As
the first topic in our 2017 year-long emphasis on the radio scene in the Middle
Americas, we visit the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico and we turn the clock
back more than one hundred years, to the early 1900s. Back at that stage, wireless was very young,
and spark transmissions were the only way to transmit Morse Code messages
through the air.
Puerto Rico is listed as the largest
American island; 110 miles long and 40 miles wide. It is a mountainous tropical island with many
adjacent smaller islands, two of which are inhabited: Culebra and Vieques, both
of which lie a few miles off the eastern edge of Puerto Rico.
The original inhabitants of Puerto
Rico back before the colonial era, were Amerindians who migrated in from North
America, Central America and South America, usually via the intervening island
groups. At the time of the visit by the
famed Spanish explorer Christopher Columbus, it is estimated that the island
population was as many as 50,000 local tribes people.
On November 19, 1493, Christopher
Columbus claimed Puerto Rico for Spain.
A dozen years later, the first European settlement was established by
the Spanish at Caparra, in what has since become a southern suburban area of
the capital city San Juan. Local
historians claim the Caparra settlement as the oldest European settlement in
the Americas. The city of San Juan was
established in 1521, and this is claimed as the second oldest European city in
the Americas.
Settlement on Puerto Rico was
established by the Spanish, it was attacked in succeeding centuries by the
Dutch and the British, and it was annexed by the United States more than one
hundred years ago. The total population
today stands at 3.4 million; with two official languages, Spanish and English.
The first wireless station in Puerto
Rico was established by the United States navy in December 1903 at Fort Morro
on Old San Juan Island. This
introductory wireless station was a low powered 3 kW Slaby-Arco unit that was
installed on a high bluff overlooking the ocean and the city of San Juan. One of the stipulated requirements for this
station was the capability for communication with another American navy station
NAV that was installed on Culebra Island off the east coast of Puerto
Rico.
During the following year (1904),
work commenced on the construction and installation of a new high powered
wireless station about a mile distant at Fort Cristobal, still on Old San Juan
Island. Three tall towers at a height of
210 feet were spaced in a triangle 300 feet apart. Three descending fan antennas of 15 wires
each were strung between the three towers, two for transmitting and one for
reception.
The electrical equipment for the new
35 kW Morse Code station was manufactured by the de Forest company and
initially the power source was the local electricity generating company. However, the drain on the city power system
was so heavy that the navy soon afterwards installed their own generating
plant.
After the final testing and tweaking
that was performed by a de Forest electrician from the United States, station
SA was taken into service in December 1905.
When the navy regularized their wireless callsigns worldwide seven years
later in 1912, station SA San Juan became NAU.
Amateur radio was introduced into
Puerto Rico when Joaquín
Agusty Ramírez de Arellano organized the
Puerto Rico Radio Club in 1914. His
subsequent amateur callsign was 4JE.
The first radio broadcasting station
on the island was inaugurated on December 2, 1922 under the callsign WKAQ and
it was the same Joaquín
Agusty Ramírez who made the opening announcement. The new WKAQ was installed atop the Puerto
Rico Telephone Building under the auspices of RCA and ITT in New York, and the
Radio Corporation of Puerto Rico.
Back then, WKAQ operated with 500
watts on 880 kHz and it was a twin construction with another radio broadcasting
station in the Caribbean, PWX in Havana Cuba.
The two tall towers for mediumwave WKAQ San Juan stood at ground level
adjacent to the RCA Telephone Building.
Station
WKAQ is currently owned by Univision Radio and it operates with 10 kW on 580
kHz. The WKAQ programming is also
relayed for islandwide coverage on WUKQ with 1 kW on 1420 kHz in Ponce,
and WYEL with 5 kW on 600 kHz in Mayagüez.
Another
early mediumwave station was the original WNEL, also with 500 watts, on 1290
kHz. This station was inaugurated in the
island capital, San Juan, on November 17, 1934.
These days, there are almost a
hundred mediumwave stations located throughout the various areas of the island
of Puerto Rico, and in addition there is a dial full of FM stations. Most of the mediumwave stations are at a
lower power level, in the range of 1 kW to 5 kW, and lower.
Today there are several stations at
10 kW; and just one station at 25 kW, WVOZ San Juan on 1520 kHz. There is also just one at 50 kW and this lone
maximum powered station in Puerto Rico is WKVM Radio Paz on 810 kHz in San
Juan. Mediumwave WKVM is a Catholic station and it was
inaugurated in 1951.
(AWR Wavescan/NWS 411)