*
Theme
- 00:00
“Birthday Serenade” -
Willi Glahe
*
Opening Announcement - 00:16
Welcome to “Wavescan”,
international DX program from Adventist World Radio
Researched and written in
Indianapolis, produced in studios of shortwave WRMI
Program outline
1. Phantom Radio
Stations in Canada
2.
NASB Report: Animal Life at WRMI Okeechobee
3.
Ancient DX Report 1908
4. Contest Reminder Rare
QSLs
5. Bangladesh DX
Report
* Phantom Radio Stations in Canada
- 00:58
It was back in the year 1919 that the
Canadian National Railways CNR was formed as a government owned
corporation. Over a period of time, CNR
has owned a sprawling and interconnected network of rail lines across lower
Canada, and down into the United States as far as the Mexican Gulf. The tall iconic CN Tower was constructed in
the 1970s on CNR land at the waterfront in Toronto; and in addition to these
vast public enterprises, they also operated their own radio broadcasting
network, for a period of 13 years running from 1921 into the earlier part of
1933.
Over a period of time, CNR developed
a network of radio programming distribution and radio broadcasting
stations. At the height of its radio
activity, CNR owned and operated three radio broadcasting stations, its programming
was relayed live by thirty or more radio stations across Canada mostly under
licensed phantom callsigns, and it operated 78 passenger radio carriages that
picked up CNR programming for the benefit of travelers.
The first CNR venture into
experimental radio broadcasting took place in the summer of 1921 from the CNR
owned passenger vessel SS “Dalhousie City”. At the time, the “Dalhousie
City” was
afloat on Lake Michigan and an experimental transmitter was installed aboard
the ship under the callsign CKUC.
Several experimental broadcasts were made from the “Dalhousie
City” and
they were received at the nearby 1921 Toronto Exhibition in a specially
equipped CNR railway carriage.
During the summer of the following
year, CNR repeated the radio broadcasts from the ship “Dalhousie
City” with
the use of a portable Marconi YC3 transmitter under the same callsign
CKUC. A new steel railway carriage was
fitted out with radio receiving equipment and this was on display at the CNR
location in the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto. The first day of regular broadcasting from
CKUC was August 26, 1922, and two hours of programming was on the air daily in
three segments on the mediumwave channel 680 kHz.
The first land based station
constructed by the Canadian National Railways was station CKCH in Ottawa which
was officially inaugurated on February 27, 1924. The studios were installed in the Jackson
Building on Bank Street and the transmitter was a 500 watt unit radiating on
690 kHz.
The recently formed CNR radio
department wished to operate its radio broadcasting stations under callsigns
beginning with the three identification letters CNR, but the international
callsign sequence CN had already been allocated to Morocco. The Canadian government on behalf of CNR
obtained approval from Morocco for these desired callsigns, and so the CNR
radio callsign list ran from CNRA down through the English alphabet to
CNRX. Thus it was that the original CKCH
in Ottawa became CNRO on July 16, 1924.
Station CNRA in Moncton New
Brunswick was inaugurated also in 1922 as the second station in the CNR network
with 500 watts on 960 kHz; and the third and last station owned by CNR was CNRV
which was inaugurated in Vancouver on August 11, 1925, with 500 watts on 1100
kHz, as the Voice of the Pacific.
However, in addition to its own
three stations, CNR obtained licenses for phantom stations across Canada,
whereby CNR programming could be relayed by other already established radio
broadcasting stations. When CNR programming
was on relay from another station, CNR was permitted to use its own phantom
callsign over the air. This CNR network
programming was thus made available to listeners in each local area, and also
to travelers in specially equipped railway parlor cars.
The first CNR network broadcast was
an interview with the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George on June 1,
1923; he was traveling from Montreal to Toronto in one of their radio parlor
cars. However, the first pre-planned
network broadcast was a Christmas/New Year program that was aired on December
30, 1923. Two stations carried the
program in English and French, CHYC in Montreal and COA in Ottawa.
The first phantom call was CNRM in
Montreal, and the CNR programming was heard over CKAC on Thursday nights and
CFCF on Friday nights. The first three
station network program was heard in March 1925 (Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto);
there was a special broadcast from the deck of a ship in Montreal Harbour in
the same year; the first national network program right across Canada was the
60th Jubilee Confederation broadcast on
July 1, 1927; and regular coast-to-coast network broadcasts began on December
27, 1928.
A total of 23 stations from Halifax
to Vancouver carried this Jubilee program including an American mediumwave
station WWJ in Detroit. There was no
phantom callsign in use for the WWJ relays.
In 1930, 27 stations were carrying the special CNR network programming.
In addition to the long list of
mediumwave stations on relay with CNR programming, several shortwave stations
also carried this relay of radio program broadcasting. For example, on the occasion of the 60th
anniversary of Confederation, the unification of the original four provinces of
Canada into one nation within the British Empire, the Marconi shortwave station
at Drummondville near Montreal in Quebec, carried the programming beamed
towards Europe. A 1931 entry shows
Drummondville relaying CNR programming via station VE9BA; and three years later
via CGA4 with 15 kW on 6465 kHz.
The American shortwave stations KDKA-8XK
Pittsburgh and WGY-2XAD Schenectady also provided programming for broadcast
over CNR radio in Canada; and sometimes they relayed the Canadian programming
to other parts of the world for live relay in other countries. Smaller shortwave stations, such as CFCF in
Montreal, CFCN in Calgary, VE9HX in Halifax, and VE9GW in Bowmanville, all
carried CNR programming in parallel with the mediumwave parent stations.
Program production for CNR relay was
produced in the studios of the three stations owned by the railway system,
though the main coordination studios were in station CNRV at the Pacific
Central (Railway) Station in Vancouver.
QSL cards and QSL stamps were issued on behalf of the three CNR owned
radio stations, as well as some of the CNR phantom relay stations.
However, change was on the way and
in November 1931, the Canadian National Railways ended their reception of radio
programming in special radio parlor cars; and then in early 1933, CNR sold its
radio facilities to the newly set up Canadian Radio Broadcasting Corporation,
which in turn became CBC the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1936, as it
is to this day.
Thus ended the fascinating 13 year
story of railway radio in Canada (1921 - 1933), with its unique list of
alphabetically progressive callsigns running from CNRA (Moncton NB) to CNRX
(Toronto ON).
* NASB Report - 09:16
Jeff
White: Animal Life at WRMI Okeechobee
* Program Announcement
- 11:20
Allen
Graham
* Ancient DX Report 1908 - 12:12
The year 1908
began at midnight when a 700-pound "electric ball" fell from the
flagpole atop the New York Times building, the first-ever ball-drop in Times
Square, New York. This leap year ended
366 days later with a nearly 2½ hour flight by Wilbur Wright, the longest ever
made in an airplane.
In the days
between, the U.S. Navy's Great White Fleet sailed around the world; Adm. Robert
Peary began his conquest of the North Pole; Dr. Frederick Cook reached the
North Pole (or claimed to); six automobiles set out on a 20,000-mile race from
New York City to Paris via Asia; and the Model T went into production at Henry
Ford’s plant in
Detroit, Michigan.
The events and
innovations that occurred within that 12-month frame a century ago marked, in
many ways, America's entry into the modern world. In some cases, they quite literally put
modern America in motion. Jim Rasenberger, Smithsonian Magazine, January
2008
The
expert already realizes that practical wireless telegraphy and telephony are
possible. Before the close of the year
wireless transmission across the Pacific and trans-Atlantic wireless telephony
may be expected with perfect confidence.
The use of the wireless telephone in isolated districts (within the
United States) will spread like fire. Nikola Tesla Jan 5 1908 Anything,
everything, is possible. Thomas Edison, 1908
The
year 1908 was a concentrated year in which remarkable development took place in
many different areas of human expertise, including wireless and radio
communication. Several major attempts
were made at radio program broadcasting, and we could say that information and
entertainment via radio was beginning to make its mark through this electronic
medium, even though distortion and interference were still quite evident.
The
American entrepreneur Archie Collins made several successful attempts at radio
broadcasting and he activated an arc transmitter at 51 Clinton Street Newark,
NJ and transmitted voice and music. On
July 9, Collins sent voice messages from his laboratory in New Jersey that were
heard on a receiver in the Singer Building in New York. Later in the year, he sent voice messages
across the intervening 81 miles between New York and Philadelphia.
Collins
established a demonstration display of his wireless equipment at the New York
Electrical Show in October, and the noted Guglielmo Marconi paid a visit. He courteously stated that Collins should be
credited with the invention of wireless telegraphy.
Among
the wireless experimenters and developers in the United States during the year
1908 was the 21 year old Walter Willenborg of Hoboken New Jersey. His first newspaper coverage was granted
during 1907, and he began to achieve prominence in the wireless world during
the year 1908 due to a very large article in a magazine for boys about his
achievements with his self-made equipment.
Luxembourg
born Hugo Gernsback launched the world’s first radio magazine,“Modern
Electrics” from his newly adopted city New York City in
April; and on May 12, Nathan Stubblefield received a patent for his wireless
telephone, based on induction transmission rather than radio frequency
transmission. The first wireless
transmission between the continental United States and Hawaii took place
unexpectedly in mid-October when Lawrence Malarin at station PH on Russian Hill
in San Francisco overheard his friend Arthur Isbell in Morse Code at station HU
RCA Kahuku during the dark hours of the night.
The
Californian based experimenter Professor Charles Herrold entered the wireless
scene in 1908 with experiments in the transmission of voice and music; and the
late teenager Francis McCarty transmitted music occasionally from his family
home on Hayes Street, near Ashbury in San Francisco.
The
United States army successfully transmitted speech and music from Sandy Hook
New Jersey to their army base on Bedloe Island, in the shadow of the Statue of
Liberty in New York Harbor; the United States navy made many music and speech
broadcasts from the Great White Fleet as it circled the globe; and the callsign
of the Marconi station at Cape Cod was modified from CC to MCC, standing for
Marconi Cape Cod.
On
February 2, the ship SS “Cuthbert” caught fire out
on the Atlantic, 500 miles from its destination while en route from Antwerp in
Belgium to New York. The SS “Cymric” was bound from
Ireland to Boston and most of the personnel on board the stricken “Cuthbert” were
transferred to the “Cymric”. On board the “Cymric” was a news reporter and he arranged
for a news report in Morse Code to be sent via the ship wireless equipment to
the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune.
The
first long distance message from the Eiffel Tower in France was transmitted on
January 12. Then during the summer, Dr. Lee de Forest set up a transmitter at
the base of the tower with an antenna running up to the top of the tower. Following a series of test transmissions, he
made a pre-arranged program broadcast with music and speech on Wednesday April
1. Reliable coverage was provided both
day and day for a radius of 25 miles, though an engineer in Marseilles sent in
a reception report by letter, a distance of 500 miles.
In
England, the Marconi engineer H. J. Round made a successful telephony broadcast
using a modulated arc, as did Poulsen at Lyngby in Denmark and his
transmissions extended 150 miles on the first test. Three experimenters in Belgium, R.-B.
Goldschmitt, Monsieur Ruhmer and Maurice
Philippson made a series of test transmissions from the Palace of Justice in
Brussels which were heard at Liege 70 miles distant.
Down
under, Engineer H. V. Jenvey with the PMG department in Melbourne Australia
established two wireless communication stations, one at St. Kilda and the other
at Queenscliffe, which enabled successful communication over the intervening 65
miles.
Across
the Tasman at Dunedin, down near the bottom of the South Island in New Zealand,
three teenagers now known as the Dunedin Boys, constructed their own wireless
equipment and made a series of Morse Code transmissions across the city and
across the bay. They made a public
demonstration of their equipment and sent congratulatory messages between local
city mayors and the Prime Minister in Wellington, the national capital. The newspapers gave excellent coverage of the
performance of these three boys, Rawson Stark, Stanton Hicks, and Cyril
Brandon, though in reality their experimental transmissions were considered
illegal by the local authorities.
* Bangladesh DX Report - 19:56
Salahuddin
Dolar
* Annual DX Contest: Rare QSL Cards
- 23:48
Adventist World Radio is issuing a
special invitation to shortwave listeners around the world to participate in
the 2014 Annual DX Contest in association with the DX program Wavescan. Shortwave listeners, international radio
monitors and DXers around the world are invited to search their collection of
QSL cards and letters for rare, unusual and unique verifications. You are invited to make up a list (up to 5 in
number) of your QSLs in this collective category, and to write a short paragraph
about each. Partial entries for this
year’s
contest are considered to be valid.
At the conclusion of the contest, we
at Wavescan are planning to write up and publish a detailed compilation of
interesting information on a world wide basis about the rare, unusual and
unique QSLs that come to light in this way.
This will be the first occasion in the history of international radio
broadcasting for the compilation of such a QSL list, and you all are invited to
submit entries.
You should remember to participate
in our big annual DX contest in September which comes to you under the title, “Rare,
Unusual, Unique QSLs” - AWR “Focus on Asia” 2014
Annual DX Contest. In brief, you are
invited to:-
* Make
up a list of your rare, unusual and unique QSLs, up to five in number, and
provide a photocopy of each.
*
Describe these QSLs in one brief paragraph each.
* Provide reception reports for three AWR Asian broadcasts.
* Provide a photograph of an Adventist unit in your country.
* Send three radio cards.
As an example of a rare QSL card . . .
. Back on February 19, 1984, I heard an
irregular transmission from the Voice of America underneath the time ticks from
chronohertz station WWVH in Hawaii on exactly 15 MHz. At the time, we as a family were living in
Lahore Pakistan and I was an official monitor for the Voice of America, so I
reported the information to the VOA head office in Washington DC. Ultimately, it was discovered that the
spurious transmission was leaking from the radio frequency exciter on a
shortwave transmitter at the VOA relay station at Point Poro in the
Philippines. The exciter was radiating
as a low power transmitter; and in due course, a letter from the legendary
George Jacobs acknowledged the reported information. No doubt, this letter was the only QSL ever
issued for this spurious low power VOA transmission on exactly 15000 kHz.
*
Music of the World - 26:55
Canada:
Canadian folk songs, brass
*
Closing Announcement - 27:05
Thanks for listening to “Wavescan”,
international DX program from Adventist World Radio
Researched and written in
Indianapolis
Several QSL cards available. Send your AWR & KSDA reception reports
for Wavescan to the AWR address in Indianapolis, and
also to the station your radio is tuned to: WRMI or WWCR
or KVOH, or to the AWR relay stations that carry Wavescan.
Next week:-
1. From
the Needles to Colombo: The Radio Story on the Isle of Wight
2.
Another Story about Phantom Radio in Canada
3. Australian
DX Report
Two QSL cards available - AWR &
WRMI
Wavescan address:-
Box 29235
Indianapolis
Indiana 46229 USA
Wavescan @ AWR.org
Jeff White, shortwave WRMI
*
Music Outrun - 28:32
*
Program Ends - 28:55
