Quite recently,
Jose Jacob VU2JOS in Hyderabad India sent us an email message in which he
alerted us regarding the possible closure of VUC, the current shortwave station
in Kolkata. He stated that the shortwave
transmitter at Kolkata was scheduled to close down on February 22 as per orders
from the headquarters of All India Radio in Delhi. However, the technical employees union in
Kolkata protested this decision, and so the shortwave station still remains on
the air, though for how much longer is uncertain.
Two matters arise out of this
information: -
1. If you do not yet have QSLs
verifying the Indian regional shortwave stations, you should send
reception reports to them while they are still on the air; it is known that all
of these
analog shortwave transmitters in India
will one day be closed in favor of digital transmitters.
2. As Jose Jacob suggested,
now would be an appropriate time to present a complete Station
Profile on AIR Calcutta. So, here we go!
The city of
Calcutta is located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, a branch of the
Ganges River in the delta area, some 60 miles inland from the Bay of
Bengal. Back in the era before the
arrival of the British, there were just three small villages in the area:-
Kolikata:
a small fishing village
Sutanuti:
a small weaving village
Govindapur
The
British East India Company was established in the area in 1690 and they bought
the areas embracing the three villages, and thus the name Kolikata became the
name for what became the entire city. In
its Anglicized version, Kolikata became the very familiar Calcutta. Several different origins have been suggested
for the original meaning of the name Calcutta and it would appear that the most
logical would be that Kolikata, in the early Bengali language, meant the field
of the goddess Kali.
In
the days of strife between the colonial British and the local Bengali people,
Calcutta became notorious for what is called the Black Hole of Calcutta, a
small prison in which many prisoners died overnight some 2½ centuries ago. In 1773 Calcutta became the national capital
of all India, a title that it held for more than 1¼ centuries; Delhi became the
national capital in 1911.
India’s
first newspaper the Bengal Gazette was printed in Calcutta in 1780; the first
Christian missionary William Carey arrived in Calcutta in 1793; Calcutta was
the 2nd largest city in the British Empire in the year 1900 (with
London as the largest); the national anthems for both India and Bangladesh were
composed in Calcutta by the nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore; the city name
was changed from the English Calcutta to the Bengali Kolkata in 2001; the port
of Kolkata stretches for 20 miles on both sides of the river; and these days
14.1 million people live in greater Kolkata, the 3rd largest city in
India.
Among
the many tourist attractions in Kolkata are the ornate Victoria Memorial that
was designed in the style of the Taj Mahal; the city zoo in which successful
cross breeding between tigers and lions has been achieved; and the huge Banyan
Tree more than 250 years old and covering more than 4 acres.
Most
of the early wireless experiments in India took place in the Calcutta area and
it was back in the year 1849, more than 1½ centuries ago, that the first
wireless experiments were undertaken by Dr. Sir William O’Shaughnessy,
Superintendent of Telegraphs. He
successfully transmitted wireless signals across the Huldee River ¾ mile wide
with a wire along each bank of the river, and a metal plate at the end of each
wire immersed in the water.
It
seems that each succeeding Electrician in Calcutta conducted similar
experiments and next came Mr. Blissett.
In 1858, he conducted similar wireless experiments with the use of a
long wire on each bank of a river and in this way achieved fair success.
Mr.
Winter followed and he made some astute observations regarding cross modulation
of Morse signals between parallel telegraph wires on the same poles in
1873. Three years later, Mr. Schwendler
carried out similar cross-river communications across the River Hooghly at
Barrackpore, near Calcutta, using parallel wires with metal plates submerged in
the water.
Mr.
W. P. Johnston was next and he repeated the same experiments across a nearby
waterway 200 yards wide on September 9, 1879.
Nine years later, he carried out many similar experiments across nearby
canals in the Calcutta area, and also across the River Hooghly itself.
Mr.
Melhuish, was next and he discovered that the wires lying on the bank on each
side of the river need to be at least as long as the river is wide in order to
achieve reliable communication.
The
first experimental work on the transmission and reception of radio signals in
India was carried out by Dr. Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose. Towards the end of the year 1894, Bose began
his experimentation with wireless, and in November 1895 he gave a public
demonstration in the Calcutta Town Hall with Bengal’s Lieutenant Governor Sir
William Mackenzie in attendance.
In
this public demonstration, Bose transmitted wireless signals at a wavelength of
just ½ inch over a distance of 75 ft through several solid walls. He also used a wireless signal to ring a bell
at a distance, and to fire a gun remotely.
India’s
first wireless station was established just three years later (1902) and this
was installed at Sandheads on Saugor Island out in the Bay of Bengal. The original callsign for this station was
ROS, though when regular international callsigns were mandated worldwide, this
call was amended to VWS.
During
this same era, another wireless station was installed in the area, though this
time much closer to Calcutta itself.
This station was licensed under the callsign VWC and it was installed a
little northeast of the city itself.
When radio replaced wireless, a new location was chosen, just north of
Calcutta.
Station
VWC is still in use today, around a century after its original installation and
it was noted a few years ago with time signals for which QSL cards were issued.
That’s
as far as we go in the Calcutta story today, but in two weeks time, we plan to
present the story of early experimental radio broadcasting.
(AWR/Wavescan-NWS264)
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