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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 386, May 19, 2002
The Story of AWR in Africa
For almost half a century, radio programming from the Seventh-day Adventist Church has been heard on shortwave in Africa. Back in the early era, these broadcasts were on the air from local shortwave stations located within the African continent, and that was the topic here in Wavescan many months ago.
Subsequently, Adventist programming in several languages has been beamed to Africa from large shortwave stations located in Europe, and in more recent time, from additional large shortwave stations located in Asia and again in Africa itself. We go back now, nearly half a century, to the year 1953.
Back at that time, a newly established radio studio located at the Seventh-day Adventist college in Beirut, Lebanon, began the production of radio programming in two languages, Arabic and Farsi. The first of these new broadcasts in Arabic went on the air from a 35 kW transmitter located near Colombo in Sri Lanka in September of that same year, 1953.
A few months later, similar programming was commenced in the Farsi language. At the time, the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation was on the air daily for an hour and a quarter, specifically beamed to Africa and the Middle East. It is understood that this series of programming in two languages was on the air for a year or two, terminating probably sometime in the year 1955.
The next event in this sequence occurred in the year 1975. Under the direction of Allen Steele in Lisbon, Portugal, a series of test broadcasts was prepared in the Swahili language and forwarded to the Deutsche Welle relay station located at Kigali in Rwanda.
This new series of AWR programming was scheduled to go on air in mid-1975, and this fact was announced in advance. However, it is difficult to determine if and when these broadcasts actually went on the air.
Three years later again, another series of radio programs went on the air from Sri Lanka, this time in English and under the title "Africa Test Broadcasts". These 15-minute programs were produced in the Poona studios of Adventist World Radio.
The final broadcasts to Africa from SLBC Colombo were concluded on September 26, 1981, with four editions of the old DX program, "Radio Monitors International". Even though these broadcasts were beamed to Africa, using two transmitters at 35 kW and 100 kW, they were nevertheless heard around the world, and many QSL cards were issued to many listeners in many countries.
Next we come to another venture on the part of Allen Steele. The year is 1983, and by this time Allen and Andrea are located at Andrews University in Michigan, where he was the manager for the 100 kW FM station WAUS.
New programming for Africa was produced in the WAUS studios, using the talents and voices of students from Africa. These programs were forwarded to Gabon and broadcast over a 500 kW transmitter of Africa No. 1, operating at half power. These programs were on the air for a period of more than 10 years, and they ended with a flourish with specially endorsed QSL cards.
Broadcasts to Africa were then beamed from powerful shortwave stations in Europe; and then in 1988, AWR relays went on the air from two different locations in Africa. One is the very large Sentech station, with its two shortwave bases located side by side in South Africa, and the other is the Radio Netherlands relay station located at Talata on the island of Madagascar.
The Madagascar relay station is carrying AWR programming for the island itself, and the Sentech station, located at Meyerton near Johannesburg, is carrying AWR programming for a wide arc of countries in all areas of Africa except the far north and the far south. Nevertheless, the Meyerton station can be heard in every country of the world at some time during the broadcast day.
A total of nine different transmitters located at Meyerton have been used in the relay of AWR programming, and these are rated at 100 kW, 250 kW and 500 kW. The AWR programming from Madagascar has been radiated over two different units at the Radio Netherlands relay station; initially a 7.5 kW transmitter, and subsequently a larger unit at 50 kW.
Currently, the AWR programming from the 50 kW transmitter in Madagascar is in the clear since the American station WWCR moved down 5 kHz. AWR Madagascar can be heard twice daily, at 0230 UTC and again at 1530 UTC on the tropical band channel 3215 kHz.
This Week in Radio History - Radio Magazine "Monitoring Times"
The highly respected radio magazine "Monitoring Times" is this year celebrating its 20th anniversary. In a two-page article, editor Rachel Baughn recounts the story of the past 20 years, with all of its progressive developments since its humble beginning in 1982.
In January 1982, Bob Grove published the first edition of a bi-monthly radio newspaper, combining questions and answers and articles, together with the latest edition of his "Grove Catalog". Editor Rachel Baughn joined Grove Enterprises as editor for "Monitoring Times" a year later, in 1983. In 1986, the Larry Miller publication "International Radio" was merged into "Monitoring Times" and Larry served as an editor.
The two major areas of interest in every edition of "Monitoring Times"' are the many up-to-date and interesting feature articles, and the Shortwave Guide, with its regular 20 pages of programming information from the world's major shortwave stations.
We here at Wavescan congratulate "Monitoring Times" on its auspicious 20 years of continuous publication and its valuable contribution to the coverage of events in the international radio world. We wish Bob and Judy Grove, the owners of "Monitoring Times", and Editor Rachel Baughn and the entire staff, many more years of prosperity and continuous success.