VOA Transmitter's 1942-1945
Seifert, Rick
of the Ocean". Thanks to all who answered.
On a similar vein, there has been some discussion of early VOA
tramsmitter sites/call letters and so forth. Here's a brief synopsis:
The Voice of America began full scale broadcasts in November of 1942, at
which time all independent shortwave stations in the United States were
leased to the government by their owners.
The transmitter sites, call letters, and their owners were:
San Francisco, Calif. KWID 100kw Assoc. Broadcasters Inc.
Brentwood,L.I., New York WCBX 50kw CBS
WCDA 10kw CBS
WCRC 50kw CBS
Mason, Ohio WLWO 75kw Crosley Corp.
Belmont, Calif. KGEI 50kw General Electric Co.
Schenectady, N.Y. WGEA 50kw General Electric
WGEO 100kw General Electric
Bound Brook N.J. WNBI 100kw NBC
WRCA 100kw NBC
Hull, Mass. WBOS 50kw Westinghouse Corp.
Scituate, Mass WRUL 50kw
World Wide Broad. Corp.
WRUS 100kw World Wide
WRUW 20kw World Wide
Wanting a greater shortwave presence, the OWI (office of War Information)
was successfull in developing additional shortwave sites, also to be
built and operated by private industry, in Delano and Dixon California in
1945. The Dixon site was built by NBC and was the home of KNBC, KNBI,
and KNBX. The Delano site was built by CBS and was the home of KCBFand
KCBA.
Construction at these sites added additional transmitters and call signs
in late 1945/early 1946. The additions were KCBR at Delano and KNBA at
Dixon.
This full time lease arrangement continued until 1947, when Walter Lemmon
of WRUL fought for and won the right to again program his shortwave
station, but only for 25 per cent of the time.
The Greenville transmitter site was dedicated in 1963 as the world's
largest and most powerful shortwave facility (at the time). Call letters
have never been assigned to this facility.
Rick Seifert
Voice of America
Washington, D.C. 20016
rsei...@usia.gov
(202)401-7104
ToddB2
>>The Voice of America began full scale broadcasts in November of >>1942,
at
>>which time all independent shortwave stations in the United States
>>were
>>leased to the government by their owners.
[Rest of post deleted]
WRNO has been called the first of the "modern" domestic US SWBC stations.
Would someone like to elaborate on how WINB fits into this history? I
thought that WINB started up in 1962. Was this a new license, or was this
simply a transfer of an existing SWBC transmitter to a new owner? If so,
where did the transmitter come from?
Todd Burleson
Tod...@aol.com
A.G. Davies
[Snip]
>The Voice of America began full scale broadcasts in November of 1942, at
>which time all independent shortwave stations in the United States were
>leased to the government by their owners.
>The transmitter sites, call letters, and their owners were:
[...]
> Belmont, Calif. KGEI 50kw General Electric Co.
Co-incidentally, a week or two ago I came across a reference to a shortwave
station at Belmont, California, operating under the callsign W6XBE with a 20kW
transmitter. Presumably, this may have been a predecessor of KGEI. Prior to
its official opening at Belmont, which must have been in late 1938 or very
early 1939, the transmitter had reportedly been used temporarily in
conjunction with some kind of fair elsewhere in California (possibly San
Francisco, but unfortunately I didn't note the details).
The source of this information is a Shanghai-based English-language weekly
newspaper, The North China Herald, of 18th January 1939. The story mentioned
that the newly opened W6XBE was the first SW station in the USA to the west of
Chicago, and was therefore expected to put a better signal into East Asia. The
station operated between 1600 and 0800 GMT on either 9530 or 15330 kHz,
carrying NBC programming. (Incidentally, I can't vouch for these details
myself!)
Incidentally, the history of radio broadcasting in and to Shanghai during the
1920s and 1930s is fascinating -- and was covered in quite a lot of detail in
the local press at the time. The many radio-related reports and readers'
correspondence cover what must have been some of the earliest examples of
deliberate jamming of broadcasting stations, as military and political
tensions built up in the area prior to the outbreak of World War II.
danbro...@gmail.com
> Yes, the VOA interval signal prior to "Yankee Doodle" was "Columbia Gem
> of the Ocean". Thanks to all who answered.
>
> On a similar vein, there has been some discussion of early VOA
> tramsmitter sites/call letters and so forth. Here's a brief synopsis:
>
> which time all independent shortwave stations in the United States were
> leased to the government by their owners.
>
> The transmitter sites, call letters, and their owners were:
> Brentwood,L.I., New York WCBX 50kw CBS
> WCDA 10kw CBS
> WCRC 50kw CBS
> Mason, Ohio WLWO 75kw Crosley Corp.
Found this post by Googling. I am writing an article on the VoA and you might be able to provide further information.
Please email of you can.
Thanks,
Dan
W1DAN
Mike Lamb
> Rick:
>
> Found this post by Googling. I am writing an article on the VoA and you might be able to provide further information.
>
> Please email of you can.
>
> Thanks,
> Dan
> W1DAN
Unknown
Jo Reggelt is one of those whingeing Pom elitist shitheads over at ENIGMA
2000, he must have had his ass sewn shut, for all the horseshit®, that flows
from his mouth!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"Jo Reggelt" wrote in message news:tb411c$4j2$1...@gioia.aioe.org...
Mike Lamb <mlam...@gmail.com> wrote in
news:0d1b338d-8468-494b...@googlegroups.com:
> If it is of any interest, I have two General Radio GR-1931A Amplitude
> Modulation Monitors, both with labels for KCBR (the Delano CA CBS relay
> site as noted above). I would be interested in learning anything further
> about these and about KCBR, and would be glad to share photos.
>
funded spy number stations in S.E. Asia during the 1950's. I may
include pictures of them in our next superb engima 2000 newsletter.
73