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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 N567, January 5, 2020

The Voice of America, Delano, California: Gone but not Forgotten - 3

The powerful shortwave Voice of America relay station located near Delano in California ended its final broadcast at 8:30 pm on Saturday, October 27, 2007, and it has lain silent ever since. VOA Delano was paired with an identical station that was located near Dixon, also in California.

Both stations were hurriedly constructed and rushed into service in 1944; both gave widespread coverage into the Pacific arena; both were operated by major commercial radio organizations; and both have been closed in recent times. These two major VOA shortwave relay stations in California were located some 250 miles apart.

The main purpose for the Delano shortwave station was as a program feed for VOA programming to VOA relay stations in the Asian arena; and there were occasions when Delano filled in for times of outage at the newer VOA station in Greenville, North Carolina. In the mid-1990s, VOA Delano procured some of the usable equipment from the two VOA stations at Dixon and Bethany, at the time of their closure. At the time of its closure, VOA Delano was on the air with 23 antenna systems, and 9 shortwave transmitters (2 @ 50 kW, and 7 @ 250 kW) in two transmitter buildings.

Subsequent to its closure, several different organizations have shown an interest in obtaining the station property, though nothing has yet eventuated. Among the many proposals that have been considered are the following:

However, in spite of all of these projected possibilities, the latest available information would suggest that VOA Delano will simply revert to its original usage as a farm property. It should also be mentioned that the area is a wildlife habitat for three endangered species: Tipton Kangaroo Rat, Blunt-nosed Leopard Lizard, and the San Joaquin Kit Fox.

Six years ago (2014), the Antique Wireless Association, in conjunction with the Collins Collectors Association, formed what they called the Collins Radio Heritage Group, and they removed one of the half-century old Collins transmitters and re-installed it at the AWA Museum in the small town of Bloomfield in New York state. The massive 25 ft. long, 20 ton, 250 kW Collins shortwave transmitter, Model No 821A-1, was conveyed by truck and train to its 2700 miles distant new location in 128 crated boxes, large and small.

The four Brown Boveri transmitters at 250 kW each had already been removed and shipped overseas, leaving just the two remaining Collins transmitters in situ. Whoever buys the land gets these transmitters as scrap metal.

We should also mention that originally the program feed for VOA Delano came from the VOA studios in New York City, and subsequently in Washington, DC, by AT&T Long-Lines telephone wires. However, after to the Cuban Crisis in 1962, VOA decided that it would be wise to implement an additional backup system of program feed from the New York studios to the Delano shortwave transmitters.

Hence, a Shortwave Receiver Station was installed for VOA Delano near Pixley, a dozen air miles further north from the transmitter site. A tract of land, 82 acres in extent, almost barren and featureless, was procured on Flannery Road, just 5 miles west of Pixley. Four rhombic antennas were installed, together with a single-hop microwave relay system.

For many years, this backup program feed from the east coast to the west coast was maintained and regularly tested, but it was never taken into regular service. In due course, satellite delivery replaced the need for the Shortwave Receiver Station at Pixley.

In this mini-series of three topics on the history of the CBS-VOA shortwave relay station near Delano in California, we have presented the half-century story of an important large shortwave relay station. Yes, this station is gone; but no, it is not forgotten. In the QSL collections of a multitude of international radio monitors around the world are QSL cards verifying the reception of VOA Delano. In addition, one of their huge Collins transmitters is on display in that small museum in a small town near the continental east coast.

We might also add, that the story of the VOA relay station near Dixon in California is a similar story to that of the Delano station, and maybe one of these days we can present that information here in Wavescan. In the meantime, though, there are still several additional interesting stories yet to be told about mediumwave KNX and shortwave CBS-VOA Delano; so keep listening to Wavescan for all of these coming topics.


Ancient DX Report 1920

Your shortwave radio is tuned to the first edition of the AWR DX program Wavescan for the New Year, with the double digits 2020. On this occasion, we bring to you this Ancient DX Report for the year 1920, exactly 100 years ago.

What was it that people around the world were listening to on their rather primitive radio receivers way back then? That is what we are presenting in Wavescan today.

When the New Year 1920 began, the world was well and truly awake after the end of the tragic and horrible events of World War I. With a New Year, and a new decade, there was an air of expectancy that had not been known before.

Radio was the world's "new baby" that brought into any and (almost) every home, information and entertainment that had never been known before. It would almost seem that "the world is alive with the sound of music."

The American Department of Commerce held the portfolio for radio development throughout the nation, and in their mid-1920 report to Congress they stated that there were 6,103 licensed amateur radio operators on the air. Add to that number the long and unknown list of unlicensed radio operators throughout the country, as well as those in other countries around the world, and you have a plethora of murky signals on the newly developing radio spectrum.

In addition to local and international QSO contacts, many of these radio stations were on the air also with some style of amateurish program broadcasting, usually in the form of previously recorded music, tied together with spontaneous comment. The vast number of reported and unreported short term radio broadcasts during the year is beyond count.

However, at this stage, these live broadcasts were all on the segment of the radio spectrum that we now call the longwave and mediumwave broadcast bands, and the only propagation on shortwave was harmonics from stations that were transmitting on lower frequencies. Let's take a look now at the radio scene during the year 1920, month by month, with examples of what was on, and occasionally off, the air.

New Year's Day brought the broadcast of a new daily bulletin of news in Morse Code from a wireless station at the YMCA in Denver, Colorado. It was at 10:00 p.m. on January 1 (1920) that Mr. W. H. Smith began the transmission of these news bulletins which were derived from information provided by the local newspaper, the Rocky Mountain News. Mr. Smith constructed this amateur wireless station at the YMCA, and it was recognized as one of the best amateur stations in the United States.

Also in January, a new wireless station was inaugurated at Christiana in Sweden. This new station, which was taken into service on January 10, was established for the purpose of communication with wireless stations in other European countries.

On February 26, station BS at the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, DC broadcast a program of recorded music. This station BS, which was located on Connecticut Ave., NW, in Washington, DC was the forerunner of the more familiar WWV, the standard time and frequency station now located at Fort Collins, also in Colorado.

Down in Australia, Dr. Val McDowell established his amateur radio broadcasting station in suburban Brisbane, also in February. The McDowell station 4CM, with its 500 watt Marconi transmitter from England, was one of the best amateur broadcasting stations in Australia back during that era.

In March (1920), several significant wireless stations in the United States were listed with new licenses. Among these important stations were the RCA stations KET in Bolinas, California and KIE at Kahuku on the north coast of the island of Oahu in Hawaii. Another new communication station was station WNU, Slidell Radio, at New Orleans, which was on the air for communication with the Banana Boats in the Caribbean.

On this same date, March 1, a navigation wireless station NLD was licensed for Bird Island on the Californian coastline near the Golden Gate entrance to San Francisco Bay. A similar station, NFH, was installed on Smith Island in Washington State.

Also on this same date (March 1, 1920), station KUFP was licensed to the Bethlehem Ship Building Corporation in San Francisco for use on new ships during their initial sea trials. Station 9YB was also licensed on this date for experimental transmissions at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana (now mediumwave WBAA); and also the American army inaugurated a new communication station, WYX, at Tientsin in China.

In April, Lee De Forest re-opened his historic New York program broadcasting station 2XG with a new callsign, 6XC, at a new location on the California Theater at the corner of Market and 4th Streets in San Francisco. In Canada, popular singer Dorothy Lutton presented a musical concert over the pioneer radio station XWA in Montreal on May 20. Over in England, the Australian operatic singer Dame Nellie Melba presented an evening concert over station 2MT, the Marconi broadcasting station at Writtle, near Chelmsford in Sussex, on June 15.

A short series of music broadcasts from the Atlantic passenger liner RMS Victorian took place during July; and on August 21, the first official message was sent from the American navy wireless station LY, with its powerful 1,000 kW transmitter at Lafayette near Bordeaux in France. Radio station 8MK at the Detroit News in Detroit made its first test transmission on August 20. Station 8MK is better known these days as the mediumwave giant WWJ, with its 50 kW on 950 kHz.

The Pittsburgh Gazette Times dated September 26 announced the news that a new wireless station was under construction at the Westinghouse factory at East Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. This new communication wireless station evolved into the now world famous mediumwave broadcasting station KDKA.

On October 13, Lionel Hooke made the second public demonstration of radio broadcasting in Australia with a music broadcast from a 500 watt Marconi transmitter at his home in suburban Melbourne, using a receiver at Federal Parliament in Queen's Hall in Melbourne City. In November, AT&T announced that they were already on the air with several experimental longwave stations in New York and New Jersey, including 2XF at Cliffwood and 2XJ at Deal Beach, both in New Jersey, and also 2XB on West Street in New York.

On December 22, 1920, the staff at the Konigswusterhausen wireless station near Berlin presented their own Christmas music program, which is now listed as the first radio broadcast in Germany.

And we might add, that during the year 1920, coastal wireless station WCC on Cape Cod was dismantled, salvaged, scrapped and abandoned; Senator Guglielmo Marconi made several broadcasts from his radio equipped ship, the Elettra (callsign IBDK); a multitude of radio stations in different countries were broadcasting time signals; and the usage of the new amateur QSL card was escalating throughout the world.

However, in spite of all of the longwave and mediumwave radio activity during the year 1920, we should state again that during the year 1920, Frank Conrad at his amateur station 8XK in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania began to observe that the harmonics of longwave and mediumwave stations propagated much further, and much better, than the fundamental transmissions. Thus it was that Frank Conrad, together with a few other amateur radio operators in the United States, began to develop an interest in shortwave propagation, and that was during this same auspicious radio year 1920.