Focus on the South Pacific-New Caledonia

New Caledonia

French Radio in the South Pacific

In our program today, we return to the radio scene on the island of New Caledonia in the exotic South Pacific.  On this occasion, we pick up the story in the year 1940 and this was at the stage when the amateur broadcasting station FK8AA was beginning to fade away and give place to the new government station, Radio Pacifique.

            The main island of New Caledonia is long and thin, rugged and mountainous, and in fact it is over 200 miles long, with a population today of more than ¼ million.  To cover that area with radio programming, the new Radio Pacifique/Radio Noumea introduced a low power 100 watt transmitter, co-located with the communication station in Noumea, FJP.  Their transmission on 6122 kHz was first heard in Eastern Australia in April 1940 and it was described as a loud signal.

            Around the same time a mediumwave transmitter was noted on the air under the same callsign FJP and it was heard first in Sydney Australia on 558 kHz (and later on 560 kHz) with a parallel relay from the shortwave service.  This unit probably at 300 watts was in use from July 1941 but it was closed in May of the following year due to what was described as wartime conditions.

            During the Pacific War, Radio Pacifique remained  on the air with locally produced programming in the French language, though occasionally they did venture into English language programming.  On occasions also, this station was noted with special programming under the title All Services Radio which was beamed to servicemen on active duty in the South Pacific. 

            The signal from Radio Pacifique, Radio Noumea, was usually transmitted in the 49 m band, and over a period of time, half a dozen different channels in this band were noted in Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

            Towards the end of the war, Radio Pacifique was on the air with the usage of two transmitters; one on mediumwave with 300 watts on 700 kHz and another on shortwave with ½ kW on exactly 6000 kHz.  It should be noted also that Radio Pacifique was often wrongly identified in radio magazines in that era under the amateur callsign FK8AA.  When the new Radio Pacifique consolidated its on air presence, the amateur radio broadcasting service FK8AA was retired until it re-entered amateur radio status only, subsequent to the end of the war.

            In 1953, two new transmitters were installed for Radio Noumea.  The first unit was a French made 1 kW that radiated on 6035 kHz through a doublet antenna.  The second unit, rated at ½ kW, had previously been in use on the mediumwave channel 1500 kHz.  It was reactivated with a vertical antenna on the tropical band channel 3375 kHz in August 1953.  It is understood that these units were installed in the transmitter facility that was already on the air in suburban Noumea.

            During the 1960s, Radio Noumea prepared programming for broadcast on shortwave that was beamed to the New Hebrides in French, and to the Wallis & Futuna Islands in French and Wallisian.  These broadcasts were on the air as an External Service for somewhere around ten years.

            However in 1968, work began on the construction of a totally new radio-TV station for New Caledonia.  The site for the studio building was on Rue Guynemer in an outer suburban area of Noumea, and the transmitter facility was located on St. Marie Island, opposite Noumea city.      

            Then in 1970, Radio Noumea was noted with a signal on mediumwave 1420 kHz.  This 4 kW unit carried the main service temporarily for the capital city area during work on the major mediumwave station on 666 kHz.

            A local map of the capital city area and nearby coastal waters shows three islands that were classified as St. Marie, three islands that fringed the Noumea harbor area.  A Google Earth search shows the three islands, two of which seem to have been the site for the radio transmitter stations.

            The irregularly shaped Ile N’gea is the largest of the three St Marie Islands, and in the centre of this island is a white building that looks like it could have been the transmitter building containing the three shortwave transmitters at 20 kW each.  Interestingly, the eastern, almost semi-circular bay on this island is known as Antenna Bay.  The shortwave service was retired in 1994 in favor of nation wide FM coverage.

            Off the southern edge of the larger island Ile N’gea is the smaller St. Marie Island known as Uere island where the transmitter building and mediumwave antenna are quite clearly shown on Google Earth.  The tower appears almost as a short shadow, with a circular ground pattern around it.  This transmitter site was activated somewhere around the year 1986.

            There seems to be no indication of electric power generation on these two otherwise vacant islands, so it is possible that an undersea cable provided an electrical feed from nearby Noumea.

            During the 1980s and 1990s, an extensive nationwide network of FM stations was built, and in 1994, Radio Noumea closed out its shortwave service for island wide coverage and beyond in favor of this network of FM relay stations.  However, the 20 kW mediumwave outlet on 666 kHz is still on the air and it is heard quite widely throughout the South Pacific vastness due to the saltwater take off for the radio signal.

            Then, around the middle of the 1980s, Radio Noumea was noted with a signal on another mediumwave channel, 1260 kHz.  The transmitter for this temporary broadcast service was probably the same 4 kW unit which had been on the air previously in Noumea on 1420 kHz.

             The transmitter for this 1260 kHz channel was now installed at another location, Mt Aoupinie in almost the exact center of the island of New Caledonia.  This temporarily installed unit carried a relay for the islandwide FM radio service while a new FM unit was readied at the same location for use as an intermediate relay unit.

            In the second week of September 2005, international radio monitors in the United States and Australia heard a new mediumwave station on the air in New Caledonia.  This new facility on 729 kHz proved to be a 5 kW unit at Toupo, a little more than half way up the east coast of the island.

            These days, Radio Noumea is on the air via a multitude of network FM stations throughout their islands, as well as via the two mediumwave units; Noumea on 666 kHz with 20 kW, and Touho on 729 kHz with 5 kW.  The shortwave units were closed 21 years ago, never to return.

            Interestingly, back in the year 1984, RFI Radio France International in Paris, gave serious consideration to building a large shortwave relay station on the island of New Caledonia.  At the time, they were studying the feasibility of building an international shortwave relay station on New Caledonia. or taking out a part time relay via the SLBC Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation shortwave station at Ekala in Sri Lanka.  However, as things worked out, neither option was taken up.

(AWR-Wavescan/NWS 315)

Railway Radio in Australia

Part 1 

            The first wireless transmissions from a moving train in Australia took place during the years 1910 and 1911.  A prominent wireless experimenter in that era, George Taylor, conducted several successful experiments on moving trains that were speeding between Sydney in New South Wales and Melbourne in Victoria. 

            On some occasions, he placed a wireless transmitter and a receiver at two different locations on the same train and succeeded with communication between both units while the train was in motion.  On other occasions, he succeeded in making wireless communication between two different trains running at full speed.

            However, during the next decade, all of the radio experiments in association with trains in Australia centered about reception on a moving train, rather than on broadcasting from a moving train.

On April 7, 1924, for example, a passenger train left Melbourne bound for Sydney with a radio receiver aboard, and a musical concert on the air from a mediumwave broadcasting station in Sydney was heard quite clearly.  This was an all time first in Australia.

            Six months later, a similar experiment was conducted in South Australia.  At 2:35 in the afternoon on October 10 (1924), a special train left the Adelaide railway station bound for Belair in the nearby Adelaide Hills, and aboard were fifteen radio receivers.

            Initially, all of the receivers were tuned to the same radio station so that passengers could readily make a comparison between receivers of various makes.  Soon afterwards though, the receivers were tuned to whatever station the listener desired to hear, and they could tune in to the music  programming from any of four different stations, amateur or broadcast: 5AB, 5DN, 5RM or 5RG. 

            This special railroad trip attracted so many people that the railway officials had to connect a second carriage in order to accommodate the three hundred people who desired to participate.  On the return journey, the train stopped inside a tunnel in order to check radio reception there.  However, the listeners discovered that signals from all four radio stations were degraded inside the tunnel.

             A subsequent event on a special train running from Adelaide to suburban outer Hallett Cove on the coastline attracted five hundred people, and nine radio receivers were installed aboard. 

            In June 1926, radio reception tests were made in a VIP carriage known as the Norman Car.  This carriage was attached to a train leaving the Flinders Street station in Melbourne.  It was reported that several radio broadcasting stations were picked up well, and that the receivers did not need an earth connection.

            Similar experiments were conducted on moving trains in country areas also, and in 1925, reception experiments were conducted in a special carriage attached to a train running from Cockburn to Mt. Dutton, in the outback areas towards the center of the continent.  The external receiving antenna was attached above the roof of the carriage and reception from radio broadcasting stations was described as good..

            The first radio broadcasting station aboard a railway train in Australia was station 2XT, a 500 watt AWA transmitter on 1175 kHz.  This radio station was part of an exhibit on board an exhibition train, known as the Great White Train, which started out from Sydney on November 11, 1925.  It is claimed that this was the first radio broadcasting station on a train anywhere in the world. 

            A total of fifteen carriages carried commercial exhibits from thirty well known manufacturing companies, and in its two year tour throughout country areas in the state of New South Wales, the train travelled 45,000 miles and visited more than one hundred towns, attracting more than half a million visitors.  Station 2XT was installed in a carriage that was occupied completely with electronic equipment manufactured by the AWA company.

            The train would arrive at each new location in the morning, the staff would then go out and visit trades people, and in the afternoon and evening the exhibits were open to local visitors.  Usually there was an official Civic Reception in each town with local community leaders.

            The first stop on this long and very successful tour was at Gosford, north of Sydney.  The stay at any particular town was extended up to as many as five days.

            The radio station 2XT was on the air in two sessions each day, from 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm and again from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm.  Live programming featured recorded music, speeches from local civic and commercial personnel, as well as information about the contents in each of the exhibits aboard the train.

            The antenna was a single wire 60 feet long on masts at a height of 40 feet above the AWA carriage, and the rails served as an earthing system.  Reception reports were received from listeners all over Australia and New Zealand, and also up in New Guinea. 

            Sometime during month of December, 1927, mobile radio station 2XT on the Great White Train made its last program broadcast at its last visit to a small country town in the Australian state of New South Wales.  The train returned to Sydney and all of the exhibits were unloaded.  We can only presume that the radio transmitter was also unloaded from the train, and perhaps sold off to a land based radio station for installation at a new location.  But where?  I guess we will never know!   

            There are no known QSL cards or letters verifying reception of station 2XT aboard the Great White Train.  However, Dr. Bruce Carty’s splendid large format book, On the Air: Australian Radio History, carries a picture, on one of its early pages, of the advertising leaflet that was distributed in each town that the train visited.  The Carty book shows the leaflet that was imprinted for the visit to the large regional city of Wagga Wagga in New South Wales.

(AWR Wavescan/NWS 313)