Radio Broadcasting in the Land of the Mountain Lion
As we have mentioned previously here in Wavescan, we are planning to present many topics throughout this year 2013 as part of our project, “Focus on Africa”. We would like to encourage the shortwave scene in Africa, broadcasting as well as listening and DX clubs, and our opening feature today is another interesting topic about radio broadcasting in one of the countries of Africa.
The
title for this feature is “Radio Broadcasting in the Land of the Mountain
Lion”, and if you have already guessed that this country is Sierra Leone, you
would be correct. It was a Portuguese
explorer, Pedro da Cintra, who visited coastal Africa in the year 1462 and he
gave the name Sierra de Leao in Portuguese to this territory. Some time subsequently, the territory name
was changed to the Italian version, Sierra Leone, which means of course, Lion
Mountain.
The
country of Sierra Leone is located towards the bottom of the western bulge in
the continent of Africa. It is in the
shape of a rough circle about 200 miles across, with an Atlantic coastline of
250 miles. The capital city is Freetown,
and the Freetown Harbour is listed as the world’s 3rd largest
natural harbor.
The
total population is around 7 million, made up of 16 different ethnic groups,
though English is the national language.
Their major natural exports are diamonds, titanium & gold.
Somewhere
around 500 BC, the earliest settlers to migrate into the area were African
tribals; and a thousand years later, this area became a major slave center for
the Portuguese, Dutch, French & British empires. However, on March 11, 1792, England
established the colony of Freetown for freed slaves from the British
Empire. Sixteen years later, the
settlement was annexed as a British Crown Colony.
Sierra
Leone gained its independence in 1961, and 10 years later it was declared a
republic. However, a disastrous civil war
broke out in 1991, and this catastrophic era lasted for eleven years, ending
only quite recently, in 2002.
The radio broadcasting
scene in Sierra Leone began in the earlier part of the 1930s as cable radio, or
as it was known at the time, a rediffusion service. The newly appointed governor, Sir Arnold
Hodson, had recently transferred from the Falkland Islands, where he had
already established a similar system.
The
new cable radio for Freetown was inaugurated on May 7, 1934 at 7:00 pm when
Governor Hodson spoke into a microphone at Wilberforce Memorial Hall and
declared the system open. This was the 1st
cable radio system in West Africa, and subsequently Governor Hodson established
his 3rd rediffusion service in Accra in the Gold Coast soon after he
was transferred there to serve as governor.
The
cable radio system in Freetown was distributed by wire to the residents and the
daily programming was mainly a relay of BBC programming received on shortwave,
with occasional local inserts. At the
height of its success some 20 years later, the Freetown Rediffusion Service
with 2300 subscribers was described as healthy & vigorous, though it should
be noted that reception by cable in the homes could be variable, particularly
during the rainy monsoon season.
Freetown cable radio came to an end in 1963, soon after independence by
which time radio broadcasting was somewhat regularly in service.
Actually,
the first wireless station in Sierra Leone was activated somewhere around 1921,
when Morse Code spark equipment was installed in Freetown. This facility, under the callsign VPU, was
installed in the cable terminal of the African Direct Telegraph Company in
Freetown.
Then,
in December 1947, a new shortwave communication station was installed in
Freetown, with a 1 kW voice transmitter, a Marconi SWB-8E from Chelmsford in
England. This station, under the
callsign ZHV5, was established for inter-African communication with Bathurst
Gambia, Lagos Nigeria & Accra Ghana.
Station
ZHV5 was logged in Australia on 8125 kHz, and the station was noted requesting
reception reports on its transmissions.
Initially, this new shortwave station was on the air on Monday mornings
only.
As
far as the radio broadcasting scene is concerned, consideration was given to
this matter in 1949 when the British government allocated a large sum of money
to expand the radio studio at the cable radio station and install a radio
transmitter. Two years later,
experimental broadcasts went on the air from a 300 watt transmitter on 9630 kHz
in Freetown. We could guess that this
was in reality a series of test broadcasts from the communication transmitter
ZHV. However, after a few weeks on the
air, this radio broadcasting service was terminated in July 1951 due to lack of
funding.
Four years later, another financial
grant from London enabled the construction of a new radio studio at Pemba Road,
New England, Freetown, together with a 5 kW transmitter at Hill Station on the
edge of Freetown. This new radio
broadcasting service was inaugurated in 1956, with the station under the
jurisdiction of the government Public Relations Department, the studio &
transmitter under the Posts &
Telegraph Department, and programming mainly taken from large recorded discs
from the BBC in London.
Very soon after this station was
inaugurated, with 5 kW on the familiar 3316 kHz, it was heard in Sweden for
which a QSL letter was issued.
At this stage, a radio man from
England was installed as the Director of Broadcasting, and that’s where we take
up the story of radio broadcasting in Sierra Leone next time.
(AWR Wavescan/NWS205 via Adrian Peterson)