Voice of Indonesia QSL (Gayle Van Horn Collection) |
Cermanggis is located about a dozen
miles south of downtown Jakarta and it replaced the earlier shortwave site at
Kebayoran, a few miles closer to Jakarta.
Back then, the usage of callsigns was still in vogue, and this new unit
was allocated the call YDF.
Unfortunately, the story of
shortwave broadcasting from Cermanggis is the saga of an almost constant supply
of new transmitters which replaced earlier ailing transmitters; brought about
by the harsh tropical climate with its high temperatures and monsoonal rains,
and wersoned by financial shortages and insufficient trained staff. There were times also when the delivery of
electricity from the national grid was insufficient to empower the high powered
transmitters.
In his monumental compilation of
shortwave transmitter histories, Transmitter Documentation Project 1998, Ludo
Maes in Belgium presents this following trail of shortwave transmitters that
have been installed over the years at RRI Cimanggis:-
1967 1 Telefunken Germany 100
kW SST338
1970 4 Philips Holland 50 & 120 8FZ514
& 8FZ515
1974 2 Funkwerk Germany 100
1982 3 Harris USA 100 SW100
1983 1 Thomson France 250 TRE2320
1992 4 Marconi England 250 B6131
1995 3 Marconi England 250 B6131
On May 21, 1984, the completed
installation at Cimanggis with four new transmitters (3 Harris at 100 kW and 1
Thomson at 250 kW) was taken into service, and President Suharto presided at an
official commissioning ceremony. This
cluster of four transmitters was intended to provide RRI Home Service
programming on a nationwide basis as a national unifying factor. The three 100 kW transmitters relayed the RRI
programming to the westward islands, and the 250 kW transmitter beamed the same
programming eastward.
In 1992, RRI ordered a total of 9
shortwave transmitters at 250 kW together with 20 curtain antennas for
installation at both Cimanggis and at another site on distant Sulawesi
Island. This new double facility was
officially inaugurated on September 14, 1996.
In September 2005, international
radio monitors in Australia were surprised to hear Radio Australia programming
on relay over RRI shortwave in Indonesia.
This program relay in the Bahasa (ba-HAH-sa) Indonesian language was
educational in nature and it was presented under the title Kang Guru
(Kangaroo).
Despite their best efforts, recent
international monitoring reports indicate that only one transmitter is
currently on the air at Cimanggis, and it is noted on 9525 kHz. A Google Earth search shows the shortwave
transmitter base at Cimanggis, though the view is obscured due to a hazy cloudy
sky.
Over the years many international
radio monitors around the globe have been successful in logging RRI Cimanggis
and their reception reports have netted an invaluable QSL card. During the past 71 years, they have issued a
variety of QSL cards, usually in color; some as artistic renderings of
Indonesian symbols, and some showing their cities and their country.
We
choose another piece of Indonesian music and this time it is under the title
Love Ambon. If you are able to tune in
one of the RRI regional shortwave stations, you may hear the melody Love Ambon
at the close of a transmission.
You Tube audio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdzhsRnAlOAAWR-Wavescan/NWS 394)