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Theme
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00:00
“Birthday Serenade” -
Willi Glahe
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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. Tribute to Shortwave
WYFR
- 13: A Historic Era Comes to an End
2.
The New Sputnik Radio in Moscow
3. Special
QSL of the Week: Russian Jammer
4. International DX News
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Tribute to Shortwave WYFR - 13: A
Historic Era Comes to an End
- 00:56
In our continuing series of
progressive topics on the long and illustrious history of one of America’s earliest and
largest shortwave stations, we pick up the story again at a time of change in
ownership. The station that was on the
air consecutively under the primary callsigns W2XAL W1XAL WSLA WRUL and WNYW
now becomes the very familiar WYFR, and that was in the year 1973.
This is what happened. Back in the year 1959, Harold Camping,
together with two other colleagues, purchased an FM station in San Francisco,
California whose history dated back to 1947.
This station was originally inaugurated by Warner Bros of motion picture
fame, and it was listed under the original callsign KWBR on 97.3 MHz.
During the twelve intervening years,
this station underwent several changes in ownership and callsign, and when it
was procured by Harold Camping and his partners in 1959, it was known as
KOBY-FM with a listed 82 kW, and still on the same channel 97.3 MHz. The station was taken over under its new
owners, Family Stations Inc, on February 4, 1959 and given a new callsign KEAR.
Subsequently, the number of radio
and TV stations owned by Family Radio grew over a period of time into a network
of more than one hundred stations, including translators, that is low power
relay transmitters. In addition, their
programming was also distributed via several satellite channels
In an endeavor to increase the
coverage area of their radio programming worldwide, Family Radio began to look
towards the possibility of broadcasting on shortwave. Initially, they took out a program relay over
shortwave station WNYW, with studios in New York and transmitters at Hatherly
Beach, Scituate in Massachusetts.
The new schedule of programming over
shortwave WNYW was implemented on January 22, 1972 for three program hours
daily. At the time, station WNYW was on
the air with three or four transmitters in parallel. This scheduling gave Family Radio some
sixteen hours of transmitter time each day which provided very broad coverage
of the Americas, Europe and Africa..
At the same time, Family Radio was
also negotiating with Bonneville International in Salt Lake City Utah, the then
owners of WNYW, to purchase this historic and well known shortwave station near
Scituate in Massachusetts. Thus it was
that Family Radio announced on Friday October 19, 1973 that they were acquiring
this east coast shortwave station; and the very next day, Saturday October 20,
station WNYW began a new broadcast day under a new callsign WYFR.
In reminiscing about these events,
WYFR Engineering Manager Dan Elyea recalls that the previous staff with WNYW
gave the new staff with WYFR just one hour on the Friday evening to become
familiar with the operations of all of the electronic equipment at this large
shortwave station. On the first day of
operation as WYFR, just two transmitters were employed with twin programing
services in English and in Spanish to Europe and to Latin America.
The first printed transmission
schedule was issued by the new WYFR a few weeks later during the following
month, November, and it shows that they were on the air now for a little over
nine hours daily with similar programming beamed to Europe and Latin America,
in English and in Spanish. Four
transmitters were on the air and they were heard on all of the international
shortwave bands ranging from 5 MHz up to 21 MHz, according to propagation
conditions. A total of nine rhombic
antennas were in use, four of which were reversible.
At the time of the 1973 transfer of
ownership, WNYW-WYFR was on the air with a complement of four shortwave
transmitters and callsigns:-
WNYW2 & WNYW3: 2 @ 100 kW
(Harris) Gates, Model HF100, just outside Control Room on a
raised platform
WNYW4 & WNYW5: 50 kW 1 (Harris)
Gates, Model HF50C & 1 Continental Model 417B, in the back
room coal bunker
At this stage in 1973, there was no
transmitter identified as WNYW1. It
would appear that transmitter WNYW1 was an earlier 20 kW auxiliary unit that
had been removed from service.
During the following year (1974), an
additional 100 kW transmitter, Continental Model 418D, was installed. This unit was already planned and licensed
under WNYW ownership and it was installed somewhat nearby to the two (Harris)
Gates 100 kW transmitters, though at right angles to them.
We might mention also that the 50 kW
(Harris) Gates unit at WNYW was originally intended (in 1967) for installation
at ELWA near Monrovia in Liberia, where Dan Elyea began service three years
later. However, after the disastrous
fire at WNYW in 1967, this unit was taken over for WNYW and another was
subsequently provided for the African shortwave station.
Soon after Family Radio took over
the WNYW facility at Hatherly Beach, they began planning for a new shortwave
station which was ultimately established at Okeechobee in Florida.
Audio Insert
WYFR Theme music & Spanish ID
announcement
When the huge new facility in
Florida was readied, the transmitters at Hatherly Beach were removed, one by
one, and taken to Okeechobee where they were reinstalled. For a period of two years, shortwave station
WYFR was on the air at the two different locations, Massachusetts and
Florida.
The first transmitter at Hatherly
Beach to be removed and reinstalled at Okeechobee was the new 100 kW
Continental 418D which had been recently installed under WYFR. That was at the end of the year 1977. Then, each of the remaining Hatherly Beach
units was removed from service in turn and reinstalled at Okeechobee.
The final broadcast from WYFR
Hatherly Beach ended at 2052 UTC on November 17, 1979. That broadcast was beamed to Africa over a 50
kW transmitter on 21525 kHz. When that
transmitter was removed, the Hatherly Beach Scituate transmitter station was
silenced forever, at the end of its sixty years of illustrious service.
A visitor to the historic site in 1993
described it as abandoned and covered with overgrowth, though it is now in use
as an upscale housing area.
Shortwave WYFR has always been a
reliable verifier of reception reports from listeners, and this was true right
from the beginning at Hatherly Beach, though the office at Oakland California
was the location from which the QSL cards were issued.
At least three different QSL cards
verifying WYFR at Hatherly Beach are known.
Two different printings are known of the card showing microphones and the station callsign
in large red lettering. A third card is
similar in design, though instead of microphones, the silhouette of tall
buildings is shown.
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The New Sputnik Radio in Moscow - 09:45
Sputnik Music
New Sputnik Radio replaces the
previous Voice of Russia
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Australian DX News - 15:47
Bob
Padula
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SQOTW15: Special QSL of the Week, Russian Jammer
- 24:20
As
our special QSL for the week, we present the story of another QSL card
verifying the reception of a jamming transmission as heard on shortwave, this
time from Radio Moscow. At the time, our
DX editor Adrian Peterson was living in Poona India and in those days, a
multitude of Russian jamming transmitters could be heard on all of the
international shortwave bands.
On May 2, 1984, his radio receiver
was tuned to 11870 kHz and he heard one of these jamming transmitters. It would appear that this jammer was aimed at
covering the programming from a 250 kW BBC transmitter on Ascension Island in
the Atlantic Ocean.
In that era, Adrian Peterson was
sending many reports to Radio Moscow for verification of their many different
transmitter sites and he enclosed a report on the Russian jamming transmission
together with several other reports on their regular program broadcasts. In due course, a QSL card was received from
Radio Moscow verifying the 11870 kHz transmission, a picture card showing a
main thoroughfare in Moscow known as Kalinin Prospekt, though these days it is
known as New Arbat Avenue.
The WRTVHB for 1984 lists a Russian
transmitter on 11870 kHz with regular programming, though the specific location
is not shown.
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Music of the World - 25:49
Mexico:
Marimba orchestral
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Closing Announcement - 26:11
Thanks for listening to “Wavescan”,
international DX program from Adventist World Radio
Researched and written in
Indianapolis
Next week:-
1.
The news you are waiting for: The results of our big “Focus
on Asia” Annual
DX Contest
for the year 2014: Rare, Unusual, Unique QSLs
2.
WRMI Insert
3.
Australian DX Report
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. Remember too, you can send a reception report to each
of the DX reporters when their segment is on the
air here in Wavescan: Japan, Bangladesh, Philippines, Australia &
India. They will verify with a colorful QSL card. Return postage and an address label are
always appreciated.
Wavescan address:-
Box 29235
Indianapolis
Indiana 46229 USA
Wavescan @ AWR.org
Jeff White, shortwave WRMI
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Music Outrun - 27:52
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Program Ends - 28:54
