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| KAIJ QSL |
Special thanks to Ray Robinson and Jeff White for sharing a recent edition of Wavescan on AWR.
Jeff: Whatever happened to the American shortwave station KAIJ in Dallas Texas? You may well wonder, as indeed did Peter Grenfell in New Zealand some years ago in an entry to a DX contest. Not many people remember that there was once a shortwave station in Texas, but Ray Robinson has the story.
Ray: Thanks, Jeff. The state of Texas is the largest of the 48 contiguous mainland states of the USA. At the time of European exploration, it is estimated that 30,000 Indians lived in the area that subsequently became known as Texas, many of whom lived in permanent settlements. The first Europeans to visit the area were Spanish explorers who mapped the southern coastline in 1519.
The French established a small, temporary colony inland at Fort St Louis; the Spanish sent many Catholic missionaries into the area; and when Mexico asserted its independence from Spain in 1821, Texas became part of the Mexican Empire. In 1836, after several skirmishes with Mexican forces, Texas declared its independence as the Republic of Texas.
Nine years later, Texas joined the United States. However, during the Civil War, Texas seceded and joined the Southern Union of Confederate States; but in 1870, Texas once again rejoined the United States.
The twin cities of Dallas and Fort Worth are located in the north central area of the state. The twin city Metroplex, or conurbation, had a population of 7.6 million in 2020 covering 11 counties, making it the 2nd largest by area in the United States. One of the world-shaking events that occurred in Dallas was the tragic death of President John F. Kennedy back in November 1964.
It so happens that there were two attempts over the years at establishing a shortwave station in Texas; one was unsuccessful and the other was successful. The first attempt was made over 60 years ago, and the other more than 40 years ago. Here are the details.
Back around the beginning of the year 1960, a request was lodged with the FCC in Washington, DC, for approval to establish a shortwave station in Dallas, Texas for coverage into Latin America. In May, the details of this new shortwave station were published in a radio magazine in Australia, Radio & Hobbies.
This news item stated that this new American shortwave station would operate at 50 kW on 15180 kHz and that it would broadcast into Latin America during the daytime, in English & Spanish. As further details became available, it was stated that the owner of this new station was Albert L. Cain, who was also an amateur radio operator with the callsign W5SXT. The intended callsign for this new shortwave station was KFRN, and a news report published in August 1960 stated that the station was under construction.
The 1961 edition of World Radio TV Handbook actually listed this new station, under the company ownership of Global Broadcasting, not in Dallas, Texas, but instead in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but without listing any callsign. That is the last reference to the new shortwave station KFRN that we can find. It was planned but never completed.
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| KCBI QSL |
The second attempt concerned the well-known shortwave station KCBI (which became KAIJ) which was located near Denton, just north of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. The application for this new station was lodged with the FCC on March 18, 1983. The requested callsign was KCBI, which was also the callsign of the applicant’s FM station that had been inaugurated seven years earlier. That station, KCBI, honored the Criswell Bible Institute, which was established in Dallas by the First Baptist Church.
The transmitter and antennas for shortwave station KCBI were installed in an isolated area of corn country 16 miles east of Denton, a little north of the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex. The transmitter was a re-engineered medium wave unit manufactured by General Electric, and there were two antennas, both described as corner reflectors, similar to the one used by the old WRMI in Miami.
The first test broadcasts from station KCBI were noted on 11790 kHz around Christmas 1984, and the station was inaugurated in the middle of the following year, on July 28, with studios in the First Baptist Church in Dallas. Initially the station was on the air with a regular daily schedule, but during the following year, this scheduling was reduced to just the weekends, due to a shortage in funding. Shortly afterwards, the station was closed and placed up for sale.
Four years later, the station was reactivated, and then sold for $1,000 to the University Network for the programming of Dr. Gene Scott. An additional shortwave transmitter, a Continental unit rated at 100 kW, was installed in 1994 and the callsign was changed to KAIJ, although the significance of those call letters was never divulged.
During the height of its operation, station KAIJ was on the air with a full 24 hour daily schedule on both transmitters, 100 kW & 50 kW, operating on 5755 and 9480 kHz. However, as time went by, this scheduling was reduced until just one transmitter was in use part time. Gene Scott then moved his programming to station WWCR in Nashville, Tennessee, finding it more cost effective to buy airtime than to maintain and operate the high-power transmitters.
The station was then sold again, this time to Peoria Broadcasting Services, although they used it on air for little more than occasional test broadcasts.
Then in 2009, this shortwave station was procured by an organization called Leap of Faith, Inc., whose chairman was George McClintock. The equipment was removed from Denton, Texas and re-installed at an isolated rural area near Lebanon in Tennessee. The 100 kW transmitter was refurbished for use at its new location, and two rhombic antennas were installed.
Test broadcasts from this shortwave station now located in Tennessee began in January 2010 under the callsign WTWW which you probably know stood for We Transmit World Wide. Tests were heard on both frequencies previously used by KAIJ – 5755 and 9480 kHz. Program broadcasting began officially at 1500 UTC on February 19, 2010 on 9480 kHz, though at reduced power. Full power broadcasting began on March 1.
The two transmitters from Denton were supplemented by a third, a Harris 100 kW unit, donated by KNLS, Alaska, after that station had upgraded to a new transmitter. And then in 2014, a further 100 kW Harris unit was obtained by George McClintock from KTWR in Guam, bringing the complement of transmitters to four.
To cover the operating costs, a long-term lease for airtime was agreed with an organization called ‘Scriptures for America’. This is an outlet for the pre-recorded sermons of Pete Peters, founder of the LaPorte Church of Christ in LaPorte, Colorado. Peters died in 2011 shortly after the station went on the air, but his back catalog of mainly Anglo-Israelism oriented teaching kept the station afloat financially for many years. A second program stream from LaPorte called ‘The Bible Worldwide’ offered audiobook broadcasts of the Holy Bible in various languages.
The station’s lead engineer and chief operator was Ted Randall, who I met once at an NASB meeting in Nashville. He demonstrated how he could control all the shortwave transmitters through his mobile phone – powering them up or down, changing frequencies and routing programming to the correct transmitter as needed. He donated his services to the station in exchange for the right to use the transmitters for music and ham radio programming when they were not being used for ‘Scriptures for America’. Together with his wife Holly, Ted produced a number of secular music programs on the station, with a very professional jingle package.
From August 2018 until November 2022, the station put out a nightly oldies and classic rock music format on 5085 kHz, hosted by several veteran DJ’s who volunteered for the service, broadcasting remotely from their homes. The service was branded as ‘The Big One on 5085.’
On November 9, 2022, after a dispute with George McClintock, Ted Randall left WTWW, but reappeared with his oldies programming on WRMI five days later. WTWW shut down briefly, but returned the following month, December 2022, with Scriptures or America programming on 5085 kHz, and eventually on 9475 kHz also.
Since October last year, 2023, WTWW has begun accepting programming from other religious broadcasters, including Bob Biermann’s talk show Truth 2 Ponder, as a supplement to its main outlet on WRMI.
So, that’s the story of the two shortwave endeavors in Texas, both in Dallas. Station KFRN back in 1960 was never erected, neither in Dallas nor in Tulsa. Station KCBI was inaugurated in Dallas in 1985, it was re-designated as KAIJ nearly ten years later and was subsequently transferred to Lebanon, Tennessee where it has since been on the air as WTWW.
There are a few QSL cards from the original KCBI in the collections of international radio monitors, and three different styles are known; a 1973 calendar, a two-sided On the Air Card, and an On the Air card with a plain back. After the University Network procured the station, two cards were used, both with the title, Two If By Sea Broadcasting. The first card shows the old callsign KCBI, and the second card shows the new callsign KAIJ. QSL’s were issued both by email and by post for the transferred station WTWW at its location in Lebanon, Tennessee.
As an interesting side note, when this shortwave station was on the air under the callsign KCBI, it broadcast a delayed relay of the early DX program from Adventist World Radio in Poona, India. The program title at the time was “Radio Monitors International”, the AWR studios were located in suburban Poona, and the broadcast from station KCBI was on the air under the auspices of Radio Earth. The broadcast of “Radio Monitors International” via KCBI was on the air for a few weeks beginning on October 13, 1985.
Back to you, Jeff.
(QSLs via Gayle Van Horn QSL Collection/Teak Publishing)
