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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 N600, August 23, 2020
City of Indianapolis Celebrates 200th Anniversary: On the Radio Scene Shortwave WHRI
Currently the city of Indianapolis in the American state of Indiana is celebrating the two hundredth anniversary of its founding, though obviously these celebrations are now quite subdued due to the ravages of the China Virus. However, Indianapolis, as a planned city, was not the first capital in this state.
Under the original designation as the Indiana Territory, the town of Vincennes in the south west, named by French fur traders, was established in 1800 as the first territorial capital city for this area. Thirteen years later (1813), the functions of the capital city were transferred to the newly founded town of Corydon on the Ohio River in the south.
Then three years later again (1816), all of what remained of the Indiana Territory was then formalized as the State of Indiana. At that stage, a new location for the state capital was considered advisable, and somewhere in the center of the state was considered to be the most suitable location.
Historians tell us that the first European settlers in what is now Indianapolis were members of the Pogue and McCormick families, who chose land near the White River. somewhere around the year 1820. The new city there was designed by Alexander Raston, and he based his square grid pattern upon the already similar design for Washington, DC. Several names were considered for the new planned city in the center of the state of Indiana, including Concord, Suwarrow and Tecumseh, but it was Jeremiah Sullivan's suggested name, Indianapolis, that was finally chosen.
At the height of its popularity, the Indy 500 motor race was considered to be the world's largest single sporting event, with one million people flooding into Indianapolis for the occasion. However, due to the ravages of the China Virus, the date for the Indy 500 this year (2020) was postponed from the usual last Sunday in May right up to Sunday, August 23, today.
On the radio scene, we could ask the question: Has there ever been a shortwave broadcasting station on the air in Indianapolis? In answer: Yes, there was, listed right here for Indianapolis itself. This is the story.
A third of a century ago, Dr. Lester Sumrall procured 27 acres of empty farmland a couple of miles east of his thirteen year old television station, WHMB, which had been installed near Noblesville on the northern side of Indianapolis in 1972. Dr. Sumrall, a church pastor living in South Bend quite near to the Indiana northern border with Michigan, ventured into radio station ownership back in 1968 when he purchased the ailing FM station, WURD, and turned it into the highly successful WHME with 3 kW on 103.1 MHz.
In 1985, a 100 kW Harris shortwave transmitter Model SW100A was installed in a new building on the shortwave property near Noblesville, the first of what was intended to be a trio of shortwave transmitters at this location. In addition, two TCI sloping net-style log-periodic antennas, Model 527, were installed for coverage across the Atlantic and into Latin America.
Test transmissions began in December (1985), and the brand new shortwave station WHRI on the farmland property north of Indianapolis was officially opened in a special program beginning at 7:00 pm local time on Christmas Eve, December 24. The first entry in the WRTVHB (1986) for WHRI actually lists the location for this new shortwave station as Indianapolis. The registered callsign, WHRI, obviously identifies World Harvest Radio Indianapolis.
Two years later, another Harris-made 100 kW shortwave transmitter was installed at the Noblesville station, this time a slightly updated Model identified as the SW100B. Test broadcasts from this unit began in August 1987. In Sumrall terminology, this second transmitter was identified as Angel 2, and the previous transmitter as Angel 1.
There is some suggestion that this second transmitter was identified at one stage with the callsign WHRZ, though on air both transmitters were identified simply as World Harvest Radio, WHRI. However, back at that time the callsign WHRZ was held by an FM station at Providence, Kentucky with 3 kW on 97.7 MHz.
During the mid-1990s, station WHRI carried a program relay on behalf of two different radio organizations; Radio Croatia in Europe, and the budding WRMI in Miami, Florida. Then too, Radio Monitors International, the original DX program from Adventist Word Radio in Asia (Poona), was on the air back then from WHRI1 on 7400 kHz.
Comes the year 2003, and World Harvest Radio demonstrated an interest in acquiring two other shortwave stations here in the United States. These two stations were on the air with the super high power of 500 kW each, and they were originally established by the Christian Science organization as WCSN in Greenbush, Maine and WSHB at Cypress Creek, in South Carolina.
World Harvest Radio in South Bend, Indiana acquired both of these stations, and WCSN, Greenbush became WHRA, and WSHB in Cypress Creek (Furman) became ultimately WHRI, the new WHRI. The original WHRI in Indianapolis was no longer needed, and so it was closed, and it just remained silent for some time.
However, a new housing estate was closing in on the area nearby to the original transmitter site at Noblesville, and in any case, the station would have to move away some day anyway. The station was finally dismantled and the two 100 kW transmitters (WHRI1 and WHRI2) were conveyed elsewhere. The original Harris SW100A (Angel 1) went to WHRA in Maine, and the second Harris transmitter SW100B (Angel 2) went to the new WHRI at Furman in South Carolina.
The actual location for the WHRI transmitter building at Noblesville is now a small artificial lake in the center of a new housing estate. The WHRI radio location is gone, but the callsign has lived on, now at Furman in South Carolina.
Many radio historians describe the year 1922 as a year of rapid radio expansion throughout the whole world, a worldwide boom. Among the many collective events that assisted in fostering the development of radio as a mass medium of international communication, were, for example:
As a result of this tidal wave of interest in radio during the decade of the 1920s, the sale of radio sets and parts in the United States alone was worth $60 million, and electronics manufacturers were swamped with orders that were difficult timewise to fulfill.
At the beginning of the year there were just 50 or so mediumwave stations on the air in the United States, and by the end of that same year, a total of 569 mediumwave stations were on the air. It was the proliferation of all of these stations that ultimately set the boundaries for the mediumwave broadcasting band, which these days extends from approximately 530 kHz to 1700 kHz.
At 7:15 pm on March 23, 1920, the famous mediumwave station WLW was inaugurated in the Crosley American Automobile showrooms at 1601 Blue Rock Street, Cincinnati with 50 watts on what became the congested frequency of 833 kHz.
On June 8, radio station WEAR was inaugurated in a small room on the 18th floor of the Munsey Building at 7 Calvert Street in Baltimore, Maryland, with 10 watts on 1300 kHz. Station WEAR was Baltimore's first radio broadcasting station, and four days after it was launched, President Warren G. Harding made a historic speech, and it is claimed that he was the first president of the United States to speak to an audience on radio.
It was the occasion of the dedication of the Francis Scott Key Memorial at Fort McHenry in Baltimore. Francis Scott Key had written a poem in 1814 that later became the lyrics of the American National Anthem.
Friday, July 21 (1922) was another important day, at last for radio station WIAE in Vinton, Iowa. This station was unique in that it was the first mediumwave station in the United States that was owned and operated by a woman, Marie Zimmerman, and she herself actually took part in the technical construction of the broadcast equipment.
Over in England, Tuesday, February 14 (1922) was an important date, for that was when England's first radio broadcasting station was inaugurated. In Writtle, about 28 miles northeast of London, the Marconi station 2MT, or Two Emma Tok, as it was pronounced, with its 250 watts on 428 kHz was installed in a small ex-army hut not far from the Marconi factory in Chelmsford. The four-wire antenna system was supported on two masts 110 feet tall. Three months later, on May 11 (1922), the more famous 2LO was inaugurated on the 7th floor of Marconi House at 334 The Strand, London, with 100 watts on 857 kHz.
During the Third International Wireless Convention in London in 1913, numbers were issued to identify callsigns for local coverage radio stations in European countries, and the United Kingdom was granted the numbers 2 and 5 and 6. Hence, for example, 2MT Writtle, 2LO London, 5WA Cardiff, 6LV Liverpool. A total of around two dozen radio broadcasting stations were established in the United Kingdom back during that era, but no pattern has ever been discovered as to the implementation of these numbers; not in regard to location, not in regard to dates, not in regard to ownership, not in regard to type of station, not in regard to power, not in regard to frequency; no, not in regard to any observable pattern.
The first test transmissions from Radio Radiola in Paris were noted on June 26 (1922). This station was established to foster the sale of Radiola radio receivers. Each time when a bulletin of news was read, the information was read twice; initially at regular speed, and then followed by a reading of the same information at sow speed, so that listeners could write down details of what they heard.
In Honolulu, Hawaii, the first two radio broadcasting stations were inaugurated on the same day Thursday, May 11 (1922). Station KGU with 500 watts on 833 kHz is still on the air to this day, though now with 10 kW on 760 kHz. The other station, KDYX, owned by the Star Bulletin newspaper, was in operation for less than a year, though in some ways it gave way to the more famous KGMB.
The second radio station in New Zealand was opened in February at Courtenay Place, Wellington, and it was on the air for just one and a half hours on Monday and Friday evenings. The Dutch authorities opened a massive 1,200 kW longwave transmitter on the Malabar Coast in Indonesia, and they encountered arcing problems across antenna insulators in the antenna system, and with iron nails in the wooden masts that supported the antenna system.
On the shortwave scene during the year 1922, Dr. Frank Conrad at KDKA, together with several notable amateur operators, conducted propagation experiments on frequencies above the standard mediumwave bands. The notable David Sarnoff at RCA wrote a special report stating that the day was coming when shortwave transmitters with a power of 100 kW and 200 kW would provide worldwide coverage.
The first listing in the Radio Service Bulletins for a shortwave station well beyond the mediumwave band at 2000 kHz is dated February 1, 1922. The station that received this experimental Land Station license was (W)8XAH at the Ohio Mechanics Institute at the corner of Canal and Walnut Streets in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Experimentation with shortwave coverage was just now beginning to receive an impetus that grew rapidly over the coming years.