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| Dominion of Ceylon |
Radio SEAC, Ceylon
Thank you to Ray Robinson and Jeff White for sharing this week's nostalgic edition of Wavescan.
Jeff: Today we have a feature which we hope will be of particular interest to Wavescan listeners in South Asia. The Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation claims to be the oldest radio station in Asia, and this year it’s celebrating its 100th anniversary. SLBC traces its roots back to the founding of Colombo Radio in 1925, but during the Second World War, there were some very interesting developments that led eventually to the establishment of Radio Ceylon, the immediate forerunner of the SLBC. Here’s Ray Robinson to tell us more.
Ray: Thanks, Jeff. There is a long and storied history of broadcasting in the Indian sub-continent, not least of which was the famous Radio Ceylon which in the 1950’s and 60’s provided a very successful cross-border commercial radio service – the South Asia equivalent of LM Radio in Mozambique or Radio Luxembourg in Europe.
But today we’re looking specifically at the events associated with the South East Asia Command, or SEAC, during World War 2, which ultimately led to the establishment of Radio Ceylon. We start back in England in August 1943, where plans were laid in London to establish SEAC, with Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten as the Supreme Allied Commander. Mountbatten, a second cousin of the then King, George VI, arrived in Delhi, India by air on October 5, 1943, where he set up his headquarters in a Maharajah’s palace.
In the summer of that same year 1943, the BBC General Overseas Service had commenced a daily shortwave transmission to India under the title, "Forces Hour." This programming was primarily intended for British and American service personnel on duty throughout British India, a huge territory which incorporated almost all of present-day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar. A few months later, the BBC began shortwave broadcasting to the civilian population in India with four hours of programming daily.
However, at the same time, there were several ex-BBC personnel on duty with the British armed forces throughout India, and these experienced radio men from England were already producing forces programming which was aired locally over AIR radio stations in various cities, including Lucknow, Calcutta, Bombay, Madras and Lahore.
Several of these radio personnel were drawn together in New Delhi to produce BBC-style programming for broadcast locally in India. The first broadcast of the new "All Forces Program" went on the air from AIR Delhi, using the callsign VUD on both medium wave and shortwave, in December 1943. This programming was heard by shortwave listeners in the United States, and the station identification stated: Allied Radio Station, Delhi. The frequencies in use at the time were 886 kHz medium wave with 20 kW, and 7210 kHz shortwave with 10 kW.
Early in 1944, the Forces Broadcasting Section moved into its own facility, and the total staff in this unit eventually grew to around 100 personnel. In February 1945, the Allied Radio Station, Delhi was again noted in the United States with broadcasts from VUD2 on 6190 kHz, probably now with 100 kW.
But in April 1944, just six months after Mountbatten had arrived, he decided to transfer the whole of his SEAC headquarters from New Delhi to the Crown Colony of Ceylon (which was never part of British India), and he took with him many radio personnel, and four train loads of equipment.
In Ceylon, the new SEAC headquarters were set up in Kandy (that’s Kandy with a K), a regional city located in the center of the island which had a reputation for being the most scenic city in the country. Kandy is nestled between mountain ranges at the edge of a large lake some 1600 feet above sea level, which gives it a more moderate climate, and it is, in fact, the second largest city after Colombo.
When Lord Louis Mountbatten arrived, he took over the Perideniya Botanical Gardens in Kandy and established his headquarters in the Royal Palace there. At the height of the British presence, there were more than 5,000 military personnel from the UK stationed in Kandy.
As well as low power AFRS and BFBS stations on medium wave, there was also a shortwave station heard far and wide that began transmitter tests on October 11, 1944 as ‘Radio SEAC, Kandy’, or sometimes more simply just as “Here is Kandy”. At the time, it was stated, they were planning to broadcast for four hours daily with programming intended for Forces personnel in the SEAC command areas. Transmissions would be beamed to the Indian subcontinent and to South East Asia.
The broadcasts from ‘Radio SEAC, Kandy’ were to be supplemental to the programming that was already being produced by the SEAC broadcasting unit still active back in New Delhi, and which was already on the air on both medium wave and shortwave via AIR station VUD in Delhi. The timing of the two sets of broadcasts, from Delhi and Kandy, would be scheduled such that listeners in the intended target areas would have one long continuous block of shortwave programming each day.
As well as locally produced programming, it was planned that SEAC Kandy would relay shortwave programming from London and Washington to audiences in South and South East Asia. Two of the young presenters on SEAC Kandy, David Jacobs and Desmond Carrington, subsequently became very well-known in the 1950’s and 60’s to UK audiences of the BBC and Radio Luxembourg.
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| SEAC Studios at 191 Turret Rd., Colombo |
All of SEAC Kandy’s broadcast schedule was apparently coordinated and produced in a set of borrowed studios at 191 Turret Road, opposite the Town Hall in Colombo. Additional test broadcasts from SEAC Kandy began on October 26, 1944 on 15275 kHz, and these were monitored in Australia at a good level, no doubt due in part to the saltwater pathway. These broadcasts continued to be heard for nearly a year until October 1945 on 25, 19 and 16 metres, but curiously there never was any shortwave transmitter in Kandy itself.
So what happened? Well back in 1941, construction had begun on two shortwave transmitter sites at Ekala, a dozen miles north of Colombo. These were the large and subsequently well-known SEAC transmitter station, and also an adjoining transmitter base for use by the Royal Air Force, the RAF. At the time of the so-called Kandy broadcasts, work at the large SEAC transmitter base was far from completion.
But, the nearby RAF transmitter station was operational, with its own power generation system and living accommodation for some 40 staff. Several small shortwave transmitters were installed there – 3½ kW Marconi SWB8’s – which were in use for high-speed telegraphy, but were not equipped with modulators for voice transmission. But they did have some directional diamond-shaped 3-wire rhombic antenna systems. So, in order to launch the new SEAC radio service, a 7½ kW RCA transmitter, model ET4750, was installed temporarily in the RAF transmitter building, and it was from here that the test broadcasts of ‘Radio SEAC, Kandy’ were made.
A grand opening ceremony for Radio SEAC, Kandy was planned for Sunday, April 15, 1945, with Lord Louis Mountbatten himself present for the occasion. Special test broadcasts went out in advance on the Friday and Saturday. However, during the Saturday evening test broadcast, the modulator on the shortwave transmitter failed. So, a small 500 watt transmitter in the RAF Building that was used for voice communication with aircraft was hurriedly taken over for the prestigious opening ceremony. This transmitter was a Hallicrafters BC610, designed and manufactured in the United States for military voice communications.
So from these humble beginnings, Radio SEAC took shape. The pretense that it was operating from Kandy, was probably a deliberate war-time obfuscation, especially since the transmitter site was actually inside the high security RAF base at Ekala.
The separate SEAC transmitter site at Ekala was duly completed, and went into service on May 1st, 1946 with a 100 kW Marconi shortwave transmitter model SWB18, and three 7.5 kW American RCA model ET4750’s, one of which was transferred from the RAF transmitter station next door. The antenna system consisted of four curtain antennas and three Krauss dipoles, all strung from six tall aerial towers. Here’s a sign-on from Radio SEAC in 1947:
As well as the shortwave transmissions, a 10 kW medium wave transmitter was also installed for SEAC coverage of greater Colombo, and this was inaugurated in 1948.
From June 1946 until early 1949, the SEAC facility in Ceylon was administered directly by the War office in London. Then it was handed back to the government of Ceylon which had begun the construction in 1941. However, the changes in the administration of the station had little impact on the programming, and until the establishment of Radio Ceylon, it continued to identify on air as Radio SEAC.
Radio SEAC in Colombo, Ceylon was an excellent verifier, and their QSL card was received by a multitude of listeners throughout the world.
Back to you, Jeff
