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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.
Wartime Radio in Sri Lanka
During those decisive years in the middle of the last century, there was a spate of rapid development in the radio scene on the island of Sri Lanka, or Ceylon as it was known in those days. This is what happened.
In the year 1943, the BBC in London began the broadcast of a forces radio program for the benefit of English servicemen on duty in India. Shortly afterwards, the production and broadcast of this program was transferred to All India Radio in Delhi. Then it was that Lord Louis Mountbatten moved the headquarters of his South East Asia Command to Ceylon, first in Kandy and then in Colombo.
While the headquarters were located in Kandy, an English army transmitter was used as a broadcast service, and also for the relay of voice broadcasts back to the BBC in London. This station was on the air from October 1944 until early in 1946.
Around the same time, the American forces in Kandy established their own entertainrnent radio station. This was a small 50 watt unit which was on the air without callsign on the mediumwave channel 1355 kHz. This somewhat unofficial AFRS station was launched in August 1944, and it was on the air for a little over a year.
When the SEAC headquarters were transferred to Turret Road in Colombo, a production studio was installed, and a program service was commenced over a 7.5 kw shortwave transmitter with the callsign ZOJ. We could guess that this transmitter was co-sited with the Radio Ceylon transmitter ZOH at Welikada on the edge of Colombo.
In the meantime, work began on the construction of a big new shortwave station at Ekala, some twenty miles north of Colombo. However, on a temporary basis, a new 7.5 kw RCA unit was installed in the transmitter hall at the Royal Signals base adjacent to the new station. One of the Marconi communication transmitters at this location was hurriedly pressed into service for the opening ceremonies of the new facility on April 25, 1945.
Work continued on the big new station, and on May 1, 1946 the Marconi 100 kw entered regular service. Soon afterwards, three RCA units at 7.5 kw and one at 1 kw were co-installed with the ìBig One.î The little 1 kw unit carried the SEAC service for listeners within Ceylon.
The large 100 kw Marconi was heard almost worldwide, and at certain times each day it carried a relay from the BBC. During the cricket season in Australia, the SEAC transmitter acted as an intermediate relay from Radio Australia in Shepparton to the BBC in London.
The SEAC station at Ekala was in use for forces programming for a period of four years, and then the whole facility was handed over to Radio Ceylon, with cooperation and input from the BBC. The first regional director for the BBC in Ceylon was a man who had been a prisoner of war in Singapore, James Mudie. (He was a relative of mine.)
SEAC Colombo was noted as a very reliable verifier, and their black and white card was considered at the time to be quite plain, though today it is a valued possession.
Radio Controlled Boat - 100 Years ago
It is often thought that wireless began with Marconi, and he began his outdoor experiments with primitive wireless equipment in Italy in mid-1895. However, at the same time as he was performing his now well-documented experiments, many others in widely separated countries were also performing somewhat similar experiments, and each was often unaware at the time what others were doing.
So it was with Nikola Tesla. He was born in Croatia in 1856 and migrated to the United States at the age of 28. Soon afterwards he established his own electrical laboratory where he conducted many wireless experiments that were far ahead of other experimenters at the time.
At the Electrical Exhibition in Madison Square Gardens in New York in 1898, Tesla demonstrated a radio controlled boat on a small pond built specially for the occasion. This was the first such event in history, and it captured a lot of interest on the part of wondering spectators.
The strange-looking model boat was equipped with an antenna and a primitive multi-channel wireless receiver which activated the propellers and lights and rudder on the boat. The transmitter was housed inside a box with levers on the side, and each lever activated a particular frequency in the transmitter.
In response to requests from admiring spectators, Tesla put the boat through many different manoeuvers, thus demonstrating that the wireless signal was indeed travelling from the transmitter in his little box to the receiver mounted on the model boat.
This event achieved front page news in the city newspapers; and we should remember that this happened more than 100 years ago, way back in the year 1898. More about Tesla next week.