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| USS Avocet (wikipedia) |
This is what happened. A new RCA 1 kW shortwave transmitter weighing
5 tons was installed into a special enclosure on the main deck of the “Avocet” in preparation for a voyage
into the central Pacific. It was
intended that listeners in the United States could hear a series of special
broadcasts from isolated Enderbury and Canton Islands during a spectacular
total eclipse.
At
4 pm on Thursday May 6, 1937, just before the “Avocet” left Honolulu, a special
half hour farewell program was broadcast over this specially made shortwave
transmitter WMEF. This program was
relayed to the RCA station at Point Reyes/Bolinas in California for nationwide
coverage on mediumwave across the United States. The “Avocet” was then bound for the two small
islands in the exotic central Pacific to study the eclipse of the sun during
its unusually long duration.
The “Avocet” arrived off shore at the small Enderbury Island one
week later, at 8:30 am local time on May 13.
There was no satisfactory anchorage location at Enderbury, so she moved
on to Canton Island arriving there later in the same day.
After unloading men and supplies on
Canton Island, the “Avocet”
returned to Enderbury and off loaded men and supplies there also, in
preparation for the coming eclipse. A
small 20 watt Apex high frequency relay transmitter, also manufactured by RCA
and licensed with the American callsign W10XEP, was installed in a tent.
Soon after the ship arrived back at
Enderbury, a radio documentary under the title “A Desert Island” was broadcast over station WMEF. All of these program broadcasts were intended
for pickup in the United States and England for nationwide distribution over
local mediumwave networks.
Interestingly, the advance schedules for
mediumwave WEAF in New York City
show the insertion into their programming of eclipse broadcasts from the
central Pacific. In addition several of
these special programs from Enderbury and Canton were heard direct from WMEF
aboard the “Avocet” by international radio monitors in the United States.
On
one occasion station WMEF was heard calling station W2XAF in Schenectady, New
York for a program transfer; and on another occasion they called station W3XZ
which was operated by the Jenkins Laboratories in Washington DC. On another occasion again, WMEF was heard
passing a program broadcast to the BBC in London.
On Eclipse Day, Tuesday June 8,
1937, three live broadcasts
were made; one early in the morning, another during the eclipse which began
around 8:30 am local time, and another in the evening as a summary of the day’s
events. Each of these broadcasts
contained eye witness accounts from both Canton Island as well as from the
fifty mile distant Enderbury Island.
The atmospheric conditions at both
Enderbury and Canton on
Eclipse Day were described as almost perfect and the photographs taken that day
are still studied three quarters of a century later. The insert broadcasts from Enderbury were
transmitted by the low power Apex transmitter W10XEP and spliced live into the
main on-air programming from WMEF on board the “Avocet” which was off shore
near Canton.
With the eclipse events over,
equipment and personnel on Canton were loaded onto the “Avocet” next day, she voyaged over to
Enderbury and picked up the men and equipment there, and then sailed for
Honolulu later that same day.
The unique NBC QSL card verifies the
reception of WMEF during the transfer of a radio broadcast while the ship was
en route on the return journey two days before arrival in Honolulu. The fortunate listener was Mr. L. D. Brewer
of Phoenix in Arizona.
So that is the interesting story of an important QSL card, verifying a
broadcast from a heavy transmitter on board a ship in the central Pacific. The 20 watt high frequency shortwave
transmitter W10XEP carried radio programming from lonely and uninhabited
Enderbury Island. This programming was
picked up on the “Avocet”, and broadcast on shortwave to the RCA stations in
Hawaii and California for onward relay on mediumwave throughout the United
States. But that is not the end of the
story.
The five ton shortwave transmitter
WMEF was placed in storage in the United States for a period of five
years. Then, in 1942, this equipment was
renovated and taken to North Africa, and in August of the following year it was
set up and placed on the air at Syracuse on the island of Sicily.
A
month or two later, the transmitter was shipped to Bari in Italy and then taken
by road to Naples, where again it was placed on the air. Shortly afterwards this same unit was then
transported to Rome where again it became airborne.
This historic one kilowatt RCA
shortwave transmitter that initially saw service in the Pacific on board a ship
for the broadcast of a significant eclipse of the sun in the year 1937,
finished up in Rome as a temporary relay station for the Voice of America. The engineers who manned this station nicknamed
it “Relic”, due to its size and age. When its usefulness in Rome was over in 1944
or 1945, we can only assume that this transmitter was subsequently abandoned at
its most recent location.
(AWR Wavescan/NWS 355)
