Our opening story about a radio wedding in this edition of Wavescan took place during the year 1920, more than one hundred years ago. It was a long distance novelty proxy wedding, it was conducted over the air by wireless operators, and it was conducted in Morse Code, probably the only Morse Code wedding in … Read more
In our brief mini-series of topics here in Wavescan about the VOA Voice of America radio stations in the Philippines, we have presented the story about their first relay station, which began as a submarine operation under the callsign KZSO which subsequently morphed into a landbased station as KZFM in Manila city. We move on … Read more
The Voice of America radio stations in the Philippine Islands, that subsequently became so well known throughout the international radio world, underwent a very small though very interesting beginning towards the end of the Pacific War in the middle of last century. In order to understand those early origins way back then, let’s go back … Read more
The story of the Good Ship “Radio Scotland” begins back in the year 1904. That was the year in which the John Brown Shipyards on the Clyde in Scotland built the 90 ft. long, 500 ton, motorless barge LV “Comet“. The “Comet” was constructed under contract to the Commissioner of Irish Lights in Eire for … Read more
Back during the concentrated events in the Pacific in the middle of last century, there was a whole host of radio ships on the air with varying forms of local and international radio communication. The Americans used somewhere around 50 different vessels as radio communication ships over a period of time, and the Australians used … Read more
During the Pacific War in the middle of last century, the American forces operated a massive fleet of more than 50 radio communication ships. Some of these ships were indeed floating radio stations, whereas others were ships that were performing other wartime duties, and they were also in use permanently or temporarily as radio communication … Read more
Back in the year 1951, at the time when plans were laid for the preparation of the ship “Messenger” as the radio broadcasting ship “Courier“, it was postulated that an additional six similar ships would be provided for use in various sea going locations around the world. These ships, it was stated, could be taken … Read more
The most famous of all of the ships that carried a relay of programming on behalf of the Voice of America was the good ship “Courier“; but it did not begin its life story in this way. This is what happened. The ship that became the “Courier” was laid down in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on the … Read more
On this occasion here in Wavescan, we present the story of three more ships in the Pacific that were on the air with VOA programming, and they were all associated with Operation Crossroads, the twin atomic detonations at Bikini Atoll in July 1946. All three ships were American navy vessels, and all three were of … Read more
In our continuing series of topics on shipboard radio stations used as relay stations for programming from the Voice of America, we come to ship number 4, the USS Spindle Eye. Plans for this new radio ship were developed during the year 1944 and it was intended for use during the projected invasion of Japan. … Read more