 |
| Beautiful beaches of Tonga |
Jeff: One of the island groups that still maintains broadcasts on medium wave that can be heard by DXers is the South Pacific island nation of Tonga. Here’s Ray Robinson with the story of radio broadcasting in that country.
Ray: Thanks, Jeff. The many scattered islands that make up the kingdom of Tonga in the South Pacific are grouped in a roughly north/south line over about 500 miles. The entire cluster of 171 islands lie northeast of New Zealand at the same latitude as the central coast of the state of Queensland in Australia. These islands are mostly volcanic in nature, surrounded by a coral reef, and the total land area for the whole country is only about 290 square miles.
Only 45 of the Tongan islands are inhabited, and the current population is about 106,000, although more than double that number of Tongans live overseas, mainly in the USA, New Zealand and Australia. 70% of the resident population lives on the main island, Tongatapu. The name Tonga, in many Polynesian dialects, literally means ‘southwards’, and it is thought that the archipelago became known by that name because it is the southernmost group of all the island groups in western Polynesia.
Historians state that the Polynesian peoples migrated from the Asian mainland some 4,000 years ago, and they scattered out over the many small islands in the Pacific. It is generally considered that Tonga was settled by seafarers from Samoa around 1,000 BC.
Tonga was discovered by Europeans in 1616; the Dutch were first with several visits in the 1600’s, including by Abel Tasman in 1643. Then came James Cook and the British Royal Navy in the 1770’s, and because he arrived at the time of a local feast to which he was invited, the name of the island group in English became the ‘Friendly Islands’ – a name which is still used to this day. In 1797, Protestant missionaries from England settled in Tonga, and it was through them that the island chief was designated as a king, taking the throne name King George, as in England at that time. The islands unified into a single country around 1845.
Tonga has maintained its sovereignty and remains the only Pacific nation never to have been annexed by a European power, and to have retained its monarchical government. The Tongan monarchy follows an uninterrupted succession of hereditary rulers from one family. Historically, these Friendly Islands entered a ‘Treaty of Friendship’ with the British government in 1900 for defence and foreign policy purposes, but without surrendering their sovereignty. This ended in June 1970, whereupon they joined the British Commonwealth of Nations.
The first radio communication station in Tonga was established under the callsign VSB in the national capital, Nuku'alofa in 1921. Other subsidiary communication stations were soon afterwards established on other islands, including Vava'u Island with the British callsign GON.
The first radio broadcasts from Tonga came from the American eclipse expedition on Tin Can Island in 1930, with the relay of news and commentaries back to the United States on shortwave via RCA Hawaii.
Another notable broadcast took place in May 1933 when Tonga produced a short segment that was transmitted on shortwave from station VSB and picked up by AWA near Sydney, Australia for inclusion in a very memorable program for that era, the "South Seas Broadcast."
On July 4, 1961, the Tonga Broadcasting Commission (TBC), solely owned by the government of Tonga, inaugurated the first regular radio broadcasting station in Tonga under the callsign ZCO with 10 kW on 1020 kHz. This callsign was changed to A3Z exactly fourteen years later, and the medium wave channel was changed to 1017 kHz five years later again. There were actually two 10 kW medium wave transmitters installed in the new radio station at Nuku'alofa, one as the active unit and the other for standby usage.
In the late 1980’s, TBC inaugurated a new shortwave service in Nuku'alofa in an endeavor to bring national radio coverage to all of the islands in the Tonga group. The initial temporary shortwave unit was made locally and it was rated at just 200 watts. A more substantial transmitter was installed shortly afterwards and it operated with 1 kW on the 60 metre band channel 5030 kHz, and an alternate channel of 6012 kHz SSB with carrier. The antenna system was a horizontally polarized dipole beamed to the north.
However, the Tongan shortwave service was continually plagued with problems. The transmitter was said to be faulty, and spare parts from the manufacturers in France took a long while to arrive. A storm destroyed the antenna system in 1993, after which the United Nations UNESCO agency provided a new 1 kW transmitter and antenna system. However, four years later again, Cyclone Hina caused further damage to the antenna systems and to the transmitter itself.
The shortwave broadcasts from Nuku'alofa were always a relay of the medium wave service, and the last known broadcasts on shortwave occurred in June 1997. By this time, a new FM service was on the air, and FM relay stations were installed on the outlying islands.
In the late 1980’s, UCB, the United Christian Broadcasters in New Zealand, announced that they had received approval to install several radio stations in Tonga; on medium wave, FM and shortwave. It was apparently their intent to operate a shortwave station that could be heard throughout the Pacific. A lot of preliminary work was performed, and UCB did open a medium wave station with 5 kW on 738 kHz on Tongatapu. Ultimately, though, they decided to concentrate on FM coverage only, with low power transmitters on several of the islands.
 |
TBC Studios and Broadcast Tower, Nuku’alofa, Tonga |
I said at the beginning that the Tongan islands are mostly volcanic in nature, and in January 2022, the Hunga volcano, 40 miles north of the main island of Tongatapu, erupted, causing a tsunami which inundated parts of the archipelago, including the capital Nuku?alofa. Comparable to the size of the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, the Hunga volcano produced an atmospheric explosion never before documented in the modern geophysical record. The eruption affected the kingdom heavily, cutting off most communications and killing four people in Tonga. It took around five weeks to repair a submarine fiber optic cable used for internet and telephone connectivity.
Electricity in Tonga is mostly generated by power stations fueled by imported diesel. As a result of the current high energy prices caused by the conflict in Iran, they are now having to ration electricity through rotating power outages called load shedding, although this seems to be mainly during overnight hours.
Today, TBC operates two free-to-air TV channels (Television Tonga and Television Tonga 2), one AM commercial radio station (TBC Radio 1, also known as Radio Tonga), one FM commercial radio station (TBC Radio 2, also known as Kool 90FM), and a 24-hour Radio Australia relay station (FM103). The funding of TBC relies mainly on profits from its TV & radio advertising sales.
The full formal ID of Radio Tonga is: "THIS IS THE CALL OF THE FRIENDLY ISLANDS,
RADIO TONGA 1 (A3Z), NUKU’ALOFA, TONGA."
Here’s an audio clip of Radio Tonga a few weeks ago on Saturday March 21st. The languages used are both Tongan and English – listen out for ‘The Call of the Friendly Islands’.
To hear the audio clip of Radio Tonga 1, go to the audio link for April 26, 2026 at: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/wavescan
The station has
always been a good verifier with a distinctive QSL card, both under the old
callsign ZCO, and under the current callsign A3Z. Many of the QSL cards issued by the station
carry unique postage stamps, such as one in the circular shape of a camera
lens, and another in the shape of a banana.
So, if anyone manages to log this exotic MW DX catch on 1017 kHz, please
let us know, and we’ll mention it here on Wavescan.
Besides the TBC stations, there are also a half dozen or so privately owned 100 or 200 Watt FM stations, along with FM transmitters carrying China Radio International and the aforementioned Radio Australia.
Back to you, Jeff.
(Ray Robinson)
