Our opening feature in this edition of Wavescan was the long and interesting information about radio broadcasting on the islands of Palau. It is worthy of note that preliminary plans for the shortwave station KHBN called for a broadcast facility to be installed in a ship. The original intent was to operate an international radio … Read more
Back in the year 1993, a special publication in the form of a regular radio magazine highlighted in its 74 pages the early radio history in Australia. On page 8 of this magazine, “The Dawn of Australia’s Radio Broadcasting”, the story is told of a small radio transmitter that was installed on two different ships … Read more
Tokyo Bay is a huge and wide bay that is landlocked and protected by several islands, large and small. Surrounding the bay are many well known cities such as Chiba, Kawasaki and Yokohama, and of course, Tokyo itself. Originally, Tokyo was known as Edo, the name of a ruling family in the Middle Ages. The … Read more
According to Greek mythology, the “phoenix” was a large and beautiful bird which could die in a fire and then arise as a new and young creature. Very little else is known about this mysterious bird. Almost as mysterious is the story of the radio ship “Phoenix” which was fitted out with a bevy of … Read more
Some months back, the Herald Tribune in southwest Florida reported on an important radio event that occurred more than seventy years ago. This is the story. The well-known radio promoter Powell Crosley had a palatial home built for himself at Venice in Florida. He loved fishing and he was the president of the Sarasota Angler’s … Read more
The story of the brilliant wireless inventor Guglielmo Marconi is very well known. He was born on April 25, 1874 at the family villa near Bologna in northern Italy, and just last Friday was the 128th anniversary of his birth. Marconi began his first wireless experiments on the top floor of the family home just … Read more
It is quite well known in the radio world that the Voice of America was on the air from the radio ship “Courier” while it was anchored in the harbor at the island of Rhodes in the eastern Mediterranean. However, it is not quite so well known that VOA was on the air in earlier … Read more
Quite recently, we received a surprising email message from Dr. Martin van der Ven in Germany alerting us to the fact that an internet website contains the story of an American mediumwave station that is now located on board a cargo ship. The radio station is KKOL and the ship is the “Coastal Ranger“. Mediumwave … Read more
During the era when the Voice of America was operating a radio station on board the Coast Guard vessel Courier, the BBC in London announced that they also planned on establishing a radio station on board a ship. This was also at the time when there were several pirate radio stations on board ships in … Read more
The Awatea Story Back in the days before World War II, there were two ships in Australasian waters that were quite famous in the international radio scene. One was the “Kanimbla” with its radio station VK9MI, and that was the story in Wavescan on a previous occasion. The other ship was the “Awatea” that plied … Read more