 |
| USCGC Courier |
Thank you to Ray Robinson, Dr Adrian Peterson, and Jeff White for this week's Wavescan episode.
US Coast Guard Cutter ‘Courier’
Jeff: For 12 years during the Cold War from 1952 to 1964, the United States used a Coast Guard vessel in the Mediterranean Sea to broadcast Voice of America programming via medium wave and shortwave to Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Middle East and North Africa in up to 16 different languages. Those operating the ship-based station always had to contend with the forces of nature, technical challenges and deliberate jamming from the East. Once again, our contributor, Dr. Martin van der Ven in Germany has been digging into the history of this rather unique enterprise, and here’s Ray Robinson in Los Angeles to bring us what Martin has uncovered.
Ray: Thanks, Jeff. Yes, Martin has produced a very informative article, and I also found some great information about this project at the website theradiohistorian.org, so we’re very much indebted to both.
The Voice of America began broadcasting during World War II, and by the late 1940’s, a number of powerful VOA shortwave transmitting facilities were broadcasting from within the United States. But in 1949, the Soviet Union began jamming those signals, creating walls of noise and interference that largely wiped out reception of the VOA in eastern bloc countries. The signals from North America were considerably weaker than the jammers because of the long transmission distances, so to break through the jamming, the US State Department began setting up VOA relay transmission facilities that were closer to its target areas. Beginning in the early 1950s, overseas relay stations were built or leased in Tangier, the Philippines and Okinawa.
At the same time, the VOA proposed to build a fleet of shipboard radio transmitters that could quickly and easily move to wherever they were needed to serve as temporary relay stations. In response to the proposal, the Department of State created the program “Operation Vagabond” in April, 1951. At first six vessels were contemplated, but in the end budget constraints imposed by Congress limited the project to just one ship. To avoid political controversy, this ship would be unarmed and would operate under the command of the US Coast Guard, not the Navy. It would not broadcast from International Waters on the high seas, but only from inside the territorial coastal waters of friendly countries that had granted permission.
In 1952, the State Department acquired a mothballed ship, the 340 ft. M/V Coastal Messenger. She’d been built in Milwaukee in early 1945 as a wartime transport vessel, but the war was over before the ship could be placed into service. After the war, she plied the coastal waters of South America, but on one voyage ran aground off the coast of Venezuela – an incident that ultimately led to her being laid up in the reserve fleet.
The Coastal Messenger was duly chosen to be converted into the first of the proposed six new VOA relay ships. And for this mission, she was given a new name: U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Courier. She was equipped with two 35 kW Collins 207B shortwave transmitters and a 150 kW RCA BT-105 medium wave transmitter – the most powerful medium wave transmitter ever installed on a ship.
USCGC Courier – Transmitter Hold (Collins SW on left, RCA MW on right)
On the forward deck, four inverted pyramid steel lattice antennas were used for shortwave transmissions – a larger pair for lower frequencies on the port bow, and a slightly smaller pair for higher frequencies on the starboard bow. These were omnidirectional, and all were painted red and duly guyed to the deck. Medium wave transmissions, also omnidirectional, were to be made through a resonant steel cable held aloft by a huge helium balloon,which it also tethered. The balloon was winched up to some 900 feet above the deck during broadcasts. Three 500 kW three-phase generators supplied the power, any two of which could run the entire station at full load.
On February 15, 1952, the ship was officially commissioned in Hoboken, New Jersey, after which she sailed to Washington, D.C. where on March 4, 1952, she was inspected by President Harry S. Truman, and he made a short broadcast from her deck. Then, before entering full service, the Courier undertook a six-week shakedown cruise through the Caribbean to the Panama Canal.
On April 18, 1952, the first test transmissions took place from the Canal Zone using the callsign KU2XAJ on 6110 and 9690 kHz shortwave and on 1510 kHz medium wave. Broadcasts ran daily from 5-11pm local time, and were well received as far afield as Europe and New Zealand. The announcements identified the test broadcasts as: “Voice of America broadcasting via the Courier, the floating station KU2XAJ in the waters of the Panama Canal. This transmitter is testing its electronic equipment with programmes in the Spanish language on 1510 kHz, 9690 and 6110 kHz. VoA technicians welcome reception reports to: Courier, Apartado 2016, Balboa, Canal Zone.”
The reason the then American territory of the Canal Zone was chosen for the test broadcasts was to covertly support a CIA operation to overthrow the then communist government of Guatemala. Whilst outwardly it was presented as a goodwill mission, it was in reality a tactical propaganda operation, known only to a small circle of VOA personnel at the time. The evening broadcasts in Spanish on the powerful medium wave transmitter easily reached Guatemala by sky wave, and perhaps partly as a result of the Courier’s targeted political influence campaign for a few months in 1952, there was indeed eventually a successful coup d’etat in Guatemala two years later on June 27, 1954.
A month later, she set out for the eastern Mediterranean — via Tangier, Naples and Piraeus — finally arriving in the harbor of Rhodes on August 22, 1952. The location just 11 miles off the south coast of Turkey was both strategic and symbolic: Greece had just joined NATO, and the presence of the American broadcast ship stood as a visible sign of Western solidarity. On September 7, she officially began broadcasting.
Although the ship often moored in the port, when broadcasting, she usually lay at anchor about one mile offshore within territorial waters, by agreement with the Greek government.
 |
USCGC Courier off Rhodes |
The red inverted-pyramid ‘discone’ antennas at the bow were for shortwave transmission.
A Faraday cage was constructed at the stern to shield the receivers from RF interference.
The helium balloon was launched from the platform at midships.
The helium balloons used to raise the medium wave antenna were 69 feet long and 35 feet wide – similar in size to the barrage balloons that had been used over London during the Blitz. Five of these expensive balloons were kept on board, along with 600 bottles of helium. It took many coastguardsmen to inflate the balloons and send them aloft. But the system proved unreliable: strong winds often tore the balloons loose, sending them drifting — sometimes over Turkey, where private property was damaged. Eventually, the fragile system was replaced by an inverted delta-loop antenna, which used three wires strung between the ship’s forward and aft masts. The primary medium wave frequency from Rhodes was 1259 kHz, using the callsign NFKW.
 |
Balloon About to Lift AM Antenna |
News and current
affairs programming was received via shortwave either from Tangier or direct
from Washington D.C. through a bank of Collins 51-J
VOA music programming from the Courier was played on reel-to-reel tapes that were taken to the ship regularly. Adjacent to the control room on board was also a small broadcast studio, which was mainly used for continuity announcements, although local broadcasts were occasionally made too.
Problems were experienced with the reception of VOA broadcasts from Washington due to RF interference from the ship’s own transmitters, and to try to counter that, a Faraday shield was constructed around the stern of the ship, but that was only partially successful. So, in later years, a separate receiving station was built on land, on a hill overlooking the harbor, and news relays were then sent by VHF link from there to the ship in better quality than could be obtained on board.
But the airwaves were contested territory: from the East, jammers in the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries tried to block her transmissions. It was a constant game of cat and mouse, and small frequency changes to adjacent channels were often made during broadcasts to try to get a clear signal through.
Married crew members were permitted to bring their families to Rhodes. A small American community soon developed on the island, complete with homes, shops and an American school. The Courier community stimulated the local economy, created jobs — and not infrequently led to friendships or even marriages between islanders and crew members.
But in the long run, having a movable
seagoing transmitter proved not to be as useful as was originally hoped, and
the Courier’s signal range was hampered by the limitations of
its shipboard antennas. As the Soviets increased their jamming
power, higher transmitting power and more efficient, directional antennas were
needed. Finally, in 1964, the VOA inaugurated a land-based
transmitting station on the Island of Rhodes. It was equipped with a
500 kW medium wave transmitter and two 50 kW shortwave units. A second relay station at Kavala in
northeastern Greece, just south of the Bulgarian border, was commissioned in
1972.
YouTube link to VOA Rhodes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPaGfkzeXlU
After twelve years of service, the Courier prepared to return to the United States in 1964. Final maintenance work was carried out at a shipyard near Piraeus — and even there, while in dry dock, she remained “on the air”, earthed via a massive cable to the quay. On May 17, 1964, the final broadcast went out over the airwaves. The technical equipment was then offloaded and handed over to the Greek government, and the ship began her voyage home — via Naples, Barcelona and the Azores. On August 13, 1964, the Courier reached the American east coast. Two years later in 1966, she was recommissioned as a training vessel for the Coast Guard, a role she filled until 1972 when she was finally decommissioned. In 1975 the vessel was scrapped, ending a colorful career as one of the world’s most unique broadcast facilities.
What remained was her legacy: a ship that fought not with weapons, but with words — and whose aerials for many years stood as symbols of a free and uncensored world.
Back to you, Jeff.
Jeff: Thanks, Ray. And again, we thank Dr. Martin van der Ven in Germany for much of the input to that item. Next week, Ray will begin a short two-part series on the history of the BBC transmitting station at Daventry in England.
