Jeff: Back in 2018 and 2021, we brought you the stories of shortwave and medium wave broadcasting from the Caribbean island of Antigua. Ray Robinson says he struggles to remember what he had for breakfast this morning, and certainly doesn’t remember those stories, so he’s been looking at the island of Antigua again, and has put together an update with some audio clips for this week’s feature. So, here’s Ray once again, from Los Angeles.
Ray: Thanks, Jeff. The history of radio broadcasting from and on the Caribbean island of Antigua is an interesting one. Antigua is actually the main island of a small country called Antigua and Barbuda, which comprises those two islands and 52 other small islands, all located at the northern end of the arc of islands that form the West Indies.
Formerly part of the UK’s Leeward Islands colony, Antigua and Barbuda gained internal autonomy in 1967, and then became fully independent from the UK in 1981. The total population is only about 106,000, and the capital is St. John’s, on the north-west coast of Antigua.
The first radio station of sorts on Antigua was an American Forces Radio Service (AFRS) ‘amplifier station’ which was set up during World War 2. The United States operated two naval bases on the north coast from which they could provide protection for the Panama Canal, and the station’s purpose was to serve the military personnel on those bases. But it wasn’t really a broadcasting station per sé. It was a wired operation, with both relayed AFRS programming and local programming played through strategically located loudspeakers throughout the American bases. If you’ve seen the 1970s TV series ‘M*A*S*H ’, which was set during the Korean War and depicted the same type of programming with local announcements coming through a loudspeaker on top of a tall pole, you’ll have a good mental picture of what the setup was like in Antigua.
The second station was opened by the government-owned Antigua Broadcasting Service (ABS). This station began life as a small privately-owned 40 watt shortwave station run by aviation pioneer Sir Frank DeLisle in the early 1950’s, operating on 3255 kHz in the 90-metre tropical band with a simple center-fed doublet antenna at his home in St. John’s. But the Antigua Broadcasting Service was officially organized in February 1956, taking over Sir Frank’s shortwave programming and equipment the following year, in 1957. Initially they planned to upgrade the shortwave transmitter to 500 watts, but instead, in 1960, a new 500-watt medium-wave transmitter was installed on 644 kHz. Five years later again, the medium wave frequency was adjusted to 620 kHz, to fit conventional Western Hemisphere 10 kHz channel spacing, and the station began identifying as Radio Antigua. Subsequently, the power level was increased to 5 kW, and later again, to 10 kW.
That was from 2001, but in 2012, ABS abandoned the use of medium wave in favor of more economical FM coverage. Today they can be heard on 90.5 FM with 3 kW.
Then there came commercial station ZDK. In the 1950’s and 60’s, there were only three radio stations in the Leeward Islands – the northern half of the West Indies. These were:
• ZJB – Radio Montserrat with 1 kW on 885 kHz,
• ZIZ – St. Kitts with 5 kW on 570 kHz, and
• the aforementioned Radio Antigua,
all of which were operated on a part-time, non-commercial basis by the respective governments of those islands.
So, curious Antiguans regularly tuned in to broadcasts from farther afield, such as:
• commercial WSTA on St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands,
• WIBS, the Windward Islands Broadcasting Service on shortwave from Grenada much further south,
• and an English-language request program called ‘Caribbean Matinee’ from station WAPA in Puerto Rico.
WSTA in St. Thomas even accommodated listeners on Antigua with a special daily program called Antigua Antics.
So, there was clearly a need for a commercial station in Antigua. Local entrepreneur Ivor Grenville Bird saw the opportunity, and, using his middle name, set up a company called Grenville Radio Ltd. After several applications to the local administration, Grenville was finally granted a license to operate a commercial radio broadcasting station. The authorities didn’t think the company had the wherewithal to actually create the station, but with the help of a loan from the local branch of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, secured by some land that Bird’s father owned, they were indeed able to purchase a new 10 kW medium wave transmitter and studio equipment from the Harris Company in Illinois, USA. A friend of a friend of Bird’s, Keith Edwards, provided a building on Temple Street in St. John’s, and also refurbished it to house the studios. The property was then leased to the radio station at a low rent.
And thus, ZDK was launched on November 30, 1970, with 10 kW on 1100 kHz. The company also had a 10 watt directional STL (or ‘Studio to Transmitter Link’) for ZDK on 99.0 MHz FM, to feed the signal from the studio to the transmitter on top of Boggy Peak, the highest peak on the island. If you were in the right place, this was the first time programming could be heard in St. John’s on both the AM and FM dials.
In 1993, the station moved the studios into its own building at the corner of Bird and All Saints Roads in St, John’s. Here’s another clip from 2001:
Audio Clip - 2001 09 01 - ZDK (1100kHz) - Sign On, available at:
On May 1st, 1995, a sister station to ZDK called ‘Sun FM’ was launched with 5 kW on 100.1 FM.
ZDK has used various slogans over the years such as ‘The Big 11’ and ‘The Big Bad Z’, and at one stage they considered installing a 50 kW medium wave transmitter, but eventually, like the government station, they also abandoned medium wave in favor of FM, where they can now still be heard at 97.1 MHz, identifying as ZDK Liberty Radio International.
Five years after the launch of ZDK, a third medium wave station on Antigua was inaugurated as the religious Caribbean Radio Lighthouse on September 7, 1975. This station, operated by Baptist International Missions Inc., used 10 kW initially on the split channel frequency of 1165 kHz, with studios and a transmitter site at Jolly Hill, a few miles south of St. John’s. In 2001 they adjusted their frequency to the regular 10 kHz-spaced channel of 1160 kHz, and in 2017, their studios were rebuilt and moved about a mile to the coastal town of Valley Church. Two FM STL’s are used by Caribbean Radio Lighthouse to send their twin programming feeds from the studios to the medium wave transmitter at Jolly Hill and also to an FM transmitter on 92.3 MHz on another nearby hill top. The medium wave transmitter, a 10 kW Nautel unit, remains on the air to this day, and is the only medium wave station still on the air from Antigua. It’s a great catch on 1160 kHz if you can null out KSL in Salt Lake City.
Audio Clip - 2016 12
10 - Caribbean R Lighthouse (1160kHz) – ID, available at:
 |
| Caribbean Radio Lighthouse Studio |
In 1976, a large new shortwave station was installed on the island of
Antigua
as a joint operation by the BBC in London and Deutsche Welle in Bonn. It was operated under the auspices of the
Caribbean Relay Company Ltd., and utilized four 250 kW transmitters. A transmission site was constructed near
Seaview Farm, ironically almost in the center of the island of Antigua, and
this was operational for 29 years, before being closed and dismantled in 2005.
Audio Clip - 1981 00 00 - BBC Caribbean Relay (6195kHz) – ID available at: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/wavescan
But as well as operating the shortwave transmitters, the Caribbean Relay Company also transmitted the BBC World Service on 98.1 FM for the local population, including the regular regional news program, Caribbean Report. This continued after the close of the shortwave site, and is still on the air today, although the frequency is now 89.1 FM, with 5 kW.
For about 12 years, there was also a Voice of America Relay Station on Antigua. An agreement between the United States and the autonomous nation of Antigua and Barbuda for this station was signed in 1980. A 17 acre site adjacent to an American Air Force Base at Coolidge on the north coast of the island was acquired, construction work began in January 1981, and the station first went on the air on April 12 of that same year. VOA identified the location as Judge Bay.
The original equipment for VOA Antigua consisted of a 50 kW medium wave transmitter on 1580 kHz and a single omnidirectional tower. Since power on the island could be unreliable, two 200 kVA generators provided backup power as needed. Programming was a shortwave feed from VOA Greenville, North Carolina, which was relayed in English for four hours each night for the Eastern Caribbean.
In 1983, the station implemented a two-tower directional antenna system configured for coverage to the south. The last entry in the WRTH for VOA Antigua was for the year 1993, seeming to indicate that the station was closed after a dozen years of service. Like a similar VOA relay station in Costa Rica at the same time, it was closed due to budget cuts.
So today in Antigua there is the one remaining station on medium wave - Caribbean Radio Lighthouse on 1160 kHz, along with some 20 government, private commercial, and religious stations on FM, and just a single FM station on the island of Barbuda, 30 miles to the north.
Back to you, Jeff.
