Special thanks to Ray Robinson for sharing the script with our readers, discussing radio from Sweden, Part 1
Jeff: Today, Ray Robinson begins a two-part look at the history of radio broadcasting in the northern European country of Sweden. So, take it away, Ray.
Ray: Thanks, Jeff. Sweden is the eastern country situated on the Scandinavian peninsula in Northern Europe. It is nearly 1,000 miles long, with a total population of about 10½ million.
The earliest written history of this Nordic country was documented by the Romans some 2,000 years ago. The daring exploits of the Vikings in their Atlantic quests to the west and the south have been chronicled and re-chronicled, though it should be stated that the Swedish Vikings usually traveled east, spreading out into Russia.
Actually, as the old records tell us, wireless came very early to Sweden. It was back in the year 1900, that the Swedish navy borrowed some Marconi wireless equipment from the AEG company in Germany. This electrical equipment was used in a series of successful wireless tests at Stockholm, on land and at sea.
Two years later, the first permanent wireless station in Sweden was installed in Stockholm, and in fact it was in use for ship communication for exactly 100 years. This station was originally installed in the year 1902, it went through several series of modernizations, and it was ultimately closed on February 1, 2002. The long history of the Swedish coastal radio station SDJ must be one of the longest terms of radio service anywhere in the world.
During the era of wireless telegraphy in Morse Code, a whole network of coastal and regional stations was established in Sweden. These stations were installed mainly at coastal locations throughout the country and each callsign was issued in consecutive order, beginning with SAA in Karlskrone, SAB in Gothenberg, SAC in Trallerborg, and so on down through the alphabet.
And again, as the records tell us, radio broadcasting also came quite early to Sweden. The first amateur radio broadcasters began their experimental transmissions during the year 1922, and interestingly, the callsign for each of these stations during this era consisted of four letters of the alphabet, beginning with SA or SM. These days, a regional identification number is inserted into amateur callsigns in Sweden.
It is stated that there were many local stations on the air in Sweden during the 1920s and these were operated by radio clubs, commercial organizations and individual operators, as well as by the government Royal Telegraph Administration. Music programs were on the air quite often from many of these longwave and medium-wave stations.
The Swedish government announced in 1924 that it planned to nationalize the broadcasting industry, as in England, and on Thursday, January 1 of the next year, 1925, the new organization, Radiotjanet, produced its first network broadcast. This epic radio occasion was a special program held in Jakob's Church Stockholm.
By the late 1920s, there were 15 medium wave stations scattered throughout Sweden, all of which used four-letter callsigns beginning with either SA or SM.
In the mid-1930s, Sweden had two shortwave stations on the air with program broadcasting. These two stations, both with amateur style callsigns, SM5SD and SM5SX, were located in Stockholm, and they were logged in the United States and Australia.
Station SM5SX was installed at the Technical University and its operating channel was 15080 kHz.
With political tensions rising in Europe during the late 1930s, Swedish Radio and the Foreign Ministry decided that Sweden needed to have a more robust voice to the outside world. A longwave station had been inaugurated at Motala in the summer of 1927, and it was at this location 10 years later that two Swedish-made shortwave transmitters rated at 12 kW each were installed. One of these new units was inaugurated in 1938, and the other in 1939. These transmitters used four different channel callsigns, SBO and SBU on one, and SBP and SBT on the other. In December 1939, news in English, French and German went on the air for the first time. Even though Sweden was a neutral country, it was still impacted by the privations of war, and wanted the world to understand that.
After things settled down in Europe in the post-war years and the Cold War took hold, Sweden placed an order with the Marconi company in England for the purchase of two shortwave transmitters at 100 kW each. These two units were installed at the already existing radio station located at Horby which had been erected in 1928, and they were inaugurated in 1952. The use of the two older 12 kW shortwave transmitters at Motala was phased out after the two 100 kW shortwave transmitters were inaugurated at Horby.
In 1972, two 500 kW shortwave transmitters were ordered. One was installed at Horby, but due to coronal arcing in the antenna system during foggy weather, they had to reduce the power level to 350 kW.
The other 500 kW shortwave transmitter was installed at Karlsborg, a station which had originally been established back in 1918 as a spark wireless communication facility. However, the output of this unit was also reduced to 350 kW due to a similar coronal arcing problem in the antenna system.
In 1955, the Swedish Pentecostal Movement set up a Christian broadcast ministry in Stockholm called I-B-R-A or IBRA Radio, which produced programs in many languages for transmission on various stations around the world. Initially, they broadcast via the shortwave transmitters of Radio Tangier in Morocco, and in the 60’s they added HCJB in Quito, Ecuador, as well as many local stations around the world. From the 70’s onwards, they expanded dramatically, producing programming that was also heard on shortwave via:
• Radio Trans Europe in Sines, Portugal,
• Radio Mediterranean in Malta,
• High Adventure in South Lebanon,
• FEBA in the Seychelles, and
• FEBC in the Philippines,
as well as on local stations in over 100 countries and in more than 60 languages. In the 2000’s their broadcast activities have been scaled back in favor of more emphasis on usage of social media, but they are still active on shortwave in 2024, broadcasting now in a dozen or so African and Asian languages from Encompass transmitters around the world. IBRA, though, has always followed a policy of buying time on established stations, and has never transmitted from within Sweden.
Next week when we continue the story of radio broadcasting in Sweden, we’ll look at the impact offshore stations had in the 1960’s at shaking up the official radio networks there, and we’ll also be remembering some of Radio Sweden’s external service programs that were so beloved by shortwave listeners.
(Photo credit/Flicker)
