The Indian state of West Bengal is
located against the eastern edge of the Indian sub-continent. This state is long and generally narrow, and
it stretches 500 miles from the mangrove swamps in the sundarbans.
The rare White Tiger is occasionally glimpsed in the sundarban swamps,
though several are in captivity in the zoo at New Delhi.
At the time of partition in 1947,
the Hindu areas of west Bengal were absorbed into the newly independent Indian
empire, and the Moslem areas of east Bengal became the eastern wing of the new
Pakistan. In a subsequent war between
India and Pakistan (1971), East Pakistan became the independent and mostly
densely populated nation of Bangladesh.
The Indian state of West Bengal as
it is today is made up of three almost separate sections with as it were a
narrow isthmus joining the separate sections.
The main southern section is 150 miles wide and 200 miles long, with the
huge city of Calcutta/Kolkata as its center of population.
The middle section of West Bengal is
just a hundred miles wide at the most and two hundred miles long, and it is
joined near Pakur to the middle section by a corridor just a couple of miles
wide. The northern section is maybe fifty miles long and a hundred
miles wide and it is joined near Bidhan Nagar to the middle section by the
Siliguri Corridor just ten miles wide.
It is stated that during the Middle
Ages in Europe, Bengal
was a major world trading nation and it was often referred to by the Europeans
as the richest country in the world.
That was the reason why William Carey, who is honored as the world’s
most successful Christian missionary, chose to begin his ministry in Bengal.
A major tourist attraction in West
Bengal is the quaint railway train that runs on a narrow gauge line from near
Siliguri, through Kurseong, up to Darjeeling at the foot of the Himalayas. This tortuous 55 mile long railway line was
constructed during the late 1800s, and together with all of the tourist stops,
it is a half a day journey through rugged mountain scenery.
Radio broadcasting was introduced
into West Bengal just on one hundred years ago when a 500 watt Marconi
transmitter was imported from England and used for a public demonstration in
Calcutta on 375 kHz under the callsign 2BZ.
The first shortwave transmitter in West Bengal was a 700 watt unit that
was installed with the AIR station VUC at Cossipore, an old suburban area of
north Calcutta in 1932.
All
India Radio Kurseong
However, in our program today we are
taking a look at the shortwave and
mediumwave radio scene in the country areas of West Bengal, beyond the regions
associated with the capital city Calcutta/Kolkata. Traditional shortwave/mediumwave stations
have been installed in only two cities in the country areas of this Indian
state, both right up in the very north.
The city of Kurseong is located in
the northern section of West Bengal, just half a dozen miles from the border
with Nepal, and less than a dozen miles from the border with Sikkim. Kurseong was in earlier times a part of the
separate kingdom of Sikkim and it was taken over by the British as a summer
hill station during the colonial era.
This mountainous area enjoys a pleasant climate throughout the year.
The city name Kurseong in the
regional language refers to the locally grown Little White Orchid Flower,
though more prolific these days are the tea garden estates, all 78 of them in
the Kurseong area. The city population
is listed at around 42,000.
The first radio broadcasting station
in Kurseong was a shortwave facility, due to the fact that shortwave coverage
in the high hills and huge valleys provides better propagation than mediumwave
or FM. The studios were installed in the
Mehta Club Building which is located a little down hill from the towers and
transmitters at the top of the tourist venue Eagle’s Craig.
The first shortwave transmitter was
a temporary 2 kW unit that was taken into service on June 2, 1962. Programming was from Delhi and Calcutta as
relayed off air from AIR Calcutta on shortwave, three hundred miles distant. Among the languages heard from AIR Kurseong
were English, Hindi and Nepali, as well as the national languages in Sikkim,
Bhutan and Tibet.
Six months later a new 20 kW
shortwave transmitter was installed and this replaced the original smaller
unit. The larger transmitter, an American
made Gates Model HF20BX, was activated in January 1963.
The original intent for this
transmitter was for installation at Trivandrum in Kerala, South India, but due
to rising international tension in the northern border areas at the time, it
was quickly diverted for installation at Kurseong. Back then, there was no AIR radio station in
Kurseong.
Thirty two years later, the 20 kW
transmitter was now old and it needed replacing. A 50 kW Indian made BEL transmitter Model
HHB144 from Bangalore was thus installed and it was taken into service in 1995.
However a score of years later, this
transmitter also was getting old and there were times when it malfunctioned and
it was on the air at reduced power, or even off the air altogether. In fact just a year ago (July 30, 2019) AIR
Kurseong shortwave was officially decommissioned.
However since then, AIR headquarters
in Delhi has reversed that decision and instead, a new 50 kW analog transmitter
will be installed in the transmitter building at Kurseong in the northern areas
of this Indian state of West Bengal.
This is a most welcome move that is the reverse of what is happening in
some other parts of the world. Perhaps
this new shortwave unit will be activated some time next year.
Not so well known though is that
there was also a mediumwave transmitter located in Kurseong, a 1 kW unit on
1440 kHz with programming intended for the local area, much of which was on
relay from AIR Kolkata. AIR Kurseong
mediumwave was on the air for about 17 years, all within this 21st
century.
All India Radio Siliguri
The northern
regional city of Siliguri with its ¾ million population is also located in the
foothills of the mighty Himalayas in the northernmost section of the Indian
state of West Bengal. Siliguri lies just
a dozen miles south of Kurseong and just half a dozen miles from the
northernmost border with Bangladesh. The
area is noted for its abundance of wild life, including 243 different bird
species.
The first
radio station in Siliguri was activated late in the year 1963, with 20 kW on
1560 kHz. This AIR transmitter was
installed two miles out of town on Sevoke Road, State Highway 10, which runs
northward towards Sikkim.
The
operating frequency for AIR Siliguri was subsequently changed to 700 kHz, and later
again, to 711 kHz. Then some 30 years
ago, two transmitters at 100 kW each were installed, and these days this station can run in the analog mode or
the digital mode.
