Thank you to Ray Robinson and Jeff White for sharing last week's Wavescan script with our followers
Jeff: Last week we brought you part 2 of the history of Adventist shortwave broadcasting, covering the stories of AWR operations in Europe, South Asia and Latin America. Here now is Ray Robinson in Los Angeles with the concluding part 3
of the series, beginning with the creation of KSDA, Guam in 1985.
Ray: Thanks, Jeff.
KSDA
Yes, as the number of languages in which AWR-Asia programming was produced grew, and the need for reaching more people groups became a priority, a decision was made by the Adventist denomination to build a transmission site of their own, which would give them more capacity and reduced costs compared to buying time on commercial stations as they had been doing for several decades.
So in 1985, a new site was procured on the island of Guam for AWR broadcasts to Asia, which had the advantage of being on U.S. soil. The construction of transmitter buildings and antennas began, and under the administration of Dr. Allen Steele, who
had previously established the first AWR unit in Portugal some 15 years earlier, four 100 kW transmitters were installed at the new site over an eight year period from 1987-1995. The FCC in Washington, D.C. granted a license for the new transmitters
at the site to operate as KSDA, standing for the Seventh Day Adventist church.
The first two transmitters were Thomson model TRE2311P units from Gennevilliers in France. The next two were Continental units from Dallas, Texas – a 418E and a 418F. Additionally, four curtain antennas had been installed – each a TCI model 611
from Fremont, California – arranged in two pairs, together with a dummy load for transmitter testing purposes. Here’s a closing ID from KSDA, recorded in 1987:
But also in the 1980’s under Ronald Reagan’s administration, the FCC relaxed the regulations for privately-owned shortwave stations in the USA, and thus a number of new shortwave stations began to appear. The first was WRNO, the Rock of New
Orleans, and for a time, the 100 kW transmitter of that station carried the old DX program from the original AWR-Asia in India, Radio Monitors International, as well as Adventist programming in Russian and Ukrainian for coverage into Eastern
Europe.
‘Radio Monitors International’ was also carried at times by WHRI near Indianapolis and KCBI in Dallas, Texas. These relays of programming produced in Pune, India were arranged by none other than our very own Jeff White, now the owner/operator of WRMI shortwave in Okeechobee, Florida.
Other shortwave relays of Adventist programming have been heard from KVOH in Los Angeles, California, WVHA near Bangor, Maine, and KTBN in Salt Lake City, Utah. Beginning on New Year's Day 1995, WRMI (then in Miami) began the broadcast of the current DX program Wavescan on a regular weekly basis.
Other American shortwave stations to carry Wavescan have included WBCQ in Monticello, Maine, WGTG in McCaysville, Georgia, and WWCR in Nashville, Tennessee, which still carries the program to this day.
In Canada, Adventist programming has also been heard at times on shortwave. Over a period of many years, the syndicated radio program ‘The Voice of Prophecy’ has been aired on many local medium wave stations across the Canadian provinces.
When The Voice of Prophecy has been broadcast by a local medium wave station that also had a shortwave transmitter in tandem relay, then the same program was, of course, heard on shortwave. It is known that at least four of these little shortwave
stations have carried The Voice of Prophecy at some time: CFVP, Calgary; CFRX.
Toronto; CHNX, Halifax; and CFCX, Montreal. Of course, all those are now closed, apart from CFRX in Toronto. Well, back at KSDA, early this century, AWR began a modernization project at the Guam site, after taking the opportunity to procure five almost new transmitters
from a South African government site which had gone silent at Langefontein, near Durban.
The five transmitters had been manufactured by Thomson ABB, and were all models SK51C3-3P’s. They were shipped in 15 containers and arrived in Guam early in 2002. Under the capable oversight of Chief Engineer Brook Powers, one at a time, each of the older transmitters in Guam was taken out of service and removed from its location in the building, to be replaced by the new equipment from South Africa.
The first transmitter removed in this process was the older Continental 418E, designated as KSDA3. The newly installed transmitter that took its place, Langfontein Transmitter 2, was duly inaugurated as the new KSDA3 on September 26, 2002.
And so progressively, each of the old transmitters was removed and replaced by one of the new units. When all were totally installed, the fifth transmitter was maintained as a hot standby ready to replace any of the on-air units, if needed.
In early 2011, approval was granted for AWR to erect an additional fifth curtain antenna on the property at Facpi Point, thus enabling KSDA to be on the air with all five transmitters simultaneously. A special rededication ceremony was held at the
transmitter site on Tuesday, September 3, 2013, with a number of invited international and local guests. Ten years later, in 2023, the antennas suffered significant damage from Typhoon Mawar, but they have all subsequently been repaired.
.jpg) |
| KSDA Antenna, Guam |
KSDA Guam remains a powerful transmitter site, but no programs are produced there. The studios in Salisbury Park, Pune, India remain in operation, and until the end of the A24 transmission period, AWR programming was carried via shortwave
relay sites in:
Malagasy Global Broadcasting in Madagascar,
Moosbrunn, Austria,
Nauen, Germany,
Taipei, Taiwan,
Tashkent, Uzbekistan,
Trincomallee, Sri Lanka, and
WRMI, USA (which had Spanish to Latin America).
However, all of those shortwave relays ceased at the beginning of the B24 transmission period on October 26, just a few weeks ago. Shortwave is no longer the priority for the Adventist denomination that it once was, and they now are channeling more of their resources into developing content for unreached people groups in local tribal languages and dialects, that is better suited to FM transmission than high power wide area shortwave broadcasting. Now, Adventist programming on shortwave can only be heard via Adventist’s own site, KSDA, in Guam, with a much reduced schedule, which does not include any programming in English or any other European languages.
Sadly, this means that both Wavescan and the longstanding AWR DX program in Italian which used to be broadcast at 0900 UTC on Sundays via Nauen, Germany have both been discontinued as part of AWR broadcasts. Wavescan will continue via non-AWR shortwave outlets and as a podcast; the Italian program will not.
But today, Adventist programming is still carried by over 1,700 local AM and FM transmitters on all continents, as well as via KSDA shortwave in Guam.
Back to you, Jeff.
(Ray Robinson/Wavescan)
