. The one exception was a special broadcast for Esperantists in Brazil on January 31, 1953.

Baur – who worked on the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation’s Esperanto programmes until 1991 – had reckoned there was a great interest in Esperanto in Brazil. The memo noted that the response to the one-off, five-minute broadcast was “thoroughly gratifying”, resulting in 25 letters (17 from Brazil, eight from other countries with reception).

“But from the beginning we stressed that even if people really liked it, it wouldn’t result in the introduction of Esperanto broadcasts in South America since, given the nation-joining aims of Esperanto, it would be contradictory to add a third language to a continent of only two languages which are more or less mutually comprehensible,” it said.

Aims of the broadcasts

The Bern memo explained that the main aim of the Esperanto broadcasts had always been “to reach the intelligentsia behind the Iron Curtain, who successfully bridged their linguistic diversity – especially in southeast Europe – through Esperanto”.

It added: “Our Esperanto broadcasts can therefore spread information about Switzerland and its ideas and ideals in an unobtrusive manner in those otherwise closed regions – as long as broadcasts in those regions’ national languages don’t make sense for us.”

It’s hard to say how many people listened to these broadcasts, none of which sadly have been saved in the SBC archives. According to the 1953 memo, Bern received two or three confirmations of reception a week, mostly from those countries behind the Iron Curtain. “Their relative rarity can be explained by the great risk most probably faced by the letter-writers,” the memo said.

Then, at the end of January 1965, the shock news was announced that the 16 Esperanto programmes a month would no longer be broadcast for financial reasons.

The Swiss Esperanto Societyexternal said this was a “heavy loss for the Western world”. “A reduction from four weekly programmes to two or even one would certainly have met general understanding, but it is highly regrettable that the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation has decided to pull the Esperanto programmes completely,” it said.

Not dead yet

That happened next is not clear from the archives. We do know, however, that – if the programmes did indeed stop – at some point they started up again in some form and frequency because in the late 1980s Swiss Radio International (SRI), as the Short-wave Service was renamed in 1978, was sending transcription tapes with Esperanto material around the world.[…]

Click here to read the full article.

SAQ receives 438 listener reports

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Grimeton VLF mast

(Source: Southgate ARC)

Alexanderson Alternator station SAQ says it received 438 listener reports — ‘an incredible amount’ — for its June 30 Alexanderson Day transmissions from Sweden including 8 ‘super’ DX reports, five from the USA and three from Canada.

The historic electro-mechanical transmitter, which dates back to the 1920s, is fired up periodically throughout the year on 17.2 kHz.

“We are very thankful for all your enthusiastic and positive feedback, with images, recordings, videos, and even Morse ink writer strips,” SAQ said.

The station is a World Heritage Site in Grimeton, Sweden and SAQ’s June 30 message commemorated the 100th anniversary of the first east-to-west transatlantic voice transmission from the Marconi station in Ireland to Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.

SAQ has posted an interactive map showing the locations of all received listener reports from recent transmissions and video of the Alexanderson Day transmission event has been posted to its YouTube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/user/AlexanderSAQ/videos

Swiss Shortwave Merry-Go-Round Founder Bob Thomann (HB9GX) is Silent Key

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Readers old enough to remember listening to SBC/Swiss Radio International will, no doubt, remember Bob Thomann. I just received the following note from Bob Zanotti:

Dear Friends and Broadcasting Colleagues,

[O]ur old friend and colleague, Bob Thomann HB9GX, passed away peacefully on Saturday afternoon 3 August local time. He would have been 91 in September.

Image via Radio World

[…]Bob Thomann was the founder of the Swiss Shortwave Merry-Go-Round on
SBC/Swiss Radio International back in the 50’s. He and I were teamed up in 1970, when I joined SRI. We co-presented the technical mailbag show,
which became know as “The Two Bobs” for 24 years between 1970 and the show’s ending in June 1994. Bob never missed a show, even when we had to do a telephone hookup when he was hospitalized back in the 80’s.

the Schwarzenburg transmitter site, often mentioned by the Two Bobs (via Jonathan Marks)

This is the end of “The Two Bobs” Era and an era in shortwave broadcasting in general. But I’m happy to say that the show lives on at www.switzerlandinsound.com, where it has its own section. All that survived from the “Merry-Go-Round” is there, including new material we produced especially for the website. And this will remain as a memorial to Bob Thomann and his contribution to shortwave broadcasting as long as I’m still around.

Mid-1960s photo showing Bob with Heidi Schweizer and Pamela — SBC’s DX Trio at the time. (Image courtesy of Richard Langley)

Bob Thomann was my friend, colleague and fellow ham operator for many years. I will always fondly remember those golden days we shared together. Long live those memories.

73,
Bob Zanotti

Click here to listen to archived episodes of The Two Bobs at Switzerland in Sound.

Bob, we’re so sorry for the loss of your dear friend and colleague. His memory certainly lives on.

1963 Film features the Rugby Radio Station

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(Source: Southgate ARC)

Rugby was not a conventional radio station but a communications hub transmitting radio telephony, including the now obsolete telex service that later gave way to fax

The 800 ft high masts had been a landmark since the 1920s and, as reporter David Rees finds out, maintaining them is tough, particularly during the coldest winter of the twentieth century. As one rigger says, “The wind doesn’t have time to go round you, it goes straight through you.”

Eighty years of broadcasting history came to an end when Rugby Radio Station was closed in 2007.

Watch the 1963 Rugby Radio Station at
https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-rugby-radio-station-1963-online

Rugby Radio Station
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_Radio_Station

Post Readers: Please note that this film is a region-blocked video and only viewable in the UK. If one were to know such things, a way to circumvent this would be to watch it using a VPN located in the UK. 🙂

You might also read this Rugby Radio book review by Dave Porter found in our archives.