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"Wavescan" is a weekly program for long distance radio hobbyists produced by Dr. Adrian M. Peterson, Coordinator of International Relations for Adventist World Radio. AWR carries the program over many of its stations (including shortwave). Adrian Peterson is a highly regarded DXer and radio historian, and often includes features on radio history in his program. We are reproducing those features below, with Dr. Peterson's permission and assistance.
Wavescan N514, December 30, 2018
Rebuilding a Caribbean Island after Hurricane Devastation
The small island of St. Barthelemy on the northern edge of the line of islands that separate the Atlantic Ocean from the Caribbean Sea is noted for two very different circumstances: the Oldest Woman in the World, and its remarkable recovery from two full-force major hurricanes two years ago.
St. Barthelemy is a small, irregular V-shaped island of just 8.1 square miles, located 160 miles due east of Puerto Rico. Several small islands and islets make up this French territory, which is now semi-autonomous under the French government over there on the other side of the Atlantic in distant Europe. Among its indigenous population, this small Caribbean island is known as Ouanalao.
During its era of early pre-history, the island was visited, and at times settled, by native Taino people from neighboring island clusters. The first European visitor was the well-known epic explorer of Spanish fame Christopher Columbus, who sighted the island in 1493 and named it St. Barthelemy in honor of his brother, Bartolomeo. The island continued to receive occasional European visitors for the next one and a half centuries.
In 1648, some 50 or 60 French people from the neighboring island of St. Christopher established a small colony on St. Bart, as the island is known affectionately, though they retreated from their settlement when it was subsequently attacked and destroyed by Carib Indians. The island was absorbed into the French Empire 20 years later; it was briefly absorbed into the British Empire three quarters of a century later again; and then in 1784 it was granted to Sweden in an unusual exchange arrangement. England wanted trading rights in Gothenburg, and Sweden was happy to obtain an island in the Caribbean.
It was during the Swedish administration, that the main town on St. Barthelemy was named Gustavia in honor of King Gustav III of Sweden, the name that it still carries to this day. However, almost a century later, Sweden, in need of money, sold the island back to the French.
For a lengthy period of time, the French government administered St. Barthelemy collectively with other French colonies in the Caribbean. More recently, this island entity was tied with Guadeloupe as a single political unit. However, after a plebiscite vote 15 years ago, St. Barthelemy gained its own separate status, directly responsible to the national government in Paris.
These days, the island population is around 10,000; the island currency is the European Euro; most food items are imported from France and the United States; the island caters to high end tourism; and it receives a quarter million tourists each year.
Two Category 5 hurricanes struck St. Bart two years ago (2017). Hurricane Irma was described as the strongest-ever-recorded-hurricane out in the open Atlantic, and at peak intensity it struck St. Bart on September 6. The anemometer at the island's Weather Station registered 199 miles per hour at the time when that same wind blast destroyed it.
During the hurricane, violent seas washed several buildings off their foundations, and the streets in Gustavia became rushing torrential rivers. The Fire Station was inundated with 6-1/2 feet of flood waters, the shops no longer existed, and the citizens were left with no electricity, no drinking water, and no phone system. As one survivor stated: Hurricane Irma effectively erased St. Bart from the map.
There was then no active radio station left on St. Bart, and the islanders were dependent upon a government radio station on nearby St. Martin Island for news and information. The emergency radio programming came from Government Radio with 1 kW on 107.9 FM in Philipsburg on the Dutch side of the island.
To add to the massive destruction of the island infrastructure, two weeks later came another massive hurricane, Maria, though this time the eye passed a few miles south of St. Bart.
However, six months after the buffeting from the two hurricanes, Irma and Maria, business leadership on St. Bart declared this about their island home: The Caribbean Island of St. Bart (they said) is making a strong recovery following the damage that it sustained from last summer's hurricanes. Buildings are further hurricane proofed, and all electricity distribution is now via underground cable. Then in October last year (2017) they declared: Today, the island is cleaned up and ready to welcome visitors.
Regarding the radio scene on St. Barthelemy, we learn that there has never been a mediumwave nor shortwave radio broadcasting station on the island. The WRTVHB listed the first FM stations beginning in the mid-1990s, though it is probable that FM was actually introduced sometime before that.
During the era that St. Barthelemy was linked politically with Guadeloupe, a 300 watt FM station was active on 100.7 MHz, and much of the programming on this station was a live relay from RFO in Paris. Then, around the turn of the century, another FM station was inaugurated on St. Bart, with 300 watts on 88.6 MHz.
Programming on this second outlet was a relay from the government-operated FM and mediumwave station on Guadeloupe, a distance of 150 miles. Apparently the saltwater pathway provided sufficient propagation from the 40 kW signal on mediumwave 640 kHz in Guadeloupe for a good quality off air relay on FM on St. Bart.
These days three different radio stations are active on St. Bart, utilizing twelve different FM channels, including low power relay transmitters for complete island coverage.
And what about the world's oldest living person? Eugenia Blanchard was born in Gustavia on St. Barthelemy on February 16, 1898, and her life span stretched from the late 1800s, through the 1900s, and into the 2000s. She served as a Catholic nun in the nearby Dutch island of Curacao, and she passed away in her hometown, Gustavia, on November 4, 2010. Her life touched three consecutive centuries, and she lived for a total of 114-3/4 years.
Ancient DX Report 1916 - 2
In this, the second Ancient DX Report for the year 1916, we are aware that the world was involved in one way or another with a destructive and cruel war over in Europe. Many nations were aligned on one side or the other, and even those that did their best to remain neutral were nevertheless impacted by decisive events taking place in continental Europe.
Wireless and radio magazines of the era presented a multitude of stories associated with the events of the war, and in particular with attacks and counterattacks at sea, in both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Navy vessels, cargo vessels, passenger liners, and submarines were all involved, and many were the vivid accounts of the usage of Morse Code wireless communication, to the advantage of one side and the disadvantage of the other.
The wireless bands buzzed with the sound of Morse Code, giving out information and news regarding attacks by belligerent surface vessels, submarines and U-boats. Back then there was yet very little radio traffic on the airwaves by voice.
Even though the radio valve/tube was in early production in Europe and the United States, incorporation into the circuitry of radio transmitters and receivers was far from universal back then. Many major wireless stations were still using variations of the Crystal Set Receiver, which was quite often based upon just a simple circuit with a Galena crystal as the detector. During the year 1916, two wireless operators, Dick Johnstone at the Marconi station KPH in Bolinas, California, and Tom Lambert at station WRE aboard the tanker J. A. Moffett, maintained continuous contact across the Pacific, at a stated distance up to 5,000 miles. Then again, Howard Seefred in California logged the wireless station JJC at Funabashi, Japan at a stated distance of 6,000 miles. On each of these occasions only a simple Galena Crystal Set Receiver was in use.
On February 5 (1916), Ernst Anderson, with one of his own famous 50 kW transmitter alternators, performed a successful experiment at the New Brunswick wireless station with an antenna that was 900 feet long. A tuned down lead at the far end of the antenna more than doubled the effectiveness of the entire transmitter system.
In Italy, Marconi also conducted transmission tests, at Lake Livorno, using a focused parabolic antenna on shore and a receiver on a motor boat on the lake.
At the same time as war was active on continental Europe, there was a brief though unsuccessful attempt at warfare on the Irish island of Ireland. Over Easter weekend (1916), rebels from the Irish Citizen Army and the Irish Volunteers took over the wireless telegraphy station in O'Connell Street, Dublin. They quickly repaired a 1.5 kW ship wireless transmitter at the wireless station, reinstalled it in the GPO Building also on O'Connell Street, and declared to the world in Morse Code on shortwave that Ireland was now an independent republic.
In October, the German Transocean Newsagency was providing daily news bulletins to 2,000 newspapers in the United States. In New Zealand, daily weather reports were reintroduced over their three main wireless stations; VLA Awanui, VLW Wellington, and VLB Awarua.
In Australia, all wireless stations were taken over by the Royal Australian Navy. At the same time, AWA was manufacturing and delivering complete wireless stations to governments in several countries of Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands.
In 1916, a total of 10 wireless stations were closed in Alaska, and station MQI on Macquarie Island were all closed; the Alaskan stations because of the harsh northern winter, and the Macquarie Island station because of the war in Europe.
Accurate time signals were an important factor in early radio broadcasting, and at one stage the time signals from a navy wireless station in Alaska were noted four seconds after the time signals from NAA in Arlington, Virginia.
The earliest known mention of the callsign 8XK is found in the Radio Service Bulletin for August 1, 1916. This call was allocated to Frank Conrad, and it became part of the early history of the famous mediumwave station KDKA.
The distance between Europe and the United States was measured by radio signals from station NAA in Arlington, Virginia and station FL on the Eiffel Tower in Paris as 5 hours, 17 mins, and 35.67 secs.
During the year 1916 there were many successful attempts at radio program broadcasting, including the following in the United States of America:
Miss Kathleen Parkin, 6SO, in San Rafael, California, at the age of just 15, was the youngest amateur radio operator in the United States. She constructed her own 250 watt wireless station.
Another skilled though unnamed female wireless operator in Boston applied to serve as the wireless operator aboard a particular ship. Her application was denied because two operators were needed, and one who was already accepted was a man. The Boston girl married the already accepted operator, and she was then accepted on the same ship.