Special thanks to Ray Robinson and Jeff White for sharing Part and Part 2 from a recent broadcast feature from AWR Wavescan.
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| photo via Annitsu |
Jeff: Continuing the topic we started last week on early broadcasting in Japan, here’s Ray Robinson with a look at the early shortwave stations in Japan, and also at the shortwave and medium wave stations set up by Japan in Manchuria and Korea during the period between the two World Wars.
Ray: Thanks, Jeff. Over the last 20 years or so, half a dozen people associated with Pacific Radio Heritage in New Zealand have been conducting long term research into the fascinating story of radio broadcasting in the areas of the Pacific and Asia during the Pacific War. This extensive research has uncovered a host of almost forgotten events regarding the radio scene in that region back in the middle of the last century.
We begin today by taking a look at the shortwave radio scene in Japan during the Pacific War. As we mentioned last week, the first experimental radio broadcast in Japan went on the air from medium wave station JOAK in Tokyo on March 1, 1925, and a regular radio service commenced just two weeks later. Five years later, in 1930, the first successful broadcast on shortwave went on the air from a 20 kW communication transmitter located at Nozaki, in west Tokyo.
This experimental broadcast was a relay from medium wave JOAK and it was beamed across the Pacific to Japanese communities in North America and Hawaii. Reception of these somewhat irregular broadcasts in the early 30’s was confirmed with QSL-cards, printed either in Japanese or in English.
A regular shortwave service was inaugurated on June 1, 1935 using this same 20 kW transmitter at Nozaki, which used a number of call signs in a three letter sequence beginning with "JV." Initially this was a one hour daily service in English and Japanese beamed to the same areas across the Pacific.
During the following year, 1936, an additional 50 kW transmitter was installed at Nozaki specifically for broadcast usage. This unit was on the air under a similar series of three letter call signs, this time beginning with JZ.
As part of an expansion program, a new multi-storey building containing studios and offices was opened in Tokyo in May 1939, and two years later a new transmitter site was commissioned at Yamata, about 20 miles north of Nozaki.
As part of a fact-finding monitoring tour, NHK Radio Tokyo sent a senior engineer to Australia and Indonesia in September 1940. During his visit to Sydney, Engineer Chuhei Anazawa contacted the radio magazine "Australasian Radio World" and gained a report of the reception conditions of Radio Tokyo as heard in Australia. He was in Australia for just a couple of days, and on his return journey he made a similar visit to Batavia in the Dutch East Indies (or Jakarta, Indonesia as it became).
By the time the Pacific War flared up at the end of 1941, Japan was using five shortwave transmitters from both Nozaki and Yamata - two at 20 kW and three at 50 kW.
Program output at this time was also increased with the introduction of new services to various parts of Asia and the Pacific, and new languages were also introduced. In November 1944, nine months before the end of hostilities, Radio Tokyo was monitored as being on the air with nearly 33 hours of programming daily in 24 languages.
The best-known programs in English at this time were the "Zero Hour" and the broadcasts of Tokyo Rose, along with Prisoner of War information that was included in the broadcasts directed to Australia and New Zealand. They also broadcast programs in Japanese for their own armed forces on duty in various areas of the Pacific and Asia.
During this period of three and a half years, the scheduling of shortwave programs from Radio Tokyo was published in Australian radio journals, along with many monitoring reports. It was also reported that there were many technical interruptions to these transmissions due to the shortage of spare parts and skilled technicians.
Although all shortwave broadcasts from Japan ended in August 1945, they were resumed from 1948-1951 for the benefit of Japanese prisoners of war that were still being held in China. These broadcasts were in two sessions daily, using two transmitters on each occasion, a 15 kW unit and a 5 kW one.
Japanese Stations in Manchuria and Korea
But, we shouldn’t forget Japanese shortwave broadcasting from Manchuria and Korea. The Japanese Empire had invaded the whole of the Korean peninsula just to the north of Japan in 1910, along with parts of mainland China including Shanghai and Peking. In 1931, they then expanded further to occupy Manchuria, the province of mainland China immediately north of the Korean peninsula. The Japanese authorities renamed Manchuria as Manchukuo and Korea as Chosen. Thus it was that radio broadcasting in both Manchuria and Korea was developed under the administration of the Japanese occupiers.
The first radio station in Korea was JODK, a medium wave facility in Seoul which was inaugurated on February 16, 1927. After the end of the Pacific War, this station was allocated a new callsign, with JODK becoming HLKA. Even though radio came early to Korea, or Chosen as the Japanese called it, there was no international shortwave broadcasting station on the air in this country during the war years.
Manchuria, with nearly half a million square miles and nearly one hundred million people, is sandwiched between China and Russia. There are three major cities, and the best known, Harbin, has a population of three million people with Manchu, Chinese and Russian origins.
The first wireless station in Manchuria was a communication facility first heard in Australia in 1932 calling station J1AA in Japan on 39 meters. This new station, with the callsign Z1LY, was located at Hoten.
Radio broadcasting in Manchuria began with station JQAK, a medium wave facility located at Dairen, the new Japanese name for what had been Port Arthur. This 5 kW station on 390 meters, corresponding to 770 kHz, was launched in 1927.
Ten years later a shortwave transmitter was installed alongside the medium wave unit in the new studio building at Dairen, and this was heard widely throughout the Pacific with strong signals under the callsign JDY. The Australian magazine Radio & Hobbies shows a photo of the multi-story building for JQAK (MW) and JDY (SW) around this era.
A QSL letter from station JDY on 9925 kHz states that this new shortwave service was launched on July 16, 1937 with a power of 10 kW. This QSL letter, written in a propaganda style, was addressed to Arthur Hankins in the United States and is now lodged with Jerry Berg and the CPRV QSL collection.
A third station in Manchuria was MTCY, launched as a medium wave facility in early 1935. A listing for that year shows that MTCY was on the air with a power of 100 kW, quite remarkable for that era.
Test broadcasts from a new shortwave transmitter at MTCY began in June 1939, and a second shortwave transmitter was added two years later. QSL cards in the CPRV collection show that the shortwave station MTCY, with a power of 20 kW, was owned by the Manchuria Telephone and Telegraph Company.
During the Pacific hostilities of World War II, station MTCY in Manchuria was noted in Australia and New Zealand with news and information of interest to the South Pacific.
Back to you, Jeff.
(Ray Robinson/AWR)