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| A lagoon in Seychelles |
Special thanks to Ray Robinson and Jeff white for this week's special on Seychelles
Jeff: For our feature item this week, we visit yet another tropical island paradise, this time the Seychelles on the western side of the Indian Ocean. There has been much activity on the radio scene there over the years, so here’s Ray Robinson in Los Angeles with the story.
Ray: Thanks, Jeff. The Seychelles Islands are classed as an African country, lying approximately 800 miles both east of Kenya and north of Madagascar. There are 155 islands in the Seychelles group, although only 40 are permanently inhabited. The total area of all of the islands combined is just 176 square miles, but they’re scattered around an area of over 400,000 square miles of the Indian Ocean.
Some of the islands geologically are made of granite, although many are coral islands and atolls. The largest island is Mahe, with Victoria as the capital city. Two other major islands a few miles to the northeast, are Praslin and La Digue.
The Seychelles were uninhabited before being encountered by Europeans in the 16th century, and thus the current population of a little over 120,000 can all trace their ancestry back to France, England, Africa, China or India. The national languages are English, French, and the local Creole which is derived from French and similar to the Creole spoken in Mauritius and Reunion. Tourism is one of the main sources of income.
From 1756-1814 the Seychelles were a French possession, and it was during this period that the first permanent residents arrived, from Mauritius. The islands then became a British colony through the Treaty of Paris in 1814, and remained so until they were granted independence on June 29, 1976.
The first wireless facility in the Seychelles was established by the British Navy soon after the end of World War I. This station was on the air with navy communications under the callsign BZH.
Over the years, there have been two other communication stations active in the Seychelles Islands. One was a Cable & Wireless station with the callsign ZCQ, and the other was a NASA tracking station with the callsign AFE.
The first local radio station in the Seychelles Islands was a shortwave operation using a low-powered transmitter under the callsign ZCQ3. The first known reference to this station is found in two radio magazines which suggest the station was launched around the middle of 1951.
Programming on the station was provided by the local government Education Department, and it was broadcast using a transmitter provided by Cable & Wireless. The original channel was 5770 kHz, the power output was between 100 and 150 watts, and the station was on the air twice a week in English and French for an hour on Wednesdays and Sundays.
By 1956 the transmitter power was listed as only 40 watts, and the operating channel was changed to 4990 kHz in the 60 metre tropical band. Shortwave station ZCQ3 was known to have been heard in Cyprus, Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand even at this low power rating.
The important move to medium wave came on July 20, 1965, just 15 years after the original launching of the shortwave service in 1951. The first medium wave transmitter was a 500 watt unit on 1336 kHz, though this was upgraded to 1 kW a couple of years later, and then again to 10 kW in 1974.
These days, the Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation is still on the air from Victoria on Mahe with 10 kW on 1368 kHz, as well as on a small network of 1 kW FM transmitters. A QSL card with a silhouette scene in black and white was issued in 1974 at the time when they increased power from 1 to 10 kW. And, it is believed this QSL card may still be available, should you ever happen to hear this exotic local station on a distant island.
But one of the reasons the Seychelles has been so memorable on the radio scene was because of an evangelical Christian shortwave station operated by FEBA – Far East Broadcasting Association – which had been founded in London in 1959. Construction work on the new broadcast facility in the Seychelles began in 1967, and on October 8, 1969, they made their first test broadcast using a temporary 3 kW transmitter and a rotatable log periodic antenna erected at the studio location, perched 600 feet above the picturesque coastline two miles south of Victoria. These tests were in the 13 metre band, and were beamed back towards London, where they were indeed heard quite well.
In 1970 they obtained a second temporary transmitter – a 30 kW Press Wireless communications unit – which they modified for broadcast use. But then in 1973, their first 100 kW transmitter, a Harris-Gates unit, was installed, although the antenna limited its operation to only half power.
In 1976, with land at a premium, approval was granted for a unique ‘reef’ antenna system, which was constructed over a lagoon about 1,000 yards offshore. Imagine the maintenance necessary to prevent saltwater corrosion on that! The temporary log periodic antenna was then disassembled, and transmitter power was increased to the full 100 kW.
The Reef Antenna System
In 1982, a second 100 kW unit made by Continental was installed. This was made possible by funding from the Lutheran Church whose own shortwave station, ETLF in Ethiopia, had been nationalized. And finally, a third 100 kW transmitter, made by Harris, was activated in 1989.
During the 1980’s, in-house program production was ramped up to as much as 50% of the content in each language service, with the balance being provided by third party ministries.
Many shortwave listeners will remember their broadcasts, which primarily targeted listeners in South Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Their tuning signal was "What a Friend We Have in Jesus," and here’s a clip from 1975 of them opening up transmissions to India on 11865 and 15325 kHz:(featured in this edition of Wavescan) For an example of the classic religious hymn, go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XRmGEbH0qs
But, in 2003, FEBA announced that they planned to close the shortwave station in the Seychelles due to rising costs and aging equipment. The final broadcast was made on March 31, 2003.
Wavescan’s editor-in-chief, Dr. Adrian Peterson, was one of FEBA’s very first monitors in mainland Asia, and he tuned in to their programming on a regular basis for thousands of hours extending over a period of nearly five years while he served with the Adventist church in Pakistan. And, he proudly says he has 130 QSL’s from FEBA to prove it! 
Since 2003, FEBA has continued to function,
but by placing programming on local stations in their target areas, and by
buying time on other shortwave stations in the UK, South Africa, and elsewhere.
And while we’re in the Seychelles, we should also mention the BBC Indian Ocean Relay Station. In 1981, the BBC began negotiations with the Seychelles government, and on August 8, 1983, they announced in their DX program, Waveguide, that the projected new shortwave station would be ready for service five years later. The BBC and the Seychelles government signed an agreement in 1985, and work on the new station began during the following year.
The new BBC Indian Ocean Relay Station was constructed at Anse Mahe on the west coast of the island of Mahe and a tidal mangrove swamp was filled in for this purpose. Two 250 kW Marconi shortwave transmitters were installed, model B6131’s, together with six four-band curtain antennas suspended from four self-supporting towers.
A ground-breaking ceremony took place on June 9, 1986 to mark the beginning of construction; two years later initial test transmissions were radiated; and the station was taken into regular service on September 25, 1988. Programming beamed into East Africa was then progressively transferred from BBC Cyprus to this new station in the Seychelles.
In order to ascertain the effective coverage area for the new BBC Indian Ocean Relay Station, the BBC offered full data QSL cards, though only for listeners in the target areas in Africa. However, generally speaking, the staff at the Seychelles station did issue QSL cards for all reception reports sent direct to the station itself.
Programming for this relay station came direct from London, comprising the BBC World Service in English, the BBC African Service, and programming in the Somali language. This scheduling was on the air via two frequencies operating in parallel for around 12 hours daily.
The first BBC FM station in the Seychelles was inaugurated in Victoria on 106.2 MHz in 1995; and this was followed in mid-2004 with the installation of two additional FM stations, at Anse Soleil on 105.2 and Pointe aux Sel on 105.6.
The BBC celebrated the 20th anniversary of their Indian Ocean Relay Station on October 2, 2008. At the time, they stated that 9 million people were listening to the relay programming from this shortwave station.
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| BBC via Seychelles |
Then five years later, they announced that the station would be closed. The date eventually chosen was Saturday, March 29, 2014, although their three FM stations for the local population remain on the air to this day with the BBC African service, downlinked from satellite.
Besides the BBC, Radio France Internationale also operates three FM stations for its Afrique service, and there are two national private stations, each with a handful of 1 and 2 kW FM transmitters.
Back to you, Jeff.
(Ray Robinson/Wavescan)
