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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 N655, September 12, 2021
Ancient DX Report: 1925
The one year old radio magazine Listener In, based in Melbourne, Australia, stated in 1925 that the international era of (radio) broadcasting is approaching. International broadcasting is likely in the near future between England and America, this magazine continued. As it so happened, shortwave tests between England and the United States were already underway, for the transfer of live radio programming across the Atlantic Ocean.
At midnight in London on March 12 (1925), the sound of Big Ben, with its 12 bongs, was broadcast over the BBCo station 2LO at Marconi House in London with 1.5 kW on 825 kHz. This signal was then transferred by telephone wire to the longwave transmitter 5XX at Chelmsford on 187.5 kHz (1600 m).
The RCA receiving station located at Belfast in Maine picked up the longwave signal from across the Atlantic on their 10 mile long Beverage antenna and then retransmitted it on shortwave 1XAO (on either 40, 60 90 or 120 m.) to the RCA receiving station at Riverhead on Long Island, New York. From thence, the sound of Big Ben was then sent by wire to mediumwave station WJZ in New York with 1 kW on 660 kHz for yet further retransmission across the United States.
In February 1925, the American journal Radio News reported that a total of 1180 radio broadcasting stations had taken to the air in the United States since September 1921. Of that total, they said, 630 stations had already left the air, due to financial problems and/or lack of interest, and only 550 had survived.
In published lists of radio broadcasting stations in the United States, station KDKA was always listed first, alphabetically. Their identification slogan in 1925 was: The Pioneer Broadcasting Station of the World. In a QSL letter directed to Australia, KDKA Program Director, Mr. G. Dare Fleck, stated that shortwave development and experiments were already underway.
In mid-1925, work on the huge Rugby radio station in England was nearing completion, and already preliminary test transmissions with Australia had been successfully achieved, and they were also transmitting regular news bulletins in Morse Code. This massive station contained 12 steel towers 850 feet tall, 100 miles of buried copper wire as an earth mat, and two active transmitters with a power output of 200 kW and 1,000 kW.
The 25 kW experimental longwave transmitter 5XX was removed from the Marconi facility at Chelmsford and reinstalled at Daventry, where it was reactivated on July 27 (1925) for program coverage of much of the British Isles. The French navy conducted a successful series of test transmissions using a jet of water as the antenna system.
In Melbourne, Australia, radiotrician Sydney Newman with AWA was already operating radio transmitters with six different callsigns ranging alphabetically from 3MA to 3MF, including the quite famous 3ME. The AWA coastal stations VIS (Sydney), VIP (Perth), and VID (Darwin) were on the air with daily bulletins of news in Morse Code.
In Perth, Western Australia, Wally Coxon was on the air shortwave at night via his own amateur station with a program relay from the commercial mediumwave station 6WF. Then, on November 11 (1925), the Great White Exhibition Train departed Sydney for a lengthy tour of the state of New South Wales. This advertising train carried a 500 watt radio broadcasting station under the callsign 2XT, on 550 m. (545 kHz).
For the first time, American radio programming was on the air locally in Canada during the year (1925) due to a relay arrangement between CNR, Canadian National Railways, and AT&T in the United States. Network programming from the New York station WEAF with 2 kW on 610 kHz was relayed by CNRO in Ottawa with 500 watts on 690 kHz for distribution to the CNR network.
The first radio broadcasting station in Japan, JOAK, was inaugurated on Atago Hill, Tokyo, on March 1 (1925) with 1 kW on 375 m. (800 kHz). Regular programming began three weeks later on March 22, with a mix of European and Japanese classical music.
The MacMillan Arctic Expedition, aboard two ships, Bowdoin and Peary, at Etah in northern Greenland, made shortwave contact with amateur station 2YI in Sydney, Australia on August 18. Next day, official messages were exchanged between Commander Donald MacMillan in the Arctic and the Governor General of Australia, Lord Sir Henry Forster, at Admiralty House in Sydney. A gramophone record played on ship radio anchored off northern Greenland was heard clearly in Australia.