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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 N635, April 25, 2021

St. Vincent Volcanic Eruption

Normally a paradise for tourists, a recent massive volcanic eruption on St. Vincent Island in the Caribbean (on Friday, April 9, 2021) produced an ash plume 7-1/2 miles high, and it spread the fine volcanic ash over the Atlantic Ocean as far as Spain in continental Europe. A subsequent explosion 3 days later, at 4:30 a.m. on the Monday, was so massive that it could be seen on a radar screen on the island of Martinique, 100 miles distant. The major volcano, Mt. La Soufriere, is located towards the north of the island of St. Vincent, and it is noted for its occasional explosive eruptions over the historic years.

In areas close to the mountain, falling ash has damaged homes and caused the collapse of roofing. The local airport was closed, widespread power outages are reported, and there is a shortage of clean water. Fortunately thus far, no deaths and no injuries are reported.

People living near this volcanic Mt. Soufriere are under a mandatory order of evacuation, and some 4,000 people are now temporarily housed in 84 government shelters. It is anticipated that in total some 16,000 people will need to evacuate.

As a safety precaution, four empty tourist ships are on standby in the island's nearby port at the capital city, Kingstown. Thus far one small group of 130 people has been taken by boat to a nearby island, St. Lucia.

St. Vincent Island is just 18 miles long and 11 miles wide, and it lies towards the southern end of the long chain of islands that form the extreme eastern boundary of the Caribbean. St. Vincent is the largest island in the nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, with a population of 130,000.

There is a total of around 70 small islands, islets and cays making up St. Vincent and the Grenadines, though their official list of significant islands is numbered at 32, with just 9 inhabited. Most of the beach sand on St. Vincent is black, due to volcanic eruptions over the centuries.

The original inhabitants were of Carib origin, and over the years these islands have come under the influence of peoples from Africa, England, France, Spain, Portugal and India. The main island, St. Vincent, was named by the famous Iberian explorer Christopher Columbus in 1498.

It was back on March 1, 1925, that the international communication company Cable and Wireless placed into service the first commercial radio transmitter on the island of St. Vincent. During that era, C&W interconnected all of the major islands of the eastern Caribbean by cable and by low powered shortwave radio.

The first radio program in St. Vincent was produced and broadcast by an amateur radio station at the request of the International DXers Alliance in the United States. That special one-time only broadcast went on the air at midnight on Friday night, May 26, 1939, and it was presented by Weston H. Lewis over his amateur station VP2SA.

In the pre-war era it was a common procedure for amateur radio operators to broadcast speech and music in entertainment and informational programs, and generally no special licensing was required. The 1939 broadcast from VP2SA on St. Vincent Island was directed to the United States on 7108 kHz (42.21 m.) in what was described as the 40 m. amateur radio band.

QSL cards verifying that special radio broadcast were promised, though they were not posted out until almost a year later. The first arrival of a VP2SA QSL card in the United States was in May 1940. The specially printed card was described as black print on a pink card.

Another 14 years later, and Weston Lewis with his radio equipment under the callsign VP2SA, was on the air again with radio programming, this time for the local population in his own island country, St. Vincent. In August 1954, Weston began a weekly hour long broadcast on behalf of the local government.

Each broadcast was made up in quarter hour segments, containing news, sports, music, talks, and religious information. These broadcasts were on the air each Sunday at 2100-2200 with 400 watts on 3336 kHz. These preliminary amateur radio program broadcasts on St. Vincent ended in 1957, with the intent that some form of local radio broadcasting would be implemented.

However, in the meantime, radio events in the eastern Caribbean were taking a different turn. Four of the nearby Windward Island nations (Grenada, Dominica, St. Lucia, and including St. Vincent) began planning a new and combined radio service.

Under this system, the Windward Island Broadcasting Service (WIBS), Grenada, began to provide a daily tropical shortwave broadcasting service to the three other island nations in 1954. Each of these small countries then rebroadcast the combined programming on tropical shortwave to their own population. At the end of each relay of the combined programming, then the four local shortwave stations presented their own local programming to their own people.

We would suggest that the internal local shortwave service on the other three islands was initially provided by the already operational C&W transmitters. However, subsequently, a small mediumwave unit was installed in each island nation, and the St. Vincent station operated on 1570 kHz with just 25 watts.

In 1965, the WRTVHB shows a new transmitter at 500 watts on 705 kHz. In the mid-1960s, an additional mediumwave relay station was installed at Chateaubelair on the central west coast of St. Vincent Island with 100 watts on 1515 kHz, though the operating frequency was soon afterwards changed to 1535 kHz.

The four-nation combined WIBS service was on the air for somewhere around 20 years, and then in the early 1970s, the radio stations in each of the four nations (Grenada, Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent) began to go independent.

The new and independent Radio St. Vincent was formed on January 3, 1972 with the use of the then-current studio equipment in the capital city, Kingstown, together with the two mediumwave transmitters: Kingstown, 500 watts on 705 kHz, and Chateaubelair, 100 watts on 1535 kHz.

Soon afterwards, a new 10 kW unit was installed in Kingstown, and the Chateaubelair relay station was closed. After the turn of the century, a new 10 kW mediumwave station on 700 kHz was installed at a new location in Kingstown. Ultimately, though, mediumwave was dropped in 2010 and instead an island-wide FM network was implemented.

Interestingly, an additional mediumwave station was active on St Vincent for a score of years beginning in the late 1970s. This additional station with 10 kW on 1450 kHz was a slave relay station that was rebroadcasting the programming from the ambitious Radio Antilles on the island of Montserrat.

However, the parent station, Radio Antilles on Montserrat, was badly damaged by Hurricane Hugo in 1989, and it was totally obliterated 6 years later by a volcanic eruption in 1995. Apparently their mediumwave relay station in Kingstown, St. Vincent was just simply abandoned.

It is possible that the "new" 10 kW for Radio St. Vincent at a new location in this century was simply the old Radio Antilles relay station refurbished and upgraded. Radio St. Vincent, station ZBG, with 10 kW on 700 kHz, finally left the air in 2010. Their full data QSL cards are indeed nowadays a valuable historic collector's item.

These days, there are nearly a score of FM stations on St. Vincent island, though probably most of them are now probably off the air due to the current volcanic eruption and the loss of electric power in most areas.


Ancient DX Report 1924 - Pt. 1

The year 1924 experienced a tremendous upsurge in the radio broadcasting scene, with entertainment and information stations springing up by the hundreds in major countries all around the world. In Europe, the emphasis was upon the usage of what became the longwave broadcasting band, and in the United States the emphasis was upon what has since become the standard international mediumwave band. However, at the same time, there was a growing interest also in the usage of shortwave transmissions for continental and international coverage, as well as for use as a program feed from a central location to distant relay transmitters.

Another event that spurred the rapid expansion of radio broadcasting was the development of the superheterodyne principle of radio tuning by Edwin H. Armstrong. During the year 1924, RCA in the United States marketed the first superhet radio receivers.

The Wireless Weekly in Australia stated on January 18, 1924: The more we think of shortwaves for radio transmission, the more the idea appeals. The ever popular American journal Radio News for September 1924 echoed the same concept when they stated that they were "Throughly aware that shortwave broadcasting will bring forth the greatest future development in radio broadcasting."

Back in 1906, before World War I, the Marconi company in England had promoted the installation of a cascade chain of high powered longwave communication stations, known as Beam Wireless, running from England ultimately to Australia and New Zealand. However, due to Marconi's experiments with shortwave after the war, the network of hideously expensive Beam Wireless stations was abandoned in favor of a more economical shortwave network.

In an endeavor to stimulate friendship between the United States and England, a week-long series of test transmissions was conducted towards the end of November 1924. During that time, a total of 8 BBC mediumwave stations presented special programming for listeners in North America, and a score of American mediumwave stations presented special programming for listeners in England. Several thousand listeners on both sides of the Atlantic participated in this now historic Week of Transatlantic Radio Tests.

In Australia. there was intense rivalry between the two organizations that were interested in establishing the first radio broadcasting stations in Australia. It depends on what you consider is the beginning of a radio broadcasting station, as to which came first in this pair of early radio broadcasting stations, 2HP-2SB-2BL or 2MB-2FC-2RN. The development of both of these stations began in a very similar manner.

Anyway, the origins of the now well-known ABC radio station 2FC in Sydney can be traced way back to June 5, 1923 when a small 10 watt station was inaugurated by Oswald Anderson in Palings Music Shop in Sydney under the callsign 2MB. In July, the PMG Dept issued a license for a new radio broadcasting station, the first radio broadcasting license in Australia, License No 1.

The projected callsign for this new radio station was 2LO, as in London, England, though when the station was inaugurated with a regular schedule of program broadcasting on January 10, 1924, the official callsign had been changed and it then became 2FC, indicating the station's ownership, Farmer & Co. The inaugural program for the opening of 2FC in 1924 was a complete presentation of the operetta A Southern Maid, with Gladys Moncrieff singing the title role. Today this station is still on the air, with 50 kW on 576 kHz under the generic ABC callsign 2RN, Radio National.

The amateur callsign under which the other early station began was 2HP, in October 1923. This station was inaugurated with regular programming on November (1923) under the callsign 2SB. However, that callsign was changed to 2BL on March 1 of the following year (1924). This ABC radio station in Sydney, now also with 50 kW on 702 kHz, is still on the air under the same 97 year old callsign 2BL. Originally the BL stood for Broadcasters Sydney Ltd, and these days the station identifies as ABC Radio Sydney, with regional programming for the area.

Interestingly, two early radio broadcasting stations in Chicago underwent a somewhat similar series of callsigns, back during the 1924 era. That pair of radio stations has been known best as WGN and WLS.

Back nearly one hundred years ago, the Chicago Tribune daily newspaper took over the program operation of the already established radio station WJAZ, and they launched their own programming over that station under the callsign WGN on March 29, 1924. However, three months later, the Chicago Tribune purchased another already established station, WDAP, and on June 1 (1924), they changed the callsign of that station to WGN.

The internationally known Sears Roebuck catalog store in Chicago began the construction of their own radio broadcasting station in 1924. While their own studios were still under construction, Sears produced programming in the studios of another station, WMAQ, and broadcast that on their own transmitter under the callsign WBBX, though the programming was produced in the studios of another station, WMAQ. The inaugural date for that brief programming series was March 21 (1924).

When the installation of their new studios was completed, Sears began a three day series of test broadcasts on April 9, under the callsign WES (World's Economy Store). However, on April 12, the station began regular program broadcasting, under their callsign WLS.

Right up to this day, both WGN and WLS in Chicago are still on the air. Radio station WGN (World's Greatest Newspaper) with 50 kW is heard on 720 kHz, and radio station WLS (World's Largest Store) also with 50 kW is heard on 890 kHz.