Tag Archives: Don Moore’s Photo Album

Don Moore’s Photo Album: Albania Part One

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Don Moore–noted author, traveler, and DXer–for the latest installment of his Photo Album guest post series:


Don Moore’s Photo Album: Albania – Part One

Finding Radio Tirana

More of Don’s traveling DX stories can be found in his book Tales of a Vagabond DXer [SWLing Post affiliate link]. Don visited Albania in March 2024. 

Of all the places that I’ve been to but wouldn’t have imagined visiting forty years ago, Albania is definitely at the top of the list. Yet here I am wandering around in Tirana’s coolest and most trendy neighborhood. I walk by an Argentine steak house, several Italian trattorias, a Texas cowboy-themed hamburger restaurant, and several sports bars with huge TVs tuned to football games (or soccer if you prefer). Boutique hotels, fashionable clothing stores, and shiny office buildings complete the scene. It’s just another upscale neighborhood in the global village. And it’s in Albania.

I hadn’t planned on getting an afternoon drink until the Radio Bar Tirana popped up on Google Maps. How could I not stop by a place with a name like that? The shelves behind the bar are filled with bottles of imported gin, whisky, tequila, and cognac, but I order a glass of raki, Albania’s version of the cheap firewater that every culture seems to have. It’s strong and burns my throat. No wonder Albanians have survived all that they have been through over the past six centuries. You have to be tough and resilient to drink this stuff. Or maybe it’s drinking raki that made Albanians tough and resilient.

The bar is staffed by two hipsters. I tell them about how decades ago (long before they were born) I used to listen to Radio Tirana on shortwave in the United States. They had never heard of Radio Tirana’s shortwave broadcasts and were amazed to know it was heard in the United States. I think they were also amazed that someone from outside Albania would have wanted to listen to the station during those terrible times. The bar, they explain, has nothing to do with any radio station but takes its name from the many old radios that line the walls. And it’s clear that I fit in better with the dusty wall décor than with the young bartenders or the chic patrons.

The back of the bar opens onto a large, covered patio filled with Albania’s version of smartly dressed young professionals. Late afternoon is the time to drink and to network. But the day is warm and sunny and no one wants to be inside. The main room is empty except for the bartenders and a man in the corner trying to work on his laptop despite the loud voices coming from the patio. I have the inside to myself so I wander around sipping raki, taking pictures of old radios, and remembering Radio Tirana.

The Kantata M model radio was produced in Murom, Russia by the Murom RIP Works in the 1970s. 

Rodina-52M receiver made in 1952 by the Voronezh Elektrosignal Radio company in Voronezh, Russia. Thank you to Anatoly Klepov and Wojtek Zaremba for their assistance in identifying these two Soviet-era receivers.

The Red Lantern Model 269 was made in Shanghai in the 1960s. It predates the General Electric Super Radio by at least fifteen years so the “2 Band Super” name was not a takeoff on the popular GE receiver.

History in a Nutshell

Yesterday, I had visited the vast National History Museum on Skanderbeg Square in the heart of Tirana. All the peoples of the Balkans had a golden age and for Albanians it was the mid-1400s. The Ottoman Empire was the strongest and most aggressive power in the region but George Skanderbeg and his successors held off the Turks for fifty years. The Turks eventually conquered Albania and much of the Balkans but the delay likely prevented them from taking even more of Europe including Italy.

The Ottomans would rule Albania for over four centuries and in that time most Albanians converted to Islam. It was the only Ottoman territory in Europe where that happened. But Albanians continued to remember Skanderbeg, the Catholic who had led the fight against the Muslim Turks, as their national hero. And they never took their Islam as seriously as most other places. That’s why they still drink alcoholic raki.

Over the centuries, the Albanians would periodically raise the double-headed eagle flag of Skanderbeg and rebel against Ottoman rule. And each time the rebellion would be brutally put down. But by the early 20th century the Ottoman Empire had been significantly weakened and Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria had already won their freedom. In 1912 those countries went to war against the Ottomans to gain more land for themselves and as a side result Albania gained its independence. Then two years later World War I came and Albania and its neighbors were overrun by the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

When a war is over the victors usually divide the spoils and World War I was no different. Secret negotiations among the European powers included a plan to divide Albania between the new nation of Yugoslavia, Greece, and Italy. When the plans leaked out Albanians once again raised the double-headed eagle flag in defiance and this time received support from the United States. The Woodrow Wilson administration made sure that Albania would continue to exist with its pre-war borders intact.

Still, Albania’s bigger neighbors, especially Benito Mussolini’s Italy, continued to intervene in the country’s affairs. In 1928, at Mussolini’s urging, Prime Minister Ahmed Zogi declared Albania a monarchy and crowned himself as King Zog I. As the years passed King Zog came to realize that Mussolini’s plans for Albania were not friendly and he gradually distanced his government from the Italian ruler. The unmarried king also knew that his dynasty needed an heir. In April 1938, 42-year-old King Zog (a Muslim) married 23-year-old Countess Geraldine Apponyi de Nagy-Appony, a Catholic and daughter of a Hungarian nobleman and his American wife.

Meanwhile Albania was slowly entering the modern world and that included radio broadcasting. In 1937, a new radio-telephone station was installed outside of Tirana. The three-kilowatt shortwave transmitter was also used to broadcast several hours of programming per day, but it wasn’t a formal radio station. In the early 1930s several four-story Italian style villas had been built along Kont Urani Street, not far from Skanderbeg Square. In 1938, King Zog’s government confiscated one of the buildings, the Italian-Albanian Culture Center, and made it the first home of Radio Tirana. The new station was officially inaugurated by King Zog and Queen Geraldine in a live ceremony on 28 November 1938. A few months later, on 5 April 1939, the station had its first news scoop when it announced the birth of Crown Prince Leka to the world.

Queen Geraldine and King Zog at the 1938 inauguration of Radio Tirana.

The prince’s birth was good news for Albania, but it was a dark time in Europe. Just a few weeks earlier Adolf Hitler’s Nazi army had marched into Czechoslovakia without consequences. Not to be outdone by his German counterpart, on 7 April (two days after the prince’s birth), Mussolini invaded Albania. The Italian plans had been drawn up quickly and haphazardly and would likely have failed against a formidable opponent. But the handful of patrol boats in Albania’s navy could do nothing to stop the two battleships, six cruisers, nine destroyers, and numerous smaller ships that carried the invasion force across the Strait of Otranto. And Albania’s tiny poorly trained army was no match for the 100,000 troops that came ashore. In just a few days Albania had been overrun and King Zog and his family had fled to Greece (and eventually to England).

What happened over the next few years is a complex story. Mussolini’s goal was to turn Albania into an Italian client-state. The invaders set about to Italianize the country while also benefiting from its resources and workforce. As Radio Tirana was a key part of that process, the Italians modernized the studios, installed new antennas and transmitters throughout the country, and professionalized the programming. In order to not alienate the population, the station tried to maintain a balance between promoting Italian culture while also carrying Albanian culture and music.

Meanwhile, a resistance run by loyalists to King Zog fought back. They had some initial successes but soon the Italians quashed the movement by killing or capturing most of its leadership. They hadn’t made much effort to hide what they were doing. That should have ended the resistance but a new force, Albania’s tiny Communist Party, stepped in to fill the leadership vacuum. Unlike King Zog’s men, they already knew how to operate an underground movement. Gradually the Communists formed an effective guerilla force in Albania’s mountainous interior.

Italy’s surrender to the Allies in September 1943, should have been good news for Albania but the Nazis quickly sent in troops to take over and prevent the Allies from moving in. Their rule was more brutal than anything the Italians had done and that pushed more Albanians to join the resistance. By October 1944 the movement had grown to the point that its leaders had the confidence to launch an all-out attack on Tirana. For three weeks fighting raged back-and-forth in the city streets until on 17 November the last German troops withdrew under the cover of darkness. Tirana was once again ruled by Albanians and one of the leaders was a man named Enver Hoxha.

Albanian partisans in front of Radio Tirana after liberating the city. Tirana was the only European capital freed by its own partisan forces without any help from Allied armies.

Enver’s Place

My glass of raki is empty and I have all the pictures I want. I hand a generous tip to one of the bartenders. He was kind enough to move some bottles so I could get a clear picture of the “Radio Bar” sign. I continue up the street in the direction I had been heading and a block later come to my next destination, the house where Enver Hoxha lived while he ruled Albania.

The house doesn’t look at all like the sort of place a national ruler would live, let alone one who ruled with a deadly iron fist. It’s more like the kind of Frank Lloyd Wright inspired house that might be found in an upscale American suburb. Next door is the Abraham Lincoln Center, a school that teaches American English to Albanians. It’s a good thing, I think, that Enver Hoxha is dead. Enver hated the United States and he would never have been happy with these neighbors.

Unfortunately, the house is not open for tours so all I can do is stand outside and take pictures. As I look at the house I think back again to Radio Tirana. I hadn’t planned to visit any radio stations on this trip but the raki is still having its effect on me. Just for fun, I open up Google Maps and type in Radio Tirana. Surprisingly, I get a result and it’s only two blocks further down the same street. But the huge Radio Televizioni Shqiptar building on the corner with Rue Ismail Quemal turns out not to be the Radio Tirana building I had seen in the old picture in the national museum.

Inside, two young women are working at the reception desk and one speaks excellent English. I explain how I used to listen to Radio Tirana on shortwave. Unlike the bartenders, she knows all about it even though she is clearly in her early 20s. She says that in those days Radio Tirana would have been broadcasting from the old building near Skanderbeg Square. I’m about to leave but then I turn around. “Does that old building still exist? I would really like to see it if it does.” Continue reading

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Don Moore’s Photo Album: Costa Rica (Part Two)

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Don Moore–noted author, traveler, and DXer–for the latest installment of his Photo Album guest post series:


Don Moore’s Photo Album: Costa Rica (Part Two)

by Don Moore

It’s been three months since the last time I put together one of these pieces because I was busy finishing my book, Tales of a Vagabond DXer [Note: SWLing Post Amazon affiliate link]. You may have seen the announcement about it here a few weeks ago. This series should appear more regularly in 2024 as I plan to concentrate on small writing projects for a while!

Back in August, we looked at five Costa Rican shortwave stations that I visited in 1990. This time I’m going to feature just one station, but a station with a very interesting story. My book has an updated and rewritten version of the article I wrote about it for Monitoring Times magazine in the early 1990s. But the book doesn’t have many photos as adding those significantly increases the price. So, here are the pictures and a little bit about the station.

This seven-and-a-half-watt transmitter was the first transmitter for TI4NRH, the first shortwave broadcast station in Latin America. It was built by Amando Céspedes Marín in Heredia, Costa Rica in 1928. Don Amando operated a small medium wave station and hoped that by using shortwave he could reach listeners in all of Costa Rica. Instead, he gained an audience all around the world. His little TI4NRH became one of the most popular radio stations for shortwave listeners throughout the 1930s until he shut it down at the beginning of World War Two. This portrait of Don Amando was made around that time.

I remembered reading about TI4NRH in an old-timer’s article, so while I was in Costa Rica I went to Heredia hoping to find someone who could tell me where the station had operated from. I wanted to get a picture of the building. Instead, I found that everything was still there in the dimly lit backroom of the family house. (The pictures are grainy as the room was very dark.) Don Amando had passed away in 1976 but his never-married daughter, Lydylia, still lived there and treated the room as a shrine to her departed father.

The Céspedes family house was on a side street a few blocks south of the main plaza in Heredia. The radio station was located in the middle section, behind the white door.

Plaque on the front door commemorating the building as the birthplace of radio in Costa Rica.

Financial support from listeners helped TI4NRH buy new transmitters and raise power. This 300-watt transmitter was the last one used.

Radio amateurs in the USA and Canada raised money to buy and ship this antenna tower to TI4NRH in the late 1930s.

Nothing was removed after the station closed down but the space became a storage room for the family. This is how it looked in June 1990.

The bottom of that original 7 ½ watt transmitter. Unfortunately, the photo came out very dark in the dimly lit room.

The walls were covered with yellowing 1930s amateur radio QSL cards.

This letter written by Arthur Kopf, an American working in the Panama Canal Zone, was the first report received by TI4NRH. That made it the first reception report ever written to a Latin American shortwave broadcast station.

Don Amando’s daughter Lydylia was the guardian of her father’s legacy.

A view showing the house and neighboring antenna tower.

TI4NRH was only a hobby for Don Amando. He made a living by operating a print shop and photography studio. With financial support from the Zenith Corporation, he published a monthly radio magazine (primarily in Spanish) for several years in the 1930s.

In 1928, Philadelphia DXer Charles Schroeder became the first North American DXer to log a Latin American SWBC station when he heard TI4NRH. He not only got a QSL for his reception, TI4NRH sent him a beautiful chair made out of Costa Rican tropical hard woods. The chair was sent in pieces with instructions for assembly and arrived in just twelve days. Mr. Schroeder passed away in 1956, but in 2005 I heard from Schroeder’s daughter, who still had the chair. She sent these photos.

Finding TI4NRH was like finding an unknown time capsule. It was one of the biggest highlights of both my DX career and my travels. And I always hoped to return. In the late 1990s I learned that Lydylia had passed away and that one of her nephews had moved into the house. Sometime around 2010 the antenna tower had become unsafe so the family had it torn down and sold for scrap. However, other than donating a few items to the city museum (something Lydylia had refused to do), the family continued to hold on to Don Amando’s legacy. In 2017, a group of Costa Rican radio amateurs visited the house and published their photos, which were much better than my old ones.

I would like to say that everything is still there for the next visiting DXers to see. But in looking for links to include in this piece I came across some very sad news. The house was demolished in July 2021. Apparently the next generation of the family (Don Amando’s great-grandchildren) had no interest in maintaining the old house and Costa Rica doesn’t have a good program to preserve historical sites. So the city of Heredia had the house torn down. The news article I found (which was very critical of the destruction) didn’t even know what had happened to the station memorabilia that had been in the house. So, unfortunately, this story does not have a happy ending.

LINKS

To see the exact location of where TI4NRH was, open Google Maps and search for the following coordinates: 9.995550958984419, -84.11618361000325 then switch from map view to satellite view.

The main house was where the shiny tin roof is today (2024). Just to the right is another building with a red roof. That is where the wing with the station and the antenna tower were.

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Don Moore’s Photo Album: Loja, Ecuador

Iglesia San Francisco, Loja

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Don Moore–noted author, traveler, and DXer–for the latest installment of his Photo Album guest post series:


Don Moore’s Photo Album: Loja, Ecuador

by Don Moore

A few months ago I did a two-part feature on my favorite small Latin American city, Cuenca, Ecuador.  This time let’s journey to a nearby smaller city that I don’t know very well but want to spend more time in.

Loja is about two hundred kilometers south of Cuenca on a paved highway that runs through a long valley before climbing into the mountains to twist and turn the rest of the way. Look at the route on Google Maps and you’ll see what I mean. Today it’s a picturesque four-hour bus ride but when I made the trip the first time in 1985 it was a tortuous twelve-hour journey on rough dirt roads.

The roads today may be smooth and paved but Loja is still the most isolated major town in Ecuador. The city is so far south that it is closer to the Peruvian border than it is to any other town of size in Ecuador. This isolation has both forced the region to be self-reliant and cushioned it from problems in the rest of the country. For three years in the mid-1800s the province of Loja even governed itself as a peaceful independent country while the rest of Ecuador was mired in a bloody civil war.

One of Loja’s many picturesque streets.

Loja’s population of around 200,000 (a third the size of Cuenca) makes it the twelfth largest city in Ecuador. But Loja is one of those places that has always punched above its weight. The economy is strong as it’s the center of one of the best coffee growing areas in South America and the city is the main transit point for the gold fields to the east in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Loja is widely thought of as the most cultured and educated city in the country. Two of its universities rank in the country’s top ten. And everyone agrees that Loja is the center of Ecuadorian music. One of the city’s several museums has room after room filled with displays about the many famous musicians that have come from (and continue to come from) Loja. Free concerts are held in the city’s plazas at least once a week.

Loja has always been forward-looking. In 1890 the city installed one of the first hydroelectric generators in all of South America. That was just eight years after the first plant was installed in the United States. A little over a century later, in 2013, the first windfarm in continental Ecuador was constructed on a ridge above the city. The eleven windmills produce sixteen megawatts and phase two of the project, which is now under construction, will add another forty-six megawatts. A recently approved third phase will add another 110 megawatts.

Windmills overlooking Loja

The First Visit

My first visit to Loja was in March 1985 after that long twelve-hour bus ride from Cuenca. I remember Loja as being a pretty but sleepy small city. We only stayed two nights and one day. My primary goal was to visit Radio Centinela del Sur and get a QSL for myself and several friends. I don’t recall anything from that long ago visit but I did get the QSLs. Radio Centinela was founded in 1956 so it wasn’t the first radio station in Loja. But it was the first one to last for more than a few years. On shortwave Radio Centinela del Sur was a station that changed frequency a lot. I first heard it in 1974 on 5020 kHz but most of my logs were made in the early and mid-1980s when 4890 kHz was in use. In the 1990s Radio Centinela del Sur used 4771 and 4899 kHz at various times. The station left shortwave for good by the late 1990s.

Radio Centinela de Sur in 1985

Business card from 1985

The second oldest station in Loja was Radio Nacional Progreso, founded in 1958. I have many logs of the station on its 5060 kHz (variable) frequency from the 1970s through the 1990s. I don’t remember why I didn’t visit them in 1985. Maybe the office was outside of town and difficult to get to. Loja’s other shortwave station was the Catholic broadcaster Radio Luz y Vida, founded in 1967. In the early 1970s the station used 4825 kHz on shortwave but around 1978 they switched to 4850 kHz. I last logged them there in 1997. Radio Luz y Vida was only a few blocks from our hotel and I stopped by several times but the inner door was always locked and I never got to see more than the entrance way. Continue reading

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Don Moore’s Photo Album: Costa Rica (Part One) 

Radio Reloj, Costa Rica (1990)

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Don Moore–noted author, traveler, and DXer–for the latest installment of his Photo Album guest post series:


Don Moore’s Photo Album: Costa Rica (part one) 

by Don Moore

Costa Rica is one of the most visited countries in Latin America. I only visited there once, for three weeks in May-June 1990 when the country was just beginning to become a major international eco-tourism destination. Visitors were few and prices very affordable. Except for a short trip to the Monteverde cloud forest, we spent all our time in the central valley, staying in San José and nearby Heredia. Rather than nature, our visit focused on cultural and historical sites … and a lot of radio stations.

Since the 19th century, Costa Rica has been one of the most literate and educated countries in Latin America. That quality is reflected in its radio broadcasting industry, which has always been very professional. Curiously that’s even reflected in station verifications. Almost every Costa Rican shortwave station that I’ve verified had a professionally printed QSL card.

Despite being one of the smallest countries in Latin America, Costa Rica had a lot of shortwave radio stations. I have fifteen in my logbooks and some of the most famous ones were already off the air when I started DXing. Unfortunately, shortwave broadcasting from Costa Rica ended almost twenty years ago so there’s no more to be had. It is still possible to log Costa Rica on medium wave but it’s not as easy as it once was. When I started DXing in the early 1970s, stations in the San José were spaced twenty-five kilohertz apart. That meant that every other station, such as Radio Sonora on 675 kHz and Radio Columbia on 725 kHz, was on a split frequency that fell between the normally assigned 10 kHz channels. I logged nine Tico stations on medium wave while DXing from Pennsylvania in 1972-1981 and only one of those, Radio Reloj on 700 kHz, was on an even channel.  Those split channels were eliminated in the 1980s so logging Costa Rica on medium wave is no longer a slam-dunk.

I visited a lot of radio stations and took a lot of photos on my one long-ago trip to Costa Rica. I’m going to focus on just five shortwave broadcasters in this first look at Costa Rica. The others will be featured in two or three future columns.

In the 1970s the first Costa Rican station most shortwave DXers heard was Faro del Caribe, or Lighthouse of the Caribbean. This religious station used two kilowatts on 9645 and 6175 kHz and got out surprisingly well as long as there wasn’t a more powerful international broadcaster also using the same frequency. In the late 1970s they added 5055 kHz in the sixty-meter band.

When I visited in 1990 the antennas were located right next to the studio building. The site was outside the city of San José when the station was founded but gradually a residential area built up around it.

Engineer checking one of Faro Del Caribe’s shortwave transmitters.

Fortieth Anniversary pennant from 1988. When Faro del Caribe began broadcasting on February 23, 1948, it was the first Evangelical Protestant radio station in Central America.

For DXers, Radio Reloj was one of Costa Rica’s best known radio voices for several decades. The station was founded as Radio Cristal by Roger Barahona in 1945. The shortwave frequency of 6006 kHz was added in the early 1950s. In 1958 the station was renamed to Radio Reloj when the format changed to focus on news and community announcements with very frequent time checks. (Radio Reloj means Radio Clock.) Roger’s brothers Isaac and Francisco had joined the broadcasting company and Radio Reloj was assigned the callsign TIHB for Hermanos Barahona (Barahona Brothers). Continue reading

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Don Moore’s Photo Album: The Museums of Galicia

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Don Moore–noted author, traveler, and DXer–for the latest installment of his Photo Album guest post series:


A Coruña coast

Don Moore’s Photo Album: The Museums of Galicia

by Don Moore

Some of my favorite sites to visit while traveling are historical, marine, and military museums. I’ve always been interested in those subjects and sometimes those kinds of museums have a few old radios on display. That makes a nice bonus to the visit. Last year, I spent May and June traveling all over Spain (with some short excursions into neighboring countries). One of my favorite regions was Galicia, where I stayed for five nights in the capital of A Coruña and six days in a rural village to the east. And the museums of Galicia had some of the most interesting radio-themed items I’ve ever seen.

Galicia is that small region of northwestern Spain directly north of Portugal. It was part of the Celtic world (along with Brittany in France and the British Isles) and the coastline was home to Phoenician and Greek settlements. It later came under Roman rule along with the rest of the Iberian Peninsula.

A Coruña Fishing Boats

A Coruña Fish Market

Spanish is spoken everywhere but the people are proud of their native language, Galician or Gallego. The language looks and sounds like Portuguese with a lot of Spanish influence but is actually older than either of those. Some linguists believe that Portuguese was derived from Galician.

The rugged Galician coast is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen with its numerous bays, estuaries, steep hillsides, and rocky shore. Most of Spain is arid but Galicia is one of the rainiest parts of Europe so the countryside is green and lush. And because of the neighboring cold Atlantic Ocean, temperatures remain comfortable even when the rest of Spain (and places further north) are baking in the summer heat.

A Coruña City Hall

MOON RADIO

One of the first places I visited in A Coruña was the Museo Nacional de Ciencia e Tecnología on the west side of the harbor. The very first display in the museum is a piece of radio history like no other. In the 1960s NASA set up a network of communication stations around the world to maintain constant contact with the Apollo moon missions. The primary stations were located in rural California, near Canberra in Australia, and in the little village of Fresnedillas outside Madrid. When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon in 1969 Madrid was facing towards them and received the first radio transmissions from the surface of the moon. This museum has one of several redundant radio racks that were used to receive that historic broadcast.

After visiting the museum I wandered uphill to Monte de San Pedro Park, the best place in A Coruña to view the city and harbor. Those heights were also once vital to the city’s defenses and the park contains several mothballed gun turrets built in the 1930s. Continue reading

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Don Moore’s Photo Album: Western Venezuela

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Don Moore–noted author, traveler, and DXer–for the latest installment of his Photo Album guest post series:


Don Moore’s Photo Album: Western Venezuela

by Don Moore

I started this series several months ago with pictures of Ecos del Torbes and other stations in San Cristóbal, Venezuela. This time I want to take you to the other places I visited on that trip to Andean Venezuela in January 1995.

When I started DXing in the early 1970s, Venezuelans were the most commonly heard Latin American shortwave stations. The 90- and 60-meter bands were full of them and there were more than a few to be heard in the 49- and even 31-meter bands. But the Venezuelans began abandoning shortwave before other countries in the region and by the late 1970s their numbers had been considerably thinned. Only a handful remained in the early 1990s.

This radio dial [click to enlarge] goes back to a time when Latin American stations were found all over the radio bands.

One of the last Venezuelan stations to leave shortwave in the 1990s was Radio Valera in the busy commercial city of Valera.

For decades, Radio Valera was one of the best heard and most consistent Venezuelan stations on 60 meters. Roque Torres Aguilar, waving on the left side, was station manager at the time of my visit.

I’ve found listings in DX publications for their 4840 kHz frequency as far back as 1946.

I was given this 59th anniversary key chain when I visited Radio Valera in January 1995. So the station must have begun around 1935.

Station studio in 1995.

A second shortwave station in the state of Trujillo was Radio Trujillo in the nearby town of the same name. Broadcasting on 3295 kHz, they were one of the easier catches in the 90-meter band in the early 1970s but were gone by the late 1970s. Continue reading

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Don Moore’s Photo Album: Cuenca, Ecuador (Part Two)

A Cuenca Artisan Market

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Don Moore–noted author, traveler, and DXer–for the latest installment of his Photo Album guest post series:


Don Moore’s Photo Album: Cuenca, Ecuador (Part 2)

by Don Moore

In the song Por Eso Te Quiero Cuenca (That’s Why I Love You Cuenca) the singer recites a litany of the many reasons to love this city. What do I love about Cuenca? Well, unlike the song, I won’t include well-roasted guinea pig.

The elevation of 2560 meters (8,400 feet) gives Cuenca a comfortable spring-like climate year-round. Daily highs are usually around 20C/70F. Nights are chilly but not cold. Most days have at least several hours of sun, even during the rainy season (as it is now). There are numerous green parks and plazas including long tree-lined walking paths along the two main rivers that run through the city. The drinking water, which comes from high up in the mountains, is the best in South America. Yes, you can drink it right from the tap.

A walking/bike path runs along the Yanuncay River for over six kilometers through the south side of Cuenca. A similar path runs along the larger Tomebamba River in the center of town.

The people of Cuenca are among the friendliest I’ve found anywhere. It’s a well-run, educated city with lots of civic pride. The metro area population is only about a half-million so it’s small enough to easily get anywhere but large enough to have the benefits of a city. Cuenca has several good universities and theaters and the symphony orchestra gives free concerts most Friday evenings. It’s a pleasure to simply stroll through the beautiful architecture in the old centro neighborhood.

One of many beautifully restored buildings in Cuenca’s old centro.

Getting around Cuenca is easy. A ride on the excellent bus system costs just thirty cents and taxi rides usually run under two dollars. And, unlike the much larger cities of Quito and Guayaquil, Cuenca has a mass transit system. In 2013 city leaders voted to put in a light rail line. Doing so required digging up two of the main streets through the old downtown but rather than just dig up two streets they decided to dig up the entire old downtown … to replace the aging water and sewer systems, move all electric lines and cables underground, and install high-speed fiber optic Internet. (Fiber optic Internet was also run above ground in the newer neighborhoods outside the centro.) The result is one of the few places in Latin America where one can enjoy beautifully restored architecture and colonial churches without the views being marred by powerlines. And the Internet here is better than most places I’ve stayed at in the United States.

Those are just a handful of the reasons that I love Cuenca.

Early Radio in Cuenca

Radio broadcasting in Ecuador started in 1925 with Radio El Prado in Riobamba, a small city in the center of the country. Other stations soon started up in Guayaquil and Quito, including HCJB in 1931. Broadcasting came to Cuenca in 1934 when a group of friends purchased a homemade ten-watt transmitter from an engineer in Guayaquil and put it on the air as La Voz de Tomebamba. The name came from the main river flowing through Cuenca. At the time there were only four receivers in the city so the audience was rather sparse. La Voz de Tomebamba initially broadcast for only one or two hours a night and most of the musical selections were done live as there weren’t many 78 RPM records in town. Years later one early listener reminisced, “It was sixty percent noise. Only radio fanatics could be entertained by listening to such a thing.

Old studio equipment from La Voz de Tomebamba

Gradually, the owners added new equipment and expanded the daily schedule. A fifty-watt transmitter was added in 1938 and by 1947 the power had been increased to two hundred watts. The first frequency listing that I’ve found for La Voz de Tomebamba was for 4200 kHz in a 1944 FBIS newsletter. The 1947 WRTH listed it as on the air from 0000 to 0430 GMT on 4200 kHz. And that was the station’s only frequency. Until the 1960s it was very common for radio stations in Ecuador to only broadcast on shortwave and not on medium wave. For example, the 1957 WRTH lists eighty Ecuadorian stations on shortwave (not counting HCJB) but only fifty-nine on medium wave. 

Sometime in the early 1960s La Voz de Tomebamba made the switch to medium wave and left shortwave. Their 4200 kHz frequency is not listed in the 1965 WRTH, nor are they listed in any later ones. (I would be interested to hear from anyone who remembers listening to them on shortwave.) The changes may have had to do with financial problems the station was having. It closed in 1967 and remained off the air until returning under new ownership four years later. Today La Voz de Tomebamba is one of the most popular radio stations in town and has an excellent news department. Their sister station, Super Rock FM 94.9, is very popular with younger listeners.

La Voz de Tomebamba today.

The second station in Cuenca was Radio Cuenca, which began broadcasting in October 1945 on 2830 kHz with two-hundred watts.  It was included in a 1953 list of stations logged by the Universal Radio DX Club of Indiana. To the local audience, Radio Cuenca was best known for its many live music broadcasts.  Continue reading

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