Jeff: Today is Easter Sunday, or Resurrection Sunday as it is known in many Christian churches. We did cover the radio scene on Easter Island quite extensively in 2021, but we are mindful that today is also the end of the Passover festival, which has been commemorated for the past eight days. Passover isn’t only celebrated by Jews, but also by many Christians who recognize the importance and prophetic significance of the Levitical feast days. So, where were the Children of Israel when the first Passover occurred? That’s right, in Egypt, immediately before their Exodus to the Promised Land. In keeping with that theme, Ray Robinson in Los Angeles today has a feature for us on the radio broadcasting scene in Egypt, a country which we have only mentioned very briefly once before, way back in 2011 at the time of the Arab Spring Uprisings. So, Ray, tell us more about Egypt.
Ray: Thanks, Jeff. On the map, Egypt looks like a small country at the top right corner of Africa, but in reality, it is quite large at nearly 800 miles across and 700 miles long. It’s a modern country in many ways, although at the same time, it’s one of the most ancient countries in the entire history of our world. The beginnings of civilization in Egypt can be traced way back more than 4,000 years ago.
Egypt, of course, is well-known for its pyramids and the Sphinx, the lion-like creature with a human head. Although mostly desert, it has very fertile land along the Nile River, and has some fabulous archeological displays in the Cairo Museum. From a Christian perspective, Egypt is mentioned by name more than a thousand times in the Bible. In addition, the Bible also mentions several of the ancient Pharaohs by name, thus enabling a reliable correlation for ancient events in the Middle Eastern areas. The actual date of the first Passover in Egypt is debated by Bible theologians, but most conservative scholars put it in the year 1446 B.C. Well, I’m not looking that far back in our story of radio broadcasting in Egypt, but we will delve into the late 19th century.
When the Great War broke out in Europe in 1914, Egypt had been under British occupation since 1882. Britain had occupied the country mainly in order to secure the Suez Canal (which had been opened in 1869), a vital strategic artery that was part of the key route between Britain and its vast empire in the East.
Wireless came to Egypt quite early. The New York Times on March 8, 1912, stated that a large wireless station would be established in Egypt as part of the Imperial Wireless Scheme, as outlined by the famous Guglielmo Marconi. This station was constructed at Abu Zaabal on the north eastern outskirts of Cairo during the year 1914. The 300 kW transmitter at Abu Zaabal was on the air on 55 & 66 kHz longwave under the callsign SUC, and it communicated with a similar station at Leafield in England.
During the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, Egypt had formally remained a province of the Ottoman Empire. However, when the Ottomans joined the war on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary in November 1914, the British felt it necessary to change the status of their occupation. On December 18, 1914, Britain declared Egypt a protectorate of the British empire. They deposed the pro-Ottoman head of government, called a Khedive, and replaced him with a relative.
The British authorities imposed martial law on the country, which became a frontline state in the war when Ottoman forces crossed the Sinai Peninsula to try unsuccessfully to take the Suez Canal. Egypt became an enormous military base for Allied forces, serving as the rear area for the disastrous Gallipoli campaign, and the more successful Allied invasions of Palestine and Syria by the British imperial Egyptian Expeditionary Force. By the end of World War I, British military control covered the whole of what is now Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Cyprus, Egypt and Sudan, although Syria and Lebanon were later ceded to the French.
There was much post-war political maneuvering, and on February 28th 1922, the British declared Egypt to be an independent monarchy, although with certain limitations. Most importantly, Britain retained control of the Suez Canal, as well as Egypt’s defense and foreign affairs, and British troops remained stationed in Egypt. Britain also continued to administer Sudan, a former Egyptian colony, as a joint protectorate with Egypt.
Radio broadcasting in Egypt began in 1924 when several small broadcasting stations were established as privately owned and operated community stations, mainly in Cairo and Alexandria.
By the end of the 1920’s, more than 100 radio broadcasters were operational in Egypt, mostly in and around Cairo. Most of the operators of these stations were amateurs, but there were also some businesses advertising their goods between the music that was broadcast. These stations were mostly in the hands of English, Italians and Greeks residing in Egypt, and hardly any programming was in Arabic.
The number of radio receivers in the general population remained small. Few homes in rural and poorer urban areas in Egypt even had electricity, and radios were still expensive and large. In 1931 the government closed most of the stations that existed at that time, permitting just a few well-run stations to remain on the air.
Then in 1934, the Egyptian State Broadcasting Service was established, and in May 1934, all private ownership and operation was abolished, with the remaining privately-owned stations being forcibly closed down. To replace them, Radio Cairo began two stations, one in Arabic and the other in the languages of the non-Arabic communities in Egypt. By the end of 1939 there were 86,477 radio receivers in Egypt. But all radio broadcasting in Egypt remained under government control and was officially nationalized in 1947.
On the shortwave scene, new shortwave transmitters were installed at the longwave transmitting station at Abu Zaabal in the late 1920’s, and it appears that initially two units rated at 10 kW were in use. These units were on the air for phone communication with Europe and the United States under callsigns in the SU series, such as SUV, SUX & SUZ. The first known use of these shortwave transmitters for radio programming was in mid-1935, when SUV was received on 9570 kHz in both the United States & Australia.
During World War II, British troops used Egypt as its primary base for all Allied operations throughout the region, but the British troops were again withdrawn to the Suez Canal area in 1947. Although the British occupation was supposed to be temporary, it actually lasted until 1952. It was then that an Egyptian military officer, Major Gamal Nasser, ended the monarchy forcing King Farouk into exile, and created the Republic of Egypt, which he ruled autocratically as President until his death in 1970. The last British troops left Egypt in June 1956, and the following month, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, precipitating the Suez Crisis over the following few months.
The longwave station at Abu Zaabal, after successive upgradings and modernizations, was eventually destroyed in 1954 during unrest in the run up to the Suez Crisis. But over the years, the shortwave base at Abu Zaabal was re-outfitted with numerous additional transmitters, with as many as 18 being listed in 2011.
After Nasser’s appointment as president of Egypt in 1953, he ordered the building of new shortwave transmitters. He began using transnational radio as the ‘pulpit of the revolution’ to spread his anti-colonial and Pan-Arab ideas to the rest of the Arab World. And thus another shortwave station located at Mokattam, also near Cairo, was developed, with at least four 50 & 100 kW transmitters in use. This station is no longer on the air. A third shortwave base was developed at Abis near Alexandria also in the late 1950’s with several Marconi transmitters rated at 250 & 500 kW.
Sadly, in recent decades, Radio Cairo became notorious for terribly distorted or otherwise awfully sounding audio. Broadcasts were often off-frequency, and sometimes occupied as much as 40 kHz of bandwidth, with lots of hum, very low audio levels, and over modulation. Programming has been in ten different languages, featuring mostly news and Egyptian music. In 2022, the station still had two transmitter sites, at Abu Zaabal and Abis.
The Abu Zaabal site, which is now no longer in use, had 17 transmitters including 13 100 kW transmitters from the 1950's to the 1990's, made by Brown Boveri, Marconi, Telefunken, Harris and Thomson. It also had a 250 kW Continental transmitter installed in 1980 and four 500 kW Thomson transmitters installed in the 1990's. However, all antennas at that site have now been removed, leaving only the building with the transmitters.
The other site at Abis was still on the air mid-year last year, 2024. There are reports, however, that as of October 2024, all shortwave broadcasting had ceased. The site is believed to have eight 250 kW Brown Boveri and Thomson transmitters from the 1970's and one 500 kW Marconi B6132 transmitter purchased in 1996. The 2025 edition of the WRTH does still list Radio Cairo transmissions from this site using two 125 kW transmitters, on seven different frequencies, all in the 31 meter band, but it is not known if these have been heard recently. The previously extremely poor audio quality clearly indicated that the transmitters were in need of serious repair or replacement, and they may have simply been switched off.
(This week's audio featured a station ID from 1973, recorded by Dan Robinson, at about the time of the Yom Kippur War.)
High power medium wave transmitters are still very common throughout the Middle East and across North Africa because of the vast territories over which the Arabic-speaking populations are dispersed.
The WRTH for 2025 still lists some 40 medium wave stations currently operating in Egypt, and some are quite high power, with:
• 100 kW on 558, 711, 1071 and 1341 kHz,
• 300 kW on 819 kHz,
• 400 kW on 774 kHz, and
• 500 kW on 864 kHz.
These are all run by the National Media Authority. But, following a recommendation from the Arab States Broadcasting Union in the mid-1990’s that Arab governments should ease themselves out of the broadcasting sector, Egypt began to allow limited operation of privately-owned stations on FM from February 2000. Since that time, the number of commercial stations has flourished, although most stay well away from politics.
Over the years since the mid-1930’s, the statistics show that Radio Cairo shortwave has utilized a total of somewhere around 40 shortwave transmitters ranging in power from 10 to 500 kW. The station has not always been a reliable verifier, but multitudes of colorful QSL cards showing ancient monuments and current scenes have been issued.
(Ray Robinson/Jeff White/Wavescan)
9Graphic/Nat Geo)
