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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 N647, July 18, 2021

Return to the Radio Scene on Bougainville in the South Pacific

In our program today we return to the radio scene on the South Pacific Island of Bougainville, and in a sweeping panorama of time, we present the first 30 years.

Bougainville Island is 120 miles long and 40 or 50 miles wide; it is the main island in the Bougainville Archipelago of 168 islands, which in turn are the northernmost island cluster of the Solomon Islands. Bougainville is politically linked with Papua New Guinea, yet it is more closely linked with the Solomon Islands geographically, linguistically, culturally and racially, than it is with New Guinea.

Wireless came to Bougainville more than 100 years ago with the installation of Australian made AWA equipment which was taken into service in January 1916 under the Australian callsign VIU. In those days, many of the closer Pacific Islands that had been annexed by the United Kingdom were administered from Australia.

Half a dozen years prior to the commencement of World War II in the middle of last century, the first small pedal wireless station was installed on Bougainville Island in 1933. Wireless station VIU was a small operation in a single room located on Kangu Hill overlooking the ocean at Kieta Harbour on the eastern side of the island. The Bougainville station, and other similar facilities with a combined wireless receiver and Morse Code transmitter, were powered by someone riding/pedaling a stationary bicycle with an electrical generator attached.

In 1939, a new model radio transceiver, the AWA 3B, was introduced onto Bougainville Island with a newly designed transmitter that could send in either speech mode or in Morse Code. At that stage, a dozen or more locations on Bougainville were equipped with a similar pedal wireless, and their usage extended island wide, with Kieta VIU as the key station. At that same time, the pedal wireless network in Bougainville was also being developed for usage when necessary as a coastal watch network that could report on potential enemy activity in the area.

However, after a quarter century of active service, the Bougainville station was deliberately damaged and then set on fire, on January 23, 1942, right at the time when Japanese warships entered the Kieta Harbour.

After Japanese forces took over Kieta town in 1942, they dug tunnels into Kangu Hill and they established an underground hospital facility and a radio station. The frontage to these tunnels was faced with a concrete facade which also prevented a collapse of the entrance area. It would be presumed that the antenna system for the Japanese radio station at Kangu Hill was installed above the tunnels, though no doubt in disguise.

During the following year (1943) on November 1, American forces staged a return invasion to Bougainville, though their chosen location was not Kieta, but rather a new site on the western side of the island in Empress Augusta Bay that became known as Torokina. The first American communication station at Torokina was established a few days later in a hastily constructed native hut along a muddy trail leading inland.

Three months later, after the arrival of a prefabricated wooden Dallas Hut, an entertainment radio broadcasting station was inaugurated on February 14 (1944). Initially, this mediumwave station was operated locally as a volunteer effort without callsign, though soon afterwards it was identified under the callsign WSOO, and subsequently as WVTI. As WVTI, the station identified initially under the loosely administered Mosquito Network, though this affiliation was afterwards changed to the Jungle Network identification.

When the American station WVTI with 1 kW on 680 kHz was removed from Torokina for re-installation in the Philippines, the wooden building on Bougainville, together with some of the left over electronic equipment, was taken over by the Australian forces who were just beginning to move in. The Aussies installed temporary low power radio equipment into the almost empty American building which was inaugurated with the unauthorized usage of the callsign 9AC and taken into service in July 1945.

The legitimate 9AC, a 200 watt mobile station on 1280 kHz, arrived from Australia soon afterwards, and it was inaugurated mid-year 1945. After just a little over a year on air at Torokina, the Australian 9AC was transferred from Bougainville to Lae on the island of New Guinea.

Interestingly, both the American forces and the Australian forces were noted consecutively with the broadcast of radio programming on shortwave. On March 28, 1944, the American radio war correspondent George Thomas Folster was noted with a war report for NBC in the United States. This report was broadcast on shortwave from Torokina and it was relayed to California on 17980 kHz by station KHE at RCA-Kahuku, Oahu, in Hawaii.

Two months later (May 1944), the American Radio Torokina was noted in Australia with a relay of commentaries for the United States, via Noumea Radio in New Caledonia. In fact during that era Radio Torokina was noted at different times of the day on four different shortwave channels; 8800 kHz, 9255 kHz, 12840 kHz and 14500 kHz.

Two years later again, Radio Bougainville was noted in Australia on one of those same shortwave channels, 14500 kHz. This was the last occasion that Torokina was noted on shortwave, and it would be presumed that the broadcast originated with the Australian forces, even though this frequency was previously in use by the Americans.

Ancient DX Report: 1924 - Pt. 2

In our Ancient DX Report for the year 1924, Part 2, we begin with a brief summary of band usage. At that stage in radio history, most of the activity associated with radio broadcasting and radio communication took place in the longwave section of the radio spectrum. It was still mistakenly understood by many that super high power and massive antenna systems a mile or more in length were required for effective long distance radio communication.

For example, during the year 1924, the German government was in the process of installing a massive longwave antenna system in Bavaria which utilized a mountain range rather than tall antenna towers. Two mountain tops were chosen, one at 5,675 feet high (little over a mile), and the other at 3,083 feet (little over half a mile high), with a T type antenna suspended between them, a span of 1-1/2 miles. A total of five antenna systems were planned at this installation for longwave transmissions over a Lorenz transmitter with a massive output power of 2,500 kW.

The United States Navy was in the process of installing a massive worldwide network of high powered communication wireless stations located at American navy bases on all inhabited continents. However, naval authorities admitted that arc transmissions and spark transmissions were creating a considerable amount of noisy interference on the radio spectrum.

Back then in 1924, there were no regular radio broadcasting stations on the air in France, though news items and information of national importance were broadcast occasionally over a network of four communication stations. These stations were:

A report from Hong Kong stated that there were just two local radio broadcasting stations on the air there, though further expansion was under consideration. The two local stations were a 100 watt American made transmitter which broadcast recorded music one hour each evening; and the other station was a 10 watt transmitter operated by a local radio company. However, in addition to the two local stations, listeners in Hong Kong could also hear radio programming that was on the air from Shanghai, China and from Manila in the Philippines.

Radio transmissions between Srinagar and Jammu in Kashmir were successfully accomplished in 1924, despite the fact that the propagated signals were transmitted over an intervening mountain 15,000 feet in height.

Six new communication transmitters were under installation in Central and North America on behalf of the United Fruit and Tropical Radio telegraph companies. Those new stations, rated at 20 kW each, were under assembly by General Electric at Schenectady, and they were subsequently installed in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama, as well as at New Orleans and Miami in the United States.

A listener out in the Pacific stated that he checked the time signals each morning from two powerful longwave stations simultaneously. Station POZ was operating on 12,600 m. (23.8 kHz) at Nauen in Germany, and station NPM was operating on 11,500 m. (26 kHz) at Honolulu in Hawaii. Both stations transmitted a time signal at midnight GMT.

Back in 1924, there were 500 radio broadcasting stations already on the air in the United States, and they operated between 545 and 222 meters (550 and 1350 kHz). It was announced that soon the radio broadcasting band would be increased up to 200 m. (1500 kHz), and each station will then be allotted its own specific frequency, always at 10 kHz separation.

The Canadian National Railways announced the construction of a network of 10 mediumwave stations stretching from coast to coast across Canada. The temporary key station for this network would be commercial station CHYC in Montreal on 341 m. (880 kHz).

Because of the difficulty in correctly identifying a mediumwave callsign due to static and interference, two unique suggestions were made so that listeners could correctly identify the station they were listening to. One suggestion was that each station should also transmit its callsign in Morse Code. Another suggestion was for each letter of the alphabetic to be given a number, and the announcer would spell the callsign out in both letters of the English alphabet and in numbers running from 1 to 26. Just imagine how poor radio reception must have been back then, to require identification announcements of this nature.

The First Radio World's Fair was staged in the Madison Square Gardens in New York City and it was declared a huge success, not only in the large attendance but also in the huge volume of purchases of radio equipment. The one week long Radio Fair in September 1924 attracted 165,000 visitors, the highest attendance ever at any event in the Madison Square Gardens.

Said the commentator in the American Radio News magazine dated for September 1924: There is a vast field for exploration on wavelengths between 50 and 200 meters. And he was referring to the shortwave spectrum running between 1500 kHz and 6000 kHz.

Radio engineers discovered that shortwave signals, as compared with longwave transmissions, travel a greater distance with less power, and the effect of static is reduced. They found that signal strength is not necessarily degraded by daylight, and fading is described as not "noticeable."

Although listeners are able to tune into shortwave radio signals, the usage of shortwave is most advantageous for the relay of programming and thus the rebroadcasting of radio programming, from one location to another distant location. During 1924, the popular KDKA in Pittsburgh relayed their own programming on shortwave 8XS on 68 metres (4400 kHz), and WGY Schenectady relayed their own programming on 15 metres (20 MHz). Successful program relays from the United States were achieved via shortwave to local radio stations in Europe, South Africa, India, South America and the South Pacific.

The aerial reconnaissance balloon Shenandoah was lost in a storm over the east coast of the United States after it was torn from its moorings in Lakehurst, New Jersey. The 300 watt transmitter NERK on shortwave 3,000 kHz aboard the Shenandoah was used to communicate with mediumwave station WOR at Newark for the successful return back to the Lakehurst moorings.

Over in Europe, work was progressing nicely on the construction of a huge new wireless communication station at Rugby in England. It was stated that the wireless masts at Rugby were the largest in the world, each weighing 140 tons and standing at 820 feet tall.