Because of the two major earthquakes that have struck the island of Lombok in Indonesia within a few days, we interrupt the regular flow of our topics here in Wavescan, and we present instead this feature item as a Tribute to Lombok.
Two
major earthquakes have struck the island of Lombok just one week apart. The first major strike, rated at 6.4,
occurred on Sunday July 29 (2018) with a death toll of at least 17. Several hundred tourists were stranded during
a hike on the volcanic Mount Rinjani due to a massive landslide, though some
found an alternate route down the slopes of the mountain while others were
airlifted out by helicopter.
This
first quake which struck around dawn, was also felt on the neighboring island
of Bali. American TV personality and
cook book author Chrissy Teigen was on vacation with her husband and two
children in Bali, and she tweeted about the initial impact of this first
earthquake. She described it as a
massive earthquake.
Australian actress Teresa Palmer was
vacationing in a treehouse also on Bali with her husband and their two children
and she described the tremor as violent and scary. Teresa was noted for her recent role in the Mel Gibson block
buster movie Hacksaw Ridge. She played
the part of the wife of the film’s dramatic hero Desmond Doss.
The
second earthquake followed just a week later, on Sunday August 5 and it was
even more violent than the earlier quake, and it measured at 7.0. More than one hundred people have died on
this second occasion. A tsunami warning
was issued, but the rise of ocean level was no more than six inches.
At
the time of the second quake, Indonesia and Australia were co-hosting an
international
conference
on regional security and counterterrorism on both Lombok and Bali. Radio New Zealand International, or more
correctly these days Radio New Zealand Pacific, reported that none of the delegates
was injured in the earthquakes.
The
volcanic mountains in Indonesia make a dramatic scene as viewed from high in
the air while the passenger plane passes over the active volcanic islands in
Indonesia, en-route from Perth in Western Australia to Singapore Island. The pilot ensures that the plane is high
above any airborne volcanic
ash, and that he chooses a route over the ocean in between whatever are the
less active volcanoes. Indonesia’s
second highest volcano, Mount Ranjani, at a little over 12,000 feet is located
on Lombok.
The
shape of the island of Lombok is like a five-sided pentagon with feet sticking
out in the southern corners. The island
is 43 miles across, and it is located about half way between North Queensland and
Singapore. There is a shortage of fresh
water on Lombok.
During
the year 1257 historians tell us, there was a massive volcanic explosion on
Lombok that is described as one of the very largest ever recorded on planet
Earth. As a result, Mt. Samalas volcanic
explosion, weather patterns all
around the world were altered.
Since
the early days of settlement on Lombok, feuding among various rulers and ethnic
groups, have been a part of the local political scene. The colonial Dutch authorities were invited
to intervene in 1894. Japanese forces
arrived at 5:00 pm on Saturday May 9, 1942. When the Japanese left, the Dutch
took over again; and then in 1958, the island of Lombok was incorporated into
the newly independent
Indonesia.
These
days, Lombok Island has a population of 3.3 million,
people and the capital city of the
island is Mataram with one-third million.
According
to Alan Davies in England with his website Asiawaves, there are some 35 FM
stations on the air on Lombok Island.
Radio Republic Indonesia RRI operates two program networks on FM with a
total of seven FM transmitters, and also one lone mediumwave transmitter.
It
is extremely hard to find any printed information regarding the history of
radio broadcasting on Lombok Island (or all of Indonesia for that matter);
accurate and reliable information is almost
nonexistent. Annual entries in the WR(TV)HB provide a
useful guide, though even here, the editors have been dependent upon the
monitoring observations of just a few, though quite reliable, international
radio monitors.
After
the end of World War II, amateur and commercial stations began to appear on the
broadcasting
scene in Indonesia and like we say, reliable information regarding these
stations is almost totally nonexistent.
The amateur broadcasters were known in the national language Bahasa Indonesia
as amatir stations.
They
were not licensed amateur operators known as hams elsewhere throughout the
world, but rather they were small, irregular licensed or unlicensed stations
doing their best to provide a needed local radio broadcasting service. These amatir radio broadcasting stations
simply chose what they could find as an open channel in the tropical shortwave
bands, and they were on the air with whatever programming they could find.
From
the available information, we would suggest that the first radio broadcasting
stations on the island of Lombok were installed by government authorities, sometime
during the late 1950s.
The
first entry in the WR(TV)HB is for the year 1960, and the first and only
station listed then operated with the callsign YDX with listed 1 kW on the
tropical shortwave 90 m band frequency 3223 kHz. Though shown as 1 kW, the actual power of
this transmitter was less than 100 watts.
This
original station carried the programming of RRI and the location is given as Mataram,
the capital city. Subsequent editions of
the WR(TV)HB show two shortwave channels in use on Lombok and at this stage,
RRI Mataram is listed with new callsigns.
The frequency 3223 kHz is shown as YDV5, and a new channel 3365 kHz is
shown with the callsign YDV. Both
channels are listed at the same 1 kW, so this additional outlet would seem to
be the same transmitter with just another channel at a different time.
The
1973 edition of WR(TV)HB shows the installation of an additional shortwave
transmitter that was in use at either 1kW or 5 kW. The 3223 kHz frequency continued at both
power levels, with 1 kW during the day and 5 kW during the evenings. The 1975
edition lists the power on two additional channels, the new 120 m band
frequency on 2390 kHz and on also on 3365 kHz as just 60 watts each.
The
1975 issue also shows an additional new shortwave station on the air, this time
at Selong on the other side of the island of Lombok, the east side. This new station was another government
operated
station with just 75 watts on the out of band frequency 2854 kHz with local
RKPDK
programing.
There’s a note in the 1975 edition of the
WRTVHB stating that all commercial stations in
Indonesia
were required to convert from shortwave to mediumwave by March 23, 1975. However, many of the local commercial
shortwave stations were still heard on shortwave after that date.
The
usage of shortwave broadcasting by government stations on Lombok Island faded
out around the turn of the millennium, with the 3225 kHz channel at Mataram as
the final channel in use. Both power
levels of 1 kW and 5 kW were still in use up to that time.
The
RRI mediumwave channel with 10 kW on 855 kHz was introduced in the mid 1970’s
and it is still on the air to this day.
Supplementary RRI mediumwave stations were also on the air beginning in
the 1990s on 1194 kHz and 1251 kHz, though these have since been transferred to
the standard FM band.
Beginning
in the 1980s, commercial and community radio broadcasting stations began to appear on the mediumwave band on Lombok
Island, about half a dozen of them. All
of the mostly low powered outlets, have since also
transferred to the FM band.
(AWR/Wavescan/NWS 394)