Focus on the South Pacific-French Radio in New Caledonia

(SM5LNE Collection-hamgallery.com)

The introduction of wireless technology into New Caledonia, the French colony in the South Pacific, took place in the year 1920 when a new wireless station was installed at the Semaphore Station in Noumea, the island capital.  The Semaphore Station was a white square tower located on a hill top, a little over 300 feet high.  The callsign for this new maritime wireless station was FQN, indicating a French territorial possession.

            The equipment at the station was changed from electrical spark operation to electronic valve or tube operation in 1924, and a new callsign was adopted, HZG.  Then 8 years later, the transmission equipment was upgraded and modernized at apparently a new location, and again a new callsign was allocated, this time FJP.   Test broadcasts from this new facility were noted in the United States on exactly 6000 kHz, and also 7100 kHz in 1936.

            Two years earlier, in the month of July 1934, photographer and electrician, Charles Graveau in Noumea New Caledonia began to implement procedures in order to obtain government approval to establish his own amateur radio station.  He took to the air during the next year with the use of his home made transmitter rated at just 20 watts input; that is 12 watts output, as listed in a historic document.

            At this time, the Charles Graveau station, licensed with the amateur callsign FK8AA, was simply an amateur operation in use to communicate with any other amateur radio station that could hear his low power signal.  However, as was the custom in those days, there were occasions when FK8AA radiated music from whatever gramophone records were available.

            However, the real objective of Charles Graveau was to establish a radio broadcasting station, and on April 28, 1937 he began a regular program service over his amateur station, FK8AA.  Each Wednesday and Saturday evening his radio broadcasts went on the air, an hour in duration beginning at 5:30 pm.

            This new radio broadcasting service was inaugurated over his amateur radio station in the family home at 44 Rue del Alma, in Noumea, New Caledonia.  He identified the station on air as “Radio Noumea", though the official callsign FK8AA was still in vogue.

            The new Radio Noumea FK8AA was first noted internationally in New Zealand in January of the following year 1938, and from that time onwards, the station was sought by many international radio monitors in New Zealand, Australia and the United States.  Even at such a low power, the station was heard occasionally at a great distance.  Even though QSL cards were available, obtaining one was just as difficult as even hearing the station. 

            The hobby and commercial radio magazines in the same three countries, New Zealand, Australia and the United States, frequently reported news about the station, and on occasions even showed successful loggings.  Initially FK8AA was logged on 6120 or 6122 kHz, though in the earlier part of the year 1940, the frequency was adjusted to 6130 kHz.  Perhaps the transmitter was modified at this stage to increase the power a little.

            Around a year later, the station in its sign off routine added two more anthems to its scheduling.  In addition to the French Le Marseillaise, listeners now heard also God Save the King and the Star Spangled Banner, as a tribute to the island’s allies.  Soon afterwards, March Lorraine became a signature tune for these still twice weekly program broadcasts.

            However, due to the international attention that was coming to New Caledonia with the massive American presence, the local government began active planning in 1942 for an official government radio broadcasting station.  This new station was inaugurated on air towards the end of that year, or perhaps very early in the next year, 1943.  At that stage, the original FK8AA as a broadcast station was retired, though the amateur operation was revived again after the end of the Pacific War.

            The Australian magazine Radio & Hobbies reported the new government station for the first time in April 1943, when a new channel 6155 kHz was noted, though the previous callsign FK8AA was still shown, perhaps incorrectly.  The final listing with the FK8AA callsign in this same magazine was in July 1946.   

            Programming and scheduling over the new Radio Pacifique Noumea was very similar to the earlier FK8AA, and apparently the concept and perhaps some of the family staff were transferred from the old station to the new.  During the latter part of the war years, the new Radio Noumea increased its hours of on air programming and they also broadcast special programming for troops serving in the Pacific arena.

            That is the story of the amateur become professional radio broadcast station, FK8AA in Noumea, New Caledonia.  Interestingly though, there was another radio broadcasting station on another French island in the South Pacific with a similar amateur background and with a similar callsign.  This other station was on the air under the callsign, not FK8AA but rather FO8AA, and it was not located in New Caledonia but rather in Tahiti.  That’s the story for another occasion here in Wavescan.   

 (AWR Wavescan/NWS 308)

Focus on the South Pacific: New Caledonia and its American Radio Station

New Caledonian currency

A French island with a Scottish name in the South Pacific that was discovered by an Englishman, and it was overwhelmed with a temporary American population far larger than its own citizenry.  That, was New Caledonia!

            This tropical island lies 750 miles off the east coast of Australia; it has a richer biodiversity

of birds, animals and vegetation than what the noted English naturalist Charles Darwin discovered in the Galapagos Islands; and it is the locale for a home born population that speaks more than 40 local languages.  This French territory of New Caledonia encompasses more than 250 islands, 40 of which are inhabited; and the main island, narrow and long, could be described on a map as looking like a wriggly worm, swimming towards New Zealand. 

            The original inhabitants of New Caledonia were the Lapita people, who, it is said, arrived from Taiwan two and three thousand years ago.  Their culture had developed an ornate form of pottery that was discovered by two American archaeologists at more than 30 sites in New Caledonia. 

            Captain James Cook, an explorer with the Royal Navy in England, was the first European to site New Caledonia, and this was on his second voyage to the South Pacific in 1774.  He named the island New Caledonia, a Latin name for Scotland, because the terrain he saw reminded him of Scotland.  The first French visitor was Jean-Francois de Galaup with the French frigates “Astrolabe” and “Boussole” in 1788.

            For more than half a century, there was very little European contact with New Caledonia, but from 1840 onwards, the Europeans developed a greater interest in this island, due to its highly desirable sandalwood, and also mineral mining, in particular nickel.  Christian missionaries from England came to New Caledonia in the mid 1800s, and they stated that cannibalism was rampant among the local Kanaka peoples, much of which was involved with ceremonialism.

            Under orders from Napoleon 3, Admiral Febvrier Despointes took formal possession of New Caledonia as part of the French empire in the Pacific on September 24, 1853; and Noumea, the  capital city, was officially founded on June 25 of the following year, 1854.  For the next half century, New Caledonia served as a penal colony for French criminals who were imprisoned there for varying periods of time.  

            After the fall of France during the European War in June 1940, the General Council in Noumea opted to support the Free French, and the pro-Vichy governor was forced out of office; he retired to French IndoChina.

            With co-operation from Australia, New Caledonia became an important allied base during World War 2 and the first convoy of fifteen large American navy ships arrived on March 12, 1942.  During the Pacific War, more than one million American service personnel were staged through New Caledonia.  At the time, the total population of the island was only a quarter million. 

            The Americans built up the harbor facilities at Noumea, and they erected 85 steel warehouses to accommodate all of the incoming supplies for their forces in the South Pacific.  The medical facilities for the American navy included two hospitals in Noumea, each with a capacity of 2,000 beds.  Two airfields were developed, one at Tontouta 35 miles north of Noumea, and the other at Magenta Bay, across the waterway from Noumea.

            The first radio broadcasting station on the air in New Caledonia for the benefit of forces personnel was a small unit that was installed in the International Red Cross Building in Noumea.  The equipment for this mediumwave station was bought in Australia, and it was launched on September 5, 1943 apparently on 965 kHz.

            This informal broadcasting station in Noumea was taken over by American forces personnel and then replaced by an official American station in January of the following year (1944), on the same channel 965 kHz.  This station initially identified on air as All Services Radio, ASR, though this title was soon afterwards changed to AES, the American Expeditionary Station, and sometimes the Allied Expeditionary Station.

            When official callsigns in the WV and WX series were allocated to the American forces entertainment stations throughout the world, the official callsign for Noumea became WVUS.  At this time, all of the American forces stations around the world were identified under the same group nomenclature; AFRS, Armed Forces Radio Service.          

            Back at that time, three AFRS stations were set up quite simultaneously in the South Pacific; the first two were at Guadalcanal and Bougainville in the Solomon Islands, with WVUS in Noumea New Caledonia as the third, and this was followed quite quickly by another station located at Espirito Santo in the New Hebrides.  However, as was stated, the mediumwave WVUS, in the same Red Cross Building in Noumea, was better equipped than the two other stations located at Guadalcanal and Espirito Santo.

            Station WVUS Noumea, with its 1 kW transmitter now on 975 kHz, acted as the main station in what became known as the Mosquito Network, a group of similar isolated stations in various islands of the South Pacific.  The programming on each station was normally produced locally or taken off live shortwave broadcasts from the United States.  However, in November 1944, a special program produced at WVUS Noumea was picked up off air and relayed live by three other stations in the Mosquito Network: WVUQ Guadalcanal, WVUR Espirito Santo & 1ZM Auckland in New Zealand.

            Radio station WVUS in the Red Cross building in Noumea was closed in November 1945 and the transmitter was flown to Guadalcanal where it was reconditioned and installed for station WVUQ.

            However, a new WVUS was inaugurated at the airport at Tontouta, 35 miles north of Noumea in the same month, November 1945.  This new station, with different equipment, operated with the same power, 1 kW, and on the same channel, 975 kHz as the previous WVUS.  However, this station was now under the control of the United States Air Force and it was no longer a part of the informal Mosquito Network.

            This new WVUS was on the air for less than a year and it was closed at the end of the broadcast day, Saturday night June 15 of the following year 1946.  However, a weekly Australian radio magazine for November 2, 1946 reported in its radio news column that three AFRS stations in the South Pacific, each previously closed, were heard in New Zealand in late September, including the comparatively new WVUS at the American air force base at Tontouta in New Caledonia.

            Radio station WVUS on New Caledonia was often heard with a good signal by international radio monitors in New Zealand and Australia, and at least one QSL is known.  The noted Arthur Cushen in New Zealand reported in a book he wrote, The World in My Ears, that he received a prepared QSL card from this station during the era of the Pacific War.

(AWR Wavescan/NWS 306)