This week's edition begins part 1 of 2. Thank you to the Wavescan staff.
Jeff: In the late 1930’s, many countries were thrown into a state of confusion and perplexity due to the antagonism and belligerence of major international powers. In September 1939, these festering antagonisms boiled over, and most countries in Europe, and indeed around the world, aligned themselves with either of two differing camps, the Allies or the Axis, as they were known in English. Today Ray Robinson has a feature about wartime broadcasting activities in two countries which remained neutral, and also in some of the European colonies in Africa.
Ray: Thanks, Jeff. A number of European countries declared their neutrality at the outset of World War II, but only five were ultimately able to maintain that successfully: Switzerland, Sweden, Ireland, and on the Iberian Peninsula, Spain and Portugal. Interestingly, in at least two of these neutral countries, a couple of what we would call rather unusual radio events took place.
Switzerland, as we know, retained its neutrality in both World War I and World War II, and this small though important country played a vital world role in the operation of the International Red Cross, and in the League of Nations in the 1920’s and 30’s.
In Switzerland, an international shortwave service had been introduced in September 1932 when program broadcasting began over two transmitters on behalf of two different broadcasting organizations. One of these transmitters was obtained from the Marconi Company in England and it was on the air under the primary callsign HBL, and the other transmitter was a French made unit and it was on the air under the primary callsign HBP.
Each transmitter was rated at 20 kW, according to the accepted electrical values of that era. Generally speaking, programming was on the air from these new transmitters for just a few hours over the weekend, on behalf of both the League of Nations and the Swiss Broadcasting Service.
Even though Switzerland was totally surrounded by belligerent nations during the war, postal mail was still delivered into and out of this central European country, and we would guess that it had to be transported by airmail. For example, a QSL card printed in black and white with a picture of the antenna system, verifies a reception report from a listener in New Zealand during this time period. The confirmation information states that callsign HBH, a secondary channel callsign for Radio Nations in Switzerland, was logged on 18480 kHz on January 3, 1941.
Perhaps even more interestingly, we come to the year 1944, and by this time, intensive warfare was now raging in the Pacific, as well as still in Europe. Sometime during the month of May, Radio Tokyo broadcast a DX program in the Swedish language, beamed to Sweden. This one time only broadcast was radiated from a 50 kW shortwave transmitter on 15225 kHz under the callsign JLT3. According to the American radio magazine, Radio News, Radio Tokyo received a total of 518 reception reports from listeners in Sweden for this broadcast.
During the month of May, 1940, the expanding German Reich overran the coastal country of Belgium. The entire government of Belgium fled to London, England, from where they continued to operate in exile, though the royal family chose to remain in Belgium and share in the difficulties with their subjects.
The Belgian government in exile arranged for the broadcast of national radio programming over shortwave stations in three different locations: from the BBC London, Voice of America in New York, and also over a new station in Central Africa. This new station was located at Leopoldville in the Belgian Congo, now known as Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
During 1941, the Belgian government in exile in London began negotiations to obtain a 50 kW shortwave transmitter for installation at Leopoldville. This new unit was a 50 kW RCA transmitter from the United States, and it was initially delivered to a property in Leopoldville that was used by the Order of Jesuits and the British Institute. Soon afterwards, the entire new radio station was relocated and installed in a new building, at the College Albert Cultural Centre which had been the home of the Jesuit radio station, Radio Leo.
From there, the new shortwave station OTC transmitted some test broadcasts early in 1943 for which QSL cards were issued from both New York and Leopoldville. Station OTC was then officially inaugurated on May 16, 1943, with local programming, and with scheduled relays from the Voice of America to Africa and Europe, and with BBC programming beamed from London to the United States. Interestingly, the CPRV QSL collection in the United States holds a QSL card issued from the BBC office in New York, verifying the BBC relay via OTC Leopoldville on 9783 kHz.
At the same time as OTC Leopoldville was under construction, so was a new Radio Brazzaville station in neighboring French Congo. The two cities, Leopoldville and Brazzaville, are in reality twin cities, located across the Congo River from each other, though they were actually located in two separate countries, Belgian Congo and French Congo.
Both stations, OTC and Radio Brazzaville, were constructed at the same time with 50 kW RCA transmitters, though the Belgian station was the first on air. These two stations were just 5 miles apart.
As a matter of interest, the shortwave station located at Leopoldville also acted as a relay station for the Voice of America during two different eras. When the station was newly on the air in 1943 with the 50 kW RCA transmitter from the United States, VOA programming from the United States was received off air and re-transmitted live from Leopoldville to Europe, and also to South Africa. It is probable that this first relay arrangement continued until around the end of 1945.
The second era of activity as a VOA relay station took place during 1958 when political upheaval was evident in central Africa. Leopoldville was noted on 15260 kHz with VOA programming for Africa, over a second 50 kW transmitter, as reported by John Callarman of Texas in a 2007 edition of Glenn Hauser's DX Listening Digest. The Leopoldville relay was shown in the VOA schedule for that period. The original 50 kW transmitter in Leopoldville had been removed after the end of World War 2 and re-installed in Belgium; so subsequently, a second 50 kW unit, presumably also from RCA in the United States, was installed at Leopoldville.
Now, that's all on this topic for today. Next week, we plan to continue with this theme, specifically presenting the story of French colonies around the world during this same era.
Back to you, Jeff.
