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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 N592, June 28, 2020

The Radio Story: Quarantined on a Lonely Island - Socotra, the Island of Strange Trees

So many people around our world have been under various forms of lockdown due to the ravages of the China Virus in their communities. But what would you do, if you were suddenly and unexpectedly quarantined on a lonely island somewhere?

Yes, it is true: There are indeed some lonely islands out there in the wide open spaces of our huge oceans where the unwanted Virus has not encroached into their communities. And yes, there are several island locations where visitors and tourists have been inadvertently caught by the enactment of local laws and regulations, and they are therefore under lockdown for a period of time. In our program today, we present the story of two or three locations where this has happened.

The very popular 29 year old TV and travel hostess from Poland, Eva Zu Beck, was suddenly and unexpectedly caught in a virus lockdown situation on the island of Socotra in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Yemen. She travelled to Socotra for an unpublicized marathon run, expecting to stay no more than two weeks.

Socotra is an isolated, windswept mountainous island, 80 miles by 30 miles, which is largely inaccessible from anywhere. The local coastal people are mainly fisher families, and the inland people are generally semi-nomadic animal herders.

The citizens of Socotra trace their ancestry back to early settlers from Europe and Arabia, and they speak their own form of a pre-Arabic language. The Nestorian version of early Christianity was introduced into Socotra in the year 535, though these days they worship according to Moslem rites.

Over the years, this island has been occupied by Portugal, England, Germany and Arabia.

One third of the plant life on Socotra is not found anywhere else on Earth; there are more unique forms of life on this island than what the famous English naturalist Charles Darwin discovered in his historic visit to the Galapagos Islands. Among the strange types of trees growing on Socotra is the strange umbrella-shaped Dragon's Blood Tree, the Elephants Leg Tree, and the so-called Floating Tree.

Travel specialist Eva Zu Beck arrived in Socotra on a specially chartered flight from Cairo, Egypt with forty other marathon runners on March 11 (2020). They spent their time in preparation, and yes, they did run their planned marathon race.

Just before their scheduled time to leave the island, the local government announced the closure of all travel into Socotra as a precaution against the Virus, and they asked all tourists to leave as soon as possible. Eva, together with four others, decided to remain on the island; it was safer to remain there than to return to Virus ridden Europe.

On a daily basis she sent out her vlogs for dissemination by YouTube, radio and TV. She showed her local adventures; mountaineering, boating, camping, hunting for seafood, and her brief hospitalization due to a hiking fall. Finally, after an unintended two month stay, Eva Zu Beck was evacuated on a cargo ship, back to the delight of her one million avid followers.

The first application of wireless communication in the environs of Socotra occurred more than a hundred years ago, in the year 1915. The French cargo/passenger liner Euphrate, callsign FNE, was wrecked off the east coast of Socotra, and as a result of emergency wireless signals, two nearby ships responded.

Interestingly, in the same year 1915, an English ship with the same name, Socotra, was wrecked off the French Coast at Boulogne. A disaster message from the Marconi wireless equipment aboard the ship, callsign MSJ, also brought others to the rescue.

It is known that there is a shortwave transmitter in the island capital of Socotra (Hadibu) for communication with the homeland, Yemen; and it is known also that there is a radio broadcasting station in Hadibu which provides entertainment programming and information. The island governor sometimes makes a broadcast on important occasions. However, nothing more is known about their radio broadcasting scene, and a search of the city via Google Earth shows no radio towers anywhere. It is probable that their local radio broadcasting station is an FM operation.


The Radio Story: Quarantined on a Lonely Island - Gough, the Island of Super Mice

The island called Gough is located in an isolated area of the Atlantic Ocean between Africa and South America. It is a rugged volcanic island, 8 miles long and 4 miles wide, and it is listed as one of the very most important bird sanctuaries in the world.

Uninhabited Gough Island was discovered by the Portuguese, and it has been visited by the British, Scottish and South Africans, as well as a lot of seafarers and scientific expeditions. This island was claimed by Great Britain in 1938, and it is administered from another island further north, Tristan da Cunha. A 1954 postage stamp from Tristan da Cunha depicts Gough Island.

In 2007, naturalist researchers published a lengthy scientific document in which it was revealed that millions of overgrown, supersized house mice are devouring and destroying two million eggs, bird chicks and mature birds on Gough Island each year, several of which are endangered species. These mice were unintentionally introduced to the island from seafarer ships during the 1800s, and they have grown to three times the size of regular house mice.

In February (2020), a team of scientific mouse eradicators arrived on Gough Island, and they began their lengthy work of poison bating this massive race of super mice. However, due to the worldwide China Virus pandemic, plans were laid to rescue the team off Gough island, and return them to their home countries.

However, it was necessary for them to remain in unexpected isolation on the island until the middle of April, when they eventually travelled 2,000 miles by yacht to Ascension Island, and then by Royal Air Force plane to England.

Beginning in December 1953, the fishing ship Voorbok began a four month long stint of sending weather reports from Gough Island by shortwave radio back to South Africa. Then two years later again, a British research ship performed a similar weather service for South Africa.

The South African government considered the weather reports from Gough Island so important that they established their own weather service on the island. On May 13, 1956, and in cooperation with the British government, Weatherman J. J. van der Merwe was sworn in as the Island Magistrate for Gough Island, and ever since, a small team of rotated personnel from South Africa has served on this island.

Seven years later (1963), the South African Postal Service took the unprecedented step of printing a postage stamp honoring the South African weather related shortwave radio communication station on a British island. The 8 cent stamp shows a picture of the South African weather and radio station, which also includes the radio mast.

The radio officer on Gough Island photographed a dramatic solar eclipse on January 26, 2009, a picture that is studied by astronomers to this day. On August 9, 2014, sadly, a man on Gough Island choked to death on his own vomit and this information was radioed back to South Africa by a fellow team member, who was also an amateur radio operator with the special call ZD9M.