Thank you to the Wavescan staff for the nostalgic story from Curaçao Island
Whatever Happened to Radio Curom on Curaçao Island in the Caribbean?
Jeff: Last September, Ray Robinson presented a feature about shortwave and medium wave broadcasting on and from the Dutch island of Bonaire in the Caribbean. Bonaire is well-known as the home of the high-powered stations of both Trans World Radio and the former Radio Netherlands relay site. But Bonaire is just one of three islands that make up what used to be called the Netherlands Antilles, or the ‘ABC’ islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao. What is often not remembered these days is that Curaçao also has a history of broadcasting on shortwave, so here’s Ray again to tell us about that.
Ray: Thanks, Jeff. Curaçao is located about 40 miles off the coast of Venezuela in the central Caribbean, and is approximately 44 miles long, and 10 miles wide. The highest point of elevation on the island is Mt. Christophelberg at 1220 ft high. There are no rivers, and only seasonal lakes.
The island’s history began with the arrival of Amerindians from South America around 2500 BC, and the first European colony was established by the Spanish in 1499. The Dutch took over in 1634, and during the Second World War when the Netherlands was under Nazi occupation, American and British forces provided administration temporarily as a protective measure until the war was over, when the island was returned to the Netherlands. The American troops also built a military airport.
In 2010, Curaçao officially became its own country, a constituent island country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is autonomous, although The Hague retains responsibility for defense and foreign policy. The current population is about 160,000, who primarily speak Papiamentu – the creole language of the ABC islands that’s largely based on Portuguese as spoken in the 15th and 16th centuries. But most of the population is also fluent in the official language of Dutch, and some also speak Spanish and/or English. Curaçao is the largest of the ABC islands, both in terms of land area and population, and its capital is the port city of Willemstad.
Wireless came to Curaçao very early. In 1908, a Dutch warship, the Jacob van Heemskerck, brought the first wireless transmission equipment to Curaçao, and this was duly set up in Fort Rif at the mouth of Willemstad Harbor as a coastal wireless station. The original callsign was CRC, though this was regularized to PJC a few years later.
That callsign, PJC on Curaçao, is reminiscent of the more familiar callsign PCJ which was the call of the well-known Dutch international shortwave broadcasting station back in the early days of radio. In fact, in the pre-War years, it wasn’t unusual for radio journals to mix up the callsigns, with the Curaçao call sometimes being printed incorrectly as PCJ, instead of PJC.
In 1928, for the first time, a radio telegraph service between the Netherlands Antilles and Holland was established by PJC on Curaçao. Two years later a similar wireless communication service was established between Curaçao and New York.
The first radio broadcasting service on the island was launched on 20 February 1933, and it too was installed in Fort Rif, as a function of the maritime radio station PJC. The Dutch word for ‘broadcasting’ is ‘omroep’ – you may recall that the full Dutch name of Radio Netherlands was Radio Nederland Wereldomroep, Radio Netherlands World Broadcasting. So in Curaçao, the new station was Curaçao Omroep, which they shortened to Radio Curom, taking the first three letters of Curaçao, and the first two of omroep. It was officially a government radio broadcasting service, but operated by the Curaçao Radio Association, or CRV – Curaçaosche Radio Vereeniging.
The station was given the specific callsign PJC1, and emitted just 150 watts on 9091 kHz. Reception was first reported in the USA in the club magazine of the International Short Wave Club (or, ISWC) in April 1937, and the station was heard periodically in North America.
In 1941, the same ISWC magazine proclaimed that Radio Curom would soon be upgraded to 2 kW; and in 1943, the station began relaying programming on behalf of AFRS, the American Forces Radio Service, on 5930 kHz using a new transmitter, PJC2, with a power of 3 kW.
A low-power medium wave station using the callsign KWJG was installed at the Hato airfield on Curaçao in 1943 also to relay AFRS for the American troops then based there.
A final listing during this era is found in a publication in New Zealand, which shows Radio Princess Juliana on 7250 kHz in 1946. This apparently operated under the same PJC2 callsign previously used for the AFRS programming, and it was listed in the World Radio Handbook with 3 kW on either 7250 kHz or 5017 kHz from 1947 through 1953, though the last listing shows that the station had become inactive on shortwave. Instead, in 1953, Radio Curom launched a medium wave service with a power of 3 kW on 722 kHz. Subsequently, other medium wave stations, all commercially operated, were inaugurated on the island.
In 1958, Radio Curom’s 25th anniversary was celebrated with the production of an LP record of Caribbean music recorded in the Radio Curom studios – the first ever LP recorded in Curaçao. It was published with the help of Philips in Eindhoven, in the Netherlands.
Interestingly, a report in the NASWA Journal states that Radio Curom was noted again on shortwave in the United States during 1960 with programming in the 31 metre band.
And then, in Jerry Berg’s second book ‘Broadcasting on the Shortwaves, 1945 to Today’, he states that Radio Curom was again briefly reactivated on shortwave in the 1970’s, when it was heard in the United States on 17513.5 & 20779 kHz.
The 1980 edition of the WRTH listed five medium wave radio stations in Willemstad on 850, 1010, 1230, 1500, and 1540 kHz, but as is the case in so many countries, broadcasting in Curaçao gradually migrated from the medium wave band to FM. The last medium wave station, which closed in December 2022 after declaring bankruptcy, was the familiar Radio Curom, which then was using 10 kW on 860 kHz with the call PJZ86, and identifying on air simply as ‘Z86’.
So these days, there is no shortwave or medium wave broadcasting service left on the island of Curaçao, although a couple of dozen FM stations are listed, along with a number of online stations that webstream only.
In its early years, Radio Curom was branded by the radio magazines of the era as being a poor verifier. However, as time went by, that changed and many QSL cards were issued. The highly desired QSL card from Radio Curom used to show a stylistic map of Curaçao with a tall antenna tower.
The maritime station on Curaçao, with which Radio Curom was associated, also issued QSL cards as verification of listener reports. Two of their cards are known; one showing a map of the island, and a later one showing the figurative shield of Curaçao in color.
So, Radio Curom was indeed on the air on the shortwaves, many years ago, and apparently during three different eras, beginning in 1933 and ending in the early 1970’s.
Back to you, Jeff.
(Ray Robinson/Wavescan)
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