Jeff: Today we’re taking a look at the radio scene in Bermuda, beginning with the early wireless scene and broadcasting on shortwave. First, though, Ray has some interesting information about Bermuda itself.
Ray: Thanks, Jeff. The British dependency of Bermuda is made up of more than 300 islands with a total area of just 21 square miles, though only 20 islands are inhabited. These islands are the most northerly coral atoll in the world and they lie midway between eastern Canada and the Caribbean islands, nearly 700 miles out in the Atlantic from New York City. Another claim to fame is that the Bermuda Islands form the fifth smallest country in the world.
The Bermuda Islands lay virtually undiscovered and uninhabited for millennia, though it is known that survivors from occasional shipwrecks did spend at least a short while on the islands before departing again for the Americas or their return to Europe. In the year 1505, the Spanish explorer Captain Juan de Bermudez visited the islands intentionally and charted them for the first time.
The first permanent settlers on Bermuda came, again, from a shipwreck. The ship ‘Sea Venture’ was carrying colonists from England to North America and the ship was destroyed in a storm near Bermuda. Most of the survivors left later for the Americas, though two remained on the main island. Five years later, a boatload of passengers from England established the first deliberate attempt at colonizing the islands.
The total population these days is around 60,000, although 100,000 tourists flock to the islands each year. The capital city is Hamilton, located on the main island, of Bermuda.
Another claim to fame for these isolated islands in the Atlantic is that they gave their name to the so-called ‘Bermuda Triangle’. The story goes that an inordinate number of ships and airplanes have mysteriously disappeared in the triangular area between Bermuda, the Bahamas, and Puerto Rico.
However, one historian has researched a large number of these disappearances and in his book, he provides a logical explanation for each incident. In addition, he also states that the number of apparently strange disappearances in this ‘Bermuda Triangle’ is really no more than the same statistical ratio as elsewhere in the world, when the busy flow of shipping and aircraft through the area is taken into account.
The first known wireless station in Bermuda itself was established by the British Royal Navy somewhere around the year 1913, and it was on the air under the irregular callsign QWC.
During the following year, 1914, the British government bought a large property on Somerset Island and constructed a large wireless listening station with very tall towers. By this time, the station callsign was regularized according to the latest international prefixes and it was identified on air with the callsign BZR.
The story of radio broadcasting in Bermuda didn’t actually begin in the islands, though, but rather just outside London, England! For it was there, in Caterham, Surrey, that radio experimenter Gerald Marcuse first obtained the amateur experimental call sign G2NM soon after the end of WWI. In the 1920s, radio experimenters were encouraged, perhaps even expected, to transmit radio broadcast programming, usually on medium wave, but sometimes on shortwave also. During the year 1927, Gerald Marcuse, G2NM, made successful contact with an amateur radio operator living in Bermuda. This trans-Atlantic communication grew into regular communication, and the Bermudan radio operator often relayed the voice communications, and sometimes the radio programming from England, for other listeners in the islands.
The success of these relays in Bermuda sparked an interest in Gerald Marcuse in the concept of radio broadcasting on SW, perhaps even to the entire British Empire, and he applied to the licensing authorities for a permit to broadcast regular programming. The official permit granted approval for Marcuse to broadcast speech and music for two hours daily, on 23 and 33 meters with a power limit of 1 kw, for an experimental period of just six months, which was subsequently extended for a further six months.
And so, a full five years before the BBC launched its Empire Service in 1932, Gerald Marcuse launched his successful Empire Broadcasts on SW from England. The introductory program from amateur station G2NM in England was a concert primarily beamed to Australia on September 11, 1927. The Marcuse version of the Empire Broadcasts were on the air daily for almost exactly one year, and they were relayed in Bermuda.
Many QSL cards were issued to verify the reception of these broadcasts, and Gerald Marcuse later went on to become president of the Radio Society of Great Britain, the RSGB.
In January 1932, a new communication radio station was inaugurated in Hamilton, Bermuda under the callsign VRT with a transmitter power rated at 1.5 kW. This new communication station was noted by SW listeners in the United States in contact with station WNB at Lawrenceville, New Jersey, and with the new passenger liner ‘Monarch of Bermuda’ under the callsign GMBJ. Three months later, the primary callsign for the maritime station in Bermuda was changed to ZFA, with subsidiary callsigns ZFB and ZFD, depending on which shortwave channel was in use.
The callsign for the maritime station in Bermuda subsequently became ZBM, and in more recent times, this was changed to ZBR, which is the current callsign. This station can sometimes be heard with weather reports on 2582 kHz; and yes, they do verify by letter.
In addition, there have been at least three other major communication stations located in Bermuda. The United States established both an Air Force Base and a Navy Base in Bermuda during World War II; the callsign for the Air Force Base was AFJ, and for the Navy it was NWU.
Interestingly, the Canadian Navy established their own base in Bermuda back in 1963,
and its communication radio station was licensed with a Canadian callsign, CZB. The Canadian facility was closed 30 years later, in 1993.
Well, that’s as far as we can go this week with the radio story in Bermuda. After Christmas, we’re planning to present the story of medium-wave broadcasting in Bermuda, and that’s really very interesting also.
Back to you, Jeff.
(Ray Robinson/AWR)