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"Wavescan" is a weekly program for long distance radio hobbyists produced by Dr. Adrian M. Peterson, Coordinator of International Relations for Adventist World Radio. AWR carries the program over many of its stations (including shortwave). Adrian Peterson is a highly regarded DXer and radio historian, and often includes features on radio history in his program. We are reproducing those features below, with Dr. Peterson's permission and assistance.
Wavescan N587, May 24, 2020
Vois Blong Yumi/Vanuatu on Shortwave
The first government radio broadcasting service in the New Hebrides/Vanuatu, Radio Vila, was inaugurated at Malapoa on Efate Island with a series of test transmissions in August 1961. The studios were installed in the Malapoa College, and the nearby shortwave transmitters were already on the air for inter-island and international radio communication.
The location for the shortwave transmitters is listed as Malapoa, which is an outer suburban area of Port Vila, the capital city. However, the geographic coordinates for the shortwave transmitters as given in the WR(TV)HB and in the shortwave listings in the Transmitter Document Project by Ludo Maes, indicate a location near the east coast of the island of Efate. This listed east coast location would seem to be a mistake; it is known that the shortwave transmitters for the communication station Vila Radio were located at Malapoa, quite near to Port Vila.
During the first era at Malapoa (1961-1971), the part-time usage of the shortwave communication transmitters provided radio program coverage to all islands in the New Hebrides. During the second era at Malapoa (1971-1994), two Australian-made shortwave transmitters were in use specifically for the broadcast of radio programming. A 2 kW AWA transmitter was installed in 1971, and a 10 kW TBC transmitter was installed eight years later, in 1979.
Then, during the year 1994, a new transmitter station for Vanuatu Radio, or Vois Blong Yumi as it is identified in the official Bislama language, was constructed on a vacant area of vegetation at the southern end of the small Emten Lagoon, a short distance southeast from Port Vila. The 10 kW TBC transmitter at the old Malapoa location was removed and reinstalled at the new Emten Lagoon station, together with a new twin-channel 10 kW Energy Omnix transmitter from Hudson Bay in New York in the United States.
However, four years later the station was off the air due to the harsh tropical weather and the shortage of spare parts. Some repairs were made, and the transmitters were reactivated, though soon afterwards the two STL (program feed) transmitters at the studio building malfunctioned. An attempt was made to feed the twin program service to the transmitters via two low-powered FM transmitters, but this was not very successful either.
That was the first era at Emten Lagoon, running from 1994 to 2008; and at that stage, the old equipment was refurbished, and new equipment was installed, including a new antenna system. Test broadcasts at half power were noted in Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Europe.
Fast forward five years to 2015, and on March 12 the onslaught of Cyclone Pam began. On Friday the 13th, the high velocity winds and storm surges knocked out all electrical and electronic circuits, which resulted in a total communication blackout throughout Vanuatu.
Government officials installed a temporary low-power FM station in the Met Office, though this facility provided radio coverage only in the capital city area, Port Vila. However shortwave programing from Radio Australia, Radio New Zealand International, and the nearby Solomon Islands Broadcasting Service provided a needed flow of information to listeners in Vanuatu. (The shortwave service from Radio Australia was closed two years later, 2017.)
A few days later, after the cyclone passed on to the southeast, the electricity distribution system and the programming service from Vois Blong Yumi were all back in service again. A few months later, the Prime Minister of Vanuatu made a call to the people of his island nation, urging that a reliable radio service must be installed. That was the second era for the transmitter facility at Emten Lagoon (2009-2016.)
As a result and with assistance from foreign aid, two new transmitters at 10 kW each were installed at the Emten Lagoon transmitter station, a mediumwave Nautel from Canada and a shortwave Hanjin from South Korea. These two new senders were officially inaugurated on December 16 last year (2019) on 1125 kHz and on 5040 kHz. That was the beginning of the third era for Radio Vanuatu at Emten Lagoon.
Would you know it, less than three months later (April 2020), another massive windstorm, Cyclone Harold, hit Vanuatu, and once again the station was damaged and disabled. Since then, the Emten Lagoon radio station has again been repaired and reactivated. It is on the air again these days, though, interestingly, three harmonics from the 10 kW Hanjin transmitter on 3945 kHz have been noted widely throughout the world. These harmonic emanations have been noted on 7890 kHz, 11835 kHz, and 15780 kHz.
An Assessment Survey published in March 2015 stated that Vanuatu is considered to be the world1s most vulnerable country due to natural hazards: cyclone, tsunami, oceanic storm surge, coastal flooding, river flooding, climatic changes, temperature extremes, drought, rising sea level, landslides, volcanic eruption, and earthquake.
More about the radio scene in Vanuatu next time.