Argentine Anniversary: Their first radio broadcast

Teatro Coliseo, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1910

A recent email message from Prof. Dr. Hansjörg Biener in Nürnberg Germany informs us that August 27 is an important date in the history of radio broadcasting in the South American country of
Argentina. It was on that date in the year 1920, that three young medical students presented a live radio broadcast of European classical music from the Teatro Coliseo in Buenos  Aires. This is what
happened.

Back during World War 1, the medical Dr. Enrique Susini from Buenos Aires in Argentina served over in continental Europe and at war’s end, he found himself in France.  He took the opportunity to obtain several different radio parts, including the newly developed tube or valve, all of which he took back to Buenos Aires in South America. 

Dr. Susini shared his recently acquired radio components with three of his young medical friends who then began experimentation in an attempt to construct not only a receiver, but also a broadcast transmitter.  These three young medical friends were his nephew Miguel Mugica, and his two friends Cesar Guerrico and Luis Romero Carranza.

Now, on his return to Argentina from continental Europe, Dr. Susini acquired a city property block at 1125 Charcas Street in Retiro, suburban Buenos Aires.  This lot had previously been in use as an old circus site and the good doctor transformed it into a public venue as the Teatro Coliseo, in which a series of public performances were planned, a presentation of several popular European style operas.

In mid August 1920, the three young men under direction from their mentor Dr. Susini, erected a simple single wire antenna system that stretched 120 feet from a tower on the roof of the Teatro Coliseo to a rounded dome on a commercial building nearby.  The small home made radio transmitter, built up with the French made components, was installed in an empty room in the newly renovated theater.   

Sharp at 8:30 pm on Friday evening August 27, (1920), the 5 watt transmitter was switched into service and Dr. Susini, in his reportedly famous baritone voice, announced in Spanish, the evening’s opening musical program.  This well documented event was the presentation of musical selections from a German opera, with a German musician as the conductor for the performance. 

The three hour musical program in the Teatro Coliseo in Bueno Aires, beginning promptly at 9:00 pm, was broadcast without interruption.  It is reported that a small audience that gathered at about twenty different suburban locations heard the wonder of music by radio, the first in the history of South American Argentina.  Among those avid listeners were many prominent business and society leaders, all of whom spoke well of what they had heard.  It was also reported that the radio operator on board a ship in the Bay of Santos, Brazil, also heard the radio broadcast at a distance of some 2,000 miles further north.

During the following evening (Saturday August 28, 1920), the music from another opera was presented, this time Aida from the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi with its ancient Egyptian setting.  You heard Verdi’s popular Triumphal March from Aida as the opening music in this edition of Wavescan.

These different nightly radio performances were on the air for a whole month, but that was not the end of this little radio station.  For two whole years it was the only radio broadcasting station on the air in Argentina, and ultimately it grew into what is now the nationwide government system of radio broadcasting known as Radio Nacional Argentina, LRA. 

The auspicious inaugural day for radio broadcasting in Argentina was August 27, 1920, exactly 102 years ago, last Thursday.  The postal authorities in Argentina issued a special postage stamp in 1970, honoring this historic radio event.
(AWR-Wavescan/NWS 601)
(photo/Wikipedia)

Australian Shortwave Callsign VLR

Throughout the entire one and a quarter centuries of wireless and radio history, there have ever been only two stations that have been allotted the callsign VLR.  The first application of the call VLR was for the communication transmitter aboard a small passenger/cargo ship in the waters off New Zealand, and the second application of the callsign VLR was for the  the internationally well known low power shortwave service operated by the ABC and Radio Australia at Lyndhurst in Victoria.

The SS Marama was built at Greenock in Scotland and it was launched in 1907.  During its 30 years of international ocean going service, it was in use for the TransTasman route between New Zealand and Australia, and in the TransPacific service between New Zealand and North America.

The normal peacetime service of the SS Marama was interrupted for a period of four years during World War 1 while it was in use as New Zealand’s second Hospital Ship for soldiers wounded on service in Europe.  On one occasion, the Marama was accosted by a German submarine in the North Atlantic, but as a hospital ship it was permitted to move on unmolested.

The Marama was laid up at Evans Bay, Wellington in 1936, and next year it was sold to China, and then sold again, this time to Japan at a nice profit.  It was broken up at Osaka in Japan during the year 1938.

During the early 1920s, the callsign aboard the Marama was VLR, and this callsign was modified to ZLR on January 1, 1929 due to new international radio regulations.  During the 1930s, there were times when a daily newspaper was published aboard the Marama with news taken from various radio sources.  This daily newspaper was given the appropriate though rather unimaginative title, Daily News.

The original VLR shortwave station in Australia was born in a galvanized iron shed on top of a low rise near Lyndhurst some 25 miles southeast of Melbourne in Victoria, in 1928.  Back then, this locally made 600 watt transmitter was operated experimentally without callsign on 5800 kHz.  However, due to the fact that the audio source for this little new shortwave transmitter was taken from the two mediumwave stations in Melbourne, 3LO & 3AR, then the shortwave unit was soon afterwards given a sort of combined call 3LR.

Due to a change in international radio regulations, amateur stations in Australia were required to add the prefix VK to their callsigns, by December 31, 1928.  In order to ensure the change of callsign throughout Australia by the effective date, the Chief Radio Inspector Mr Jim Malone authorized the usage of the new VK prefix from December 8 onwards.  That was for all amateur radio stations.

However, mediumwave broadcasting stations in Australia never did use a prefix, just a single digit number identifying the state, followed by two letters identifying an individual station.  But, the radio relay station at Lyndhurst was an anomaly, it was neither an amateur station nor a mediumwave broadcasting station.  According to the QSL cards that were issued during that era, the accepted callsign for Lyndhurst shortwave was simply 3LR.   In this way, it was treated as a broadcasting station.

During the year 1934, a new building was constructed adjacent to the old original shack at Lyndhurst, and on  March 12, shortwave 3LR began a regular relay of programming for the benefit of people living in Australia’s isolated outback areas.  At this stage, the transmitter was still operating at just 600 watts and the usual channel was 9580 kHz.  The regular broadcast antenna was a horizontal half wave doublet at 95½ degrees from true north, with a radiation lobe towards the great outback.

Back during this era, the Lyndhurst transmitter with its programming relay from 3LO and 3AR was identified officially and unofficially as both 3LR and VK3LR.  In experimental usage though, the allotted callsign was VK3XX, with the X following the American pattern identifying an experimental station.  In May 1935, the 600 watt transmitter was engineered to operate then at 1 kW.

Around June 1936, transmitter (VK)3LR began to carry an experimental 10 minute bulletin of news twice weekly in French for the benefit of French islands in the South Pacific.  This genuine overseas foreign language service, though quite short in duration, was a forerunner to the inauguration of Australia Calling/Radio Australia three years later.  The French Consul-General in Sydney made request for the continuity of this French language service. 

In 1937, the Lyndhurst transmitter was completely reconditioned and the power rating was increased to 2 kW, though still with the same original transmitter.  Soon afterwards, the power level was again increased, this time to 5 kW.

At this stage, the lonely little shortwave transmitter at Lyndhurst now radiated through two antenna systems as needed; for national coverage through the same horizontal doublet, and for international coverage, a rhombic beamed on Daventry in England.  December 1 (1937) was the official date for the regularization of the callsign from (VK)3LR to the now more familiar VLR.
More about VLR next time.
(Jeff white, Adrian Peterson-AWR Wavescan 547)

Forgotten Wireless Station on a Forgotten Canadian Island in the Pacific

Triangle Island Lighthouse (unc.edu)

The small Canadian island known as Triangle Island is located on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, some 30 miles northwest of the much larger Vancouver Island.  This rugged little island, just three miles in circumference, is a jagged cone-shaped peak rising some 700 feet above sea level. 

            Triangle Island is a lonely windswept place that was named after the jagged reefs, with their  three-sided geometric form, that  surround the island.  No trees grow on the island, and there is minimal vegetation.

            The winds blowing across this island are so strong that it was necessary to attach steel cables to the roofing on buildings and to anchor the cables in the ground.  Ropes were attached between the buildings so that staff would not be blown away; and even then for safety, at times the staff found it necessary to crawl across the ground on their stomachs.  Staff sequestered inside their homes because of inclement weather have been known to become sea sick when the winds violently rocked the houses on their foundations.

            During the year 1908, officials from mainland Canada visited Triangle Island to evaluate the possibility of establishing a lighthouse and a wireless station on the top of the main peak.  Soon afterwards, prefabricated buildings and other equipment were shipped to the island, and a steep tramway was installed from the waterline up the steep incline to the top of the island.

            Original planning for the maritime wireless station called for a 3 kW spark transmitter, and interestingly, a commercial wireless company also requested a license for their own station on the island as part of a projected Trans-Pacific network.  However, as subsequent events inform us, the only wireless station ever installed on this isolated island was the Canadian government station which began test transmissions on February 17, 1910, under the callsign TLD.  That event was right on 106 years ago.

            Two or three weeks later, station TLD was taken into regular service for communication with shipping into and out of the Inside Passage which separates the Canadian mainland from their island of Vancouver.  Unfortunately though, because of the high winds, and the often stormy low cloud formations, the wireless station was unable to communicate adequately with passing ships, and the ships were unable to discern clearly the light from the lighthouse. 

            Two years after the Triangle Island wireless station was commissioned, the roof of the transmitter building was blown off.  That was in 1912; and then during the following year 1913, the callsign was regularized to VAG. 

            However at this stage, another coastal wireless station was installed at Alert Bay on nearby Cormorant Island, and initially this new station identified with the callsign CFD, though soon afterwards this too was changed, to VAF.  When station VAF at Alert Bay was taken into regular service, station VAG on Triangle acted merely as a wireless relay station.

            During World War 1, the Triangle station was guarded by military troops; and give half a dozen more years, and both the lighthouse and the wireless station were closed.  Inefficiency of operation due to adverse weather conditions, the cost of operating these services at a difficult and isolated location, and harsh living circumstances for the operating personnel were cited as the major reasons for closing the Triangle service and transferring its activities to a more amenable locality.

            The wireless station on Triangle Island was closed in 1921, and this maritime service was transferred to a new wireless station at Bull Harbour on nearby Hope Island.  The callsign VAG was also transferred from Triangle Island to Bull Harbour. 

            Then a score of years later, and this second VAG station was moved and rebuilt half a mile down the same road, but it did not survive there either.  In 1990 VAG was sold off, and the maritime wireless service was transferred to the Alert Bay station VAF.  But that didn’t survive for long either.  Four years later (and that was in 1994) station VAF was closed, and all of the maritime communication services for the whole area were transferred to Comox Radio down the coast on Vancouver Island.    

            These days, Triangle Island may be visited as an inhospitable tourist attraction; and some of the artifacts from its earlier history are now on display in a local museum on Vancouver Island.

 (AWR-Wavescan/NWS 364 via Adrian Peterson)