The Final Episode in the Story of Radio Broadcasting in Afghanistan
The Story of the Indian Shortwave Transmitter
In the long and interesting story of
radio broadcasting in the land locked western Asian country of Afghanistan, we
come now to the final episode: The Story of the Indian Shortwave Transmitter.
Back
in the much happier days, their first shortwave transmitter was
activated at Yakatut, on the eastern edge of Kabul in Afghanistan. The original complement of shortwave
transmitters at this location were German made units, 1 @ 10 kW, and 2 @ 25 kW
with combined output at 50 kW. These
were inaugurated progressively in the late 1950's for national and international
coverage.
In
August 1966, an additional 100 kW Siemens transmitter was installed; and then
10 years later, 5 replacement transmitters were installed, 3 @ 50 kW & 2 @
10 kW. However, much of this equipment
was destroyed at the time of the Russian invasion in 1979.
Then
in May 1993, at least one of the shortwave transmitters was rejuvenated, though
during the following year that also was damaged in further fighting. One year later, a composite transmitter was
assembled with the usage of available parts and this was activated on September
23, 1995. At this stage, the main
broadcasting channel was 7200 kHz.
However, on October 8, 2001, this unit was destroyed in an American air
raid.
Almost
immediately, a 100 kW Russian made R-118 unit was installed and this was
activated in December in the 7 MHz band, though monitoring reports suggest that
the power output was considerably less than the rated 100 kW. At this stage, shortwave usage was very
spasmodic.
In
an endeavor to obtain wide national coverage on shortwave, USAID installed
satellite equipment in Kabul, and in this way, programming was conveyed from
the Kabul studios to transmitter bases in Russia, Austria, Norway and the
United Arab Emirates. These offsite
relays of Kabul programming began in May 2002, though they were terminated in
June of the following year.
At
this stage, the Indian government granted a huge financial package for the
restoration of Afghanistan, and this included a new shortwave station. With this aid, the facility at Yakatut was
rebuilt, and a 100 kW transmitter was installed, together with 7 antenna
systems.
Initially,
it was thought that the new transmitter would be an Indian made unit from BEL
in Bangalore. However, BBC Monitoring
stated that this new transmitter provided by Indian Aid was a Thompson unit
from France, and this fact was also confirmed by the well known international
radio monitor, Jose Jacob VU2JOS in Hyderabad India.
Work
on the revived shortwave facility at Yakatut began in February 2005, but
progress was considerably delayed. Even
when the work was completed there was a further delay, awaiting the connection
to the city power grid.
The
new 100 kW shortwave service was officially inaugurated on July 30, 2011, and
the first published monitoring observation was from a listener in
Russia who heard the station next day on 6100 kHz. Two days after the official opening, the new
station was noted by another well known international radio monitor, Victor
Goonetilleke in Colombo Sri Lanka.
Last
year’s World Radio TV Handbook listed the scheduling for just one hour a day,
beginning at 1530 UTC on 6102 kHz.
However, according to many international radio monitors in several
different countries, the operating frequency was changed at the beginning of
the year to 7200 kHz.
But
alas, the last known monitoring of Radio Afghanistan with its brand spanking new
transmitter was in April last year, and apparently it is still off the air to
this day.
It
always seemed to be difficult to obtain a QSL card from Radio Afghanistan, yet
there are multitudes of these cards in personal QSL collections throughout the
world, and many are offered for sale on eBay.
The earliest known QSL card was printed in black ink on grey card. That was in 1958, quite soon after their
first shortwave transmitter was inaugurated.
The
well known QSL card showing a map of Afghanistan in color, was first issued
around the mid 1960s. This card showed
the large letters QSL, but no photo of the Bamiyan Buddhist statue, and at
least 4 different printings are known. However,
the same card, with the Buddhist statue, came out about 10 years later.
In
addition, during the 1970s and again in the early 1980s, Radio Afghanistan
issued many different QSL cards depicting attractive tourist sites in color.
(AWR Wavescan/NWS 204 via Adrian Peterson)