This week, Wavescan features Radio Prague International ... a feature you don't want to miss. Special thanks to Ray Robinson and Jeff White for sharing this week's episode. Part 2 will air next Sunday.
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| Vintage QSL card from Radio Prague |
Jeff: Last month, while I was attending the HFCC meeting in Prague, Czech Republic, I was able to visit the studios of Radio Prague, which now broadcasts via WRMI shortwave in Okeechobee, Florida. So now, Ray Robinson in Los Angeles has been digging into the history of this iconic station of the shortwave bands, and this week brings you part 1 of a 2-part series.
Ray: Thanks, Jeff.
I’m sure many shortwave listeners well remember that very distinctive interval signal and sign-on by Radio Prague. That one was recorded on 6055 kHz in 1973. When I lived in the UK in the 1970’s and early 80’s, it was certainly a very easy station to pick up. But, where exactly was it?
Radio Prague International interval signal at YouTube
I guess I should start by telling you that Prague is the capital city of the Czech Republic, sometimes now referred to as Czechia, a country of about 11 million people right at the heart of Central Europe, who are largely isolated by their very difficult language.
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| Vintage QSL from Radio Prague |
For nearly 75 years, from the end of World War I until 1993, the Czech Republic was united with Slovakia and known jointly as Czechoslovakia. During the inter-war period, Czechoslovakia was a parliamentary democracy – the only one in Central and Eastern Europe from 1933 onwards. Nazi Germany progressively invaded from 1938 on, and then in May 1945, Prague was ‘liberated’ by the Red Army. The Communists formally took power through a coup d'état in 1948, and the country remained the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic under the control of Moscow until 1989.
A period of reform in 1968 known as the ‘Prague Spring’ was famously crushed by the presence of Warsaw Pact tanks in the center of Prague. Eventually, through what was known as the ‘Velvet Revolution’ in November and December 1989, the communist regime fell, but by 1992, Slovak calls for more autonomy effectively blocked the daily functioning of the federal government. So, on January 1, 1993, the Czech Republic and Slovakia were peacefully established as two independent states.
So how did radio broadcasting start there? Well, the first radio program in Czechoslovakia, made up of words and music, was broadcast on October 28th, 1919 from the telegraph station at Prague's Petrin lookout tower. Regular radio broadcasts were launched on May 18th 1923, by the valve manufacturer, the Elektra Bulb company, a name that was later changed to Tesla. This made Czechoslovakia only the second country in Europe after the U.K. to have regular radio broadcasting.
These early broadcasts originated from a tent erected at the transmitter site of a communication facility located in a suburban area of Prague called Kbely. One listener in England reported hearing test broadcasts on shortwave from this site shortly before the regular service on both longwave and medium wave was inaugurated. Broadcasts at first lasted just one hour per day, and all programs – both news and musical productions – went out live.
January 1924 saw the first broadcasting intended for listeners abroad in English and Esperanto. Then in the December of that year, the studios moved from Kbely to a Post Office building in Central Prague, and then finally at the end of 1933, they moved again into a building at 12 Vinohradska Street that is still the headquarters of Radio Prague to this day.
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| Entrance to Vinohradska Street in 1936 |
In 1926, additional medium wave stations were established in the regional cities of Brno and Bratislava, and others followed in the late 1920s.
In the 1930’s, some European countries had begun regular broadcasting on shortwave – notably England (in 1932), Germany (in 1933) and Soviet Radio in the mid-1930s. So, with growing political unrest across the continent, a decision was taken in 1934 to commence regular broadcasting from Prague also to foreign audiences outside Czechoslovakia. Work commenced in 1935 to install antennas and a 30 kW Marconi shortwave transmitter imported from England, in a telegraph building at Podebrody, near Prague.
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Telegraph
Building and Transmitter Hall at Podebrody in 1936 |
This unit was designated with the callsign OLR, which over the years has appeared on many of their QSL cards.
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| Vintage QSL cards |
The first test broadcast from this new unit was heard on July 24, 1936.
Refer to the podcast for an audio clip from 1936 - Experimental Station
Announcement at https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/wavescan
Then, just a few weeks later, at 10am on August 31, 1936, the station began regular programming in five languages, for four hours per day. By 1937, they had been joined by other regular shortwave broadcasting from Brussels, Copenhagen, Oslo and Vienna. Over the next few years, the broadcast schedule of Radio Prague increased significantly, and in 1938, two new German transmitters were installed at Podebrody.
But then Czechoslovakia was occupied by the Nazis in 1939. On March 15 that year, the Nazis stopped all broadcasting from Podebrody on shortwave, decreed that all domestic programming must be in German, and began using the radio for propaganda purposes, even going so far as to ban music by Czech composers. A few days later, though, they relented a little and allowed the shortwave broadcasts to resume, but only for two hours per day to North America, and only in the Czech language. All Jewish journalists were forced to leave the station.
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| Radio Prague at '50' |
Shortwave broadcasts to the country in Czech were made from the BBC in London beginning in September 1939, from Radio Moscow in 1941, and from the Voice of America in Washington beginning in 1942. But in Czechoslovakia itself, listening to foreign radio was a crime punishable by death. Then in 1943, the Germans removed shortwave capability from over a million radio sets, effectively preventing the majority of the population from listening to foreign broadcasts.
That same year, international radio monitors noticed the station in Prague was using new call signs. Instead of, for example, for operation on the 31 meter band, the former Czech callsign OLR3A, the identification had become the German DHE3A.
Over the course of the war, some 14 Czech radio staff members were imprisoned or executed by the Nazis, some for political reasons, and others because they were Jewish.
But the final German announcement of that era was made early on May 5, 1945. At 6am, an illicit broadcast from the radio studio in the Czech language helped spark the beginning of the Prague uprising. Aided by Czech police, the Czech resistance had gained control of the station by barricading themselves in the newsroom, and they were able to inform and inspire the people to rise up against the Nazis. Fierce battles were fought, many lives were lost, and the Czech Radio building itself was badly damaged. The city of Prague finally fell to the Red Army four days later on May 9, 1945.
Next week, we’ll continue the story of Radio Prague after the Second World War.
Back to you, Jeff.
(Ray Robinson/Wavescan)
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| Radio Prague QSL 2009 |
