a nostalgic look at early shortwave stations in the Philippines

Thus far here in Wavescan, we have presented three programs on the radio story in the Philippines; their early Morse Code wireless stations, their early mediumwave stations, and the story of RCA Manila on shortwave. In our program today, we continue in the Philippine story with this information about their early commercial shortwave stations.

We go back to the beginning, in the year 1930, and that was when RCA Manila began a relay on shortwave from mediumwave station KZRM. This was the beginning of radio program broadcasting on shortwave in the Philippines. The station was owned by the large departmental store Erlanger & Galinger, and the last two letters of the callsign KZRM stood for Radio Manila.

This shortwave relay service was closed eighteen months later, though it was re-opened again three years later again, still as a service from one of the RCA communication transmitters located at their large radio station nine miles out from Manila. However, in the year 1937, a 1 kW transmitter was installed for the specific usage of mediumwave station KZRM as a shortwave relay unit. This transmitter carried the KZRM programming on any of five different frequencies up into the year 1942.

The shortwave lead that was taken by mediumwave KZRM was followed up soon afterwards by several other mediumwave broadcasting stations in the Philippines. In 1938, two new radio stations made their appearance on the international shortwave bands and these were KZIB & KZRF.

Shortwave station KZIB was owned by Mr I. Beck, hence the callsign KZIB, and the studios were located in the Crystal Arcade in Manila. This station, with its 1 kW transmitter, was first noted in Australia in July 1938. Programming was sometimes taken from the mediumwave station KZRD, and the two channels in use were 6040 & 9500 kHz.

The other shortwave station that was inaugurated in 1938 was KZRF, which was actually a sister station to the well known KZRM mentioned just a little earlier here in this program. The studios for station KZRF, with the callsign indicating Radio Filipino, were located in the Insular Life Insurance Building, and it was owned by what was then known as the Far Eastern Broadcasting Corporation. They operated on 6140 kHz with 1 kW and the program relay was from mediumwave KZEG.

During the following year 1939, five more shortwave stations were inaugurated, three as fixed land stations and two as mobile stations.

Station KZEH was heard in the United States on 9585 kHz, but its appearance on shortwave was very short lived. Station KZHS lasted no longer, and it was heard in Australia on 9580 kHz. Perhaps the two shortwave stations KZEH & KZHS were in reality, just the one station.
The new 1939 station KZRH fared much better. They installed their studios on the seventh floor of the Heacock Building with the transmitters on the roof. This station was inaugurated in July 1939 with 1 kW on any of three different shortwave channels. The callsign KZRH identified their slogan, Radio Heacock. On their second anniversary, they made a special broadcast with the Italian passenger liner, Benemato, which carried the Philippine callsign KZSN.

The two mobile stations under the callsign KZRB and rated at 1 kW were owned by the Far Eastern Broadcasting Corporation, with which the afore mentioned KZRF & KZRM were affiliated. Station KZRB was noted in early November in Australia on 11850 kHz.

The two mobile stations were established for the purpose of relaying programs from an outside broadcast back to the studios of the parent stations. If the full details were known, perhaps we could guess that the main mobile unit was licensed as KZRB, standing for Radio Broadcast, and the other unit was licensed with the sequential callsign KZRA.

Finally, two more shortwave stations were added to the Philippine radio scene; KZRC Cebu in 1940, and a government defense station in Manila, KZND in 1941.

Station KZRC was the only pre-war shortwave station located in a regional city in the Philippines; Cebu City on Cebu Island. It was first heard in Australia in March 1940 on 6100 kHz, a channel previously in use from the parent Manila station KZRH. Station KZRC, Radio Cebu, both shortwave & mediumwave, were inaugurated simultaneously, with 1 kW on each channel, and the studios were located in the Heacock Building in the southern city of Cebu.
It should also be stated that radio station KZRC in Cebu remained on the air as the last independent Philippine radio station right up until June 1942, until taken over by the Japanese occupation forces.

The last shortwave station to be inaugurated before the Japanese invasion was operated by the Department of National Defense in Manila under the callsign KZND. This was a low powered station of just 600 watts and it operated at first on 8790 kHz with subsequent test broadcasts on 9515 kHz. This station was on the air only during the last half of the year 1941.
QSL cards and letters were issued by several of these exotic shortwave stations located in the Philippines. Cards from KZRM with the large red callsign letters were often reported by international radio monitors in the Pacific Rim. Stations KZRF & KZRH also issued QSL cards, and KZND verified by letter. The provincial station KZRC in Cebu issued a particularly attractive QSL card, printed in pink & black.

It becomes evident that the increased activity with the bevy of new shortwave stations in the Philippines at the end of the 1930s and the beginning of the 1940s was in direct response to the bristling of political events on the part of the major powers across the Pacific. At the end of the year 1941, there were nine shortwave broadcast transmitters on the air in the Philippines. These were all rated at 1 kW, except for KZND at 600 watts, and one of the KZRH transmitters that was rated at 10 kW.

In the interests of the historical events of the era, we list in alphabetic order, all of the shortwave broadcasting stations that were on the air in the Philippines at the end of the year 1941:-

* Manila KZIB 1 kW Mr. I. Beck
KZND .6 National Defense
KZRA (?) 1 Radio Broadcast, station A (?), mobile
KZRB 1 Radio Broadcast (?), mobile
KZRF 1 Radio Filipinas
KZRH 1 @ 1 kW & 1 @ 10 kW Radio Heacock
KZRM 1 Radio Manila
* Cebu KZRC 1 Radio Cebu
(AWR/Wavescan NWS64 via Adrian Peterson)