Focus on the Middle Americas: The
first radio broadcasting station in Central America
The
Central American isthmus joins South America to North America, and these days
there are seven countries in Central America, with El Salvador as the
smallest. (However it should also be
stated that the Panama Canal
Zone held that honor for almost a century, during its American occupation from
1904 - 1999.)
In the pre-colonial eras,
Amerindians inhabited Central America, and when the Spanish arrived nearly five
hundred years ago, the Nahua speaking Pipil people from southern Mexico
occupied what is today the independent country of El Salvador. These tribal peoples knew the area as
Kuskatan, meaning the Land of Precious Jewels.
The first European visitor to the
area was the Spanish Admiral Andres Nino who led an expedition that landed on Meanguera island, which they named
Petronila. That was on May 31 in the
year 1522. Three years later, Spanish
colonists established a settlement, though there was considerable turmoil with
the local tribal people during that era.
Fifteen years later, El Salvador was
recognized as a Spanish colony; in 1821 El Salvador gained independence from
Spain; and in 1840, El Salvador achieved its own independence as a separate
country in Central America. However, it
seems that El Salvador has subsequently experienced more than its share of
political and internal unrest and turmoil.
This smallest of countries in
Central America is considerably less than 200 miles long and considerably less
than 100 miles wide. It is the most
densely populated country in Central America with a population of six
million. The country has 25 volcanoes
(together with many associated earthquakes), 14 lakes, a thousand species of
butterfly, and just three major cities: San Salvador, Santa Ana and San Miguel.
Tourism is one of the main sources
of income for El Salvador, with over a million visitors each year. In 2001 the country adopted the American
dollar as its official currency, replacing the Colon; and El Salvador is
sometimes described as: The country with a smile.
The first wireless station in El
Salvador was installed in Las Lomas de Candelaria, on the southern edge of the
capital city San Salvador, and it was already in operation in 1921. Four years later, the location was shown as
Venustiano Carranza, and the official callsign was given as SDA.
However, the geographic co-ordinates
for the 1921 listing are impossible, way out to sea; and the 1924 co-ordinates
are listed as only approximate.
Nevertheless, the available information would show that this first
wireless communication station in El Salvador was indeed located in a forested
area on the southern edge of suburban San Salvador.
It was on Monday March 1, 1926 that
El Salvador’s first radio
broadcasting station was inaugurated by President Alfonso Quinonez Molina under
the callsign AQM, the initials of the president himself. El Salvador lays claim that this was the
first radio broadcasting station in Central America.
This new radio broadcasting station,
with studio and transmitter, was installed on the second floor level of the
National Theater Building in San Salvador.
The original transmitter was an imported 500 watt unit from Western Electrical
in England. The Teatro Nacional de El Salvador,
completed and officially inaugurated in 1917, is itself the oldest National
Theater in Central America.
A subsequent callsign for this
original radio broadcasting station was RDN, standing for Radio Nacionales, and
when internationally approved callsigns were enjoined, RDN was allocated the
three now well known call letters YSS.
In 1933, the mediumwave channel was listed as 864 kHz.
On September 14, 1977, El Salvador
issued four postage stamps, each with the same design, though in different
colors and values, commemorating the 50th anniversary of radio broadcasting in
their country. Fifty years earlier from
September 14, 1977, would bring us back to September 14, 1927, which is one and
a half years after the recognized date for the first broadcast over the
original station AQM. So perhaps the
four postage stamps honored the occasion when the early experimental station
AQM-RDN metamorphosed into YSS, an officially recognized government radio
broadcasting service.
As
the years went by, station YSS Radio Nacional grew into a nationwide network;
at first on mediumwave only, and subsequently with a transfer to the standard
FM Band 2 that is still on the air to this day.
The earliest mediumwave frequency listing was on 864 kHz, and subsequent
mediumwave channels have been 638 kHz, 640 kHz and then their familiar split
channel listing 655 kHz.
During the 1980s, additional
mediumwave relay stations were installed in regional city locations, and ten
years later, there was a total of 6 stations in the network. During that era, their international callsign
YSS was modified to YSSS, in conformity with the national system of station
identification with four letters, each beginning with the two letters YS.
The largest number of mediumwave
stations in El Salvador was around the mid 1990s, with by that time almost 100
nationwide. These days there are
somewhere around 60 mediumwave stations on the air throughout El Salvador,
together with a full band of FM stations throughout the country. Radio Nacional in San Salvador is heard these
days on 96.9 FM, and their national program is heard throughout the country on
a network of FM relay stations.
More about the radio scene in El
Salvador in a coming edition of our DX program Wavescan.
9awr wavescan/NWS 421)