Quite
recently, we discovered an important anniversary from a couple of months
earlier that had
escaped our attention. The official
opening of the Panama Canal in Central America to shipping traffic occurred on
August 15, 1914, and here we are a little over one hundred years later, and we
have not yet presented a feature on this important anniversary.
Let us catch up on this highly
significant world event; and so here in Wavescan today we present this slightly
delayed feature on the story of the Panama Canal, together with part 1 of the radio
history in the American administered Panama Canal Zone.
We go back to the beginning, and we
discover that the first suggestion for digging a canal across Central America
to link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans came from the Spanish in the year 1529. Of course, back then technical capability was
quite limited and there was no practical way in which this concept could be
implemented.
In the year 1821, the Central
American colony of Panama broke away from Spain, declared its independence from
European control, and joined South American Colombia, which conjoined
ultimately emerged as the Republic of New Granada. However, 82 years later, on November 3, 1903,
Panama split off from Colombia and thus became an independent nation in its own
right.
It was in 1826 that the United
States began preliminary negotiations with New Granada for the construction of
a canal, though the French actually began construction work on the canal in the
territory of Panama a little over half a century later. Just two weeks after Panamanian independence
(November 3, 1903), the United States and Panama signed a treaty which
established the Panama Canal Zone (November 18).
The Panama Canal Zone was
administered as an American territory, and it encompassed 553 square miles in a
swathe of jungle territory ten miles wide, plus all of the lakes and waterways
that feed into the canal. During its ¾ century tenure,
the Zone issued its own postage stamps, some of which were overprinted
Panamanian and American stamps, though the valid currency generally speaking
was the American dollar.
Nearly 50,000 men from all around
the world were employed in canal construction, large numbers of whom died from poor hygiene, deadly jungle snakes, and a multitude of diseases, including
malaria from the mosquito infected jungles.
In 1906 alone, 80% of the work force were hospitalized at some time or
another for malaria.
Work on the Panama Canal was completed in ten
years, and the official opening took place one hundred years ago, on August 15,
1914 when the cargo ship SS “Ancon” traversed the entire system. However, the first ship to traverse the canal
was a pleasure boat the “Lasata” which made an
unofficial voyage during the day before.
The highest fee ever paid for the
use of the canal was more than $⅓rd million by the cruise ship “Norwegian Pearl” in 2010; and
the lowest fee ever was paid by American Richard Halliburton who swam the full
distance of the canal in 1928. This epic
swim took 50 hours of swimming spread out over 10 days and it cost him just 36
cents. These days, more than 30 ships
traverse the eight hour journey through the canal each day.
The Panama Canal Zone was taken over
by the government of Panama on October 1, 1979 and once again the two sides of
Panama were joined together into a single country. The Panama Canal Zone, which for example had
a population of 45,000 in 1970, was no longer an American territory.
The first wireless station in the
Panama Canal Zone was installed by Dr. Lee de Forest for the United States navy
near the Atlantic entrance to the canal at Colon in 1906 and it was on the air
originally under the callsign SL. The 35
kW longwave spark wireless transmitter operated on 1250 metres, 240 kHz.
A couple of years later, a 100 kW
spark transmitter was installed and the callsign was regularized to an American
navy callsign NAX. This station was in
regular usage up into the 1930s.
The United States navy operated two
other wireless stations in the Panama Canal Zone: stations NNL at Coco Solo and
NBA at Balboa. The Coco Solo Station was
located at a submarine base and it was on the air in the 1920s.
Additionally, the U. S. army also
operated half a dozen wireless stations in the Canal Zone, and these were
located at army camps and they were on the air under army callsigns, such as:-
WUCG Fort de Lesseps WUCH Fort Sherman WUCI
Fort Randolph
The two best known wireless/radio
stations in the Panama Canal Zone were the navy communication station NBA at
Balboa, and the army broadcasting station at Quarry Heights. That is the story next time, when we present
part 2 of the story about radio broadcasting in the Panama Canal Zone.
(AWR/Wavescan-NWS 296)
