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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 N618, December 27, 2020

Sri Lanka Whales—NHK Relay Station

On previous occasions here in Wavescan, we have presented the story of whales and their mass strandings along ocean coastlines. Three months back (September 2020), some 500 Pilot Whales were stranded on the west coast of the Australian island of Tasmania; 100 were successfully diverted back into the open ocean, though unfortunately 400 died, before they were rescued. This was the largest mass stranding of whales in the known history of Australia.

The largest known mass stranding of whales anywhere in the world occurred at the South Pacific Chatham Islands in 1918, where 1,000 Pilot Whales were involved. This massive event occurred on Long Beach on the western edge of the main island. The main town of Waitangi lies at the southern edge of Long Beach, and the huge number of dead whales constituted a major health hazard that extended for a long period of time.

Just last month, on November 4 (2020), there was another similar event with the mass stranding of 120 whales at Panadura Beach in Sri Lanka. On each of these three major occasions, it was a pod of Pilot Whales that got stranded. These whales grow up to 20 feet long and they can weigh up to one ton each.

At Panadura Beach, which is just 15 miles south of Colombo city, personnel from the Sri Lankan Navy and Coastguard were assisted by local citizens in turning the whales around and moving them out to sea. In some cases, powerful motor boats were used to drag the whales out into the open ocean. Fortunately, only two of these whales died, from injuries received in attempting to come ashore.

While we are "in" Sri Lanka, let's take the opportunity to investigate their shortwave scene, and we choose the Japanese NHK Shortwave Relay Station that was installed at Ekala thirty years ago.

Over the years, the important and historic radio site at Ekala, a dozen miles north of the national capital Colombo, has contained four major international shortwave radio stations; Royal Air Force, BBC-SLBC, Voice of America, and NHK-Radio Japan.

It was in 1988 that plans were announced by the Japanese government for the installation of a shortwave relay station at Ekala in Sri Lanka. In February of the next year (1989), work began on this new NHK facility with the construction of a completely new building and the erection of four curtain antennas.

Initially, the original plans for this shortwave relay station indicated three transmitters at 300 kW, though subsequently only two were installed. Under the arrangements with the government of Sri Lanka, an additional four transmitters at 10 kW each would be installed in the original SEAC building for use in the Home Services of the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation. The station was built by NHK and then gifted to SLBC, who operated it on their behalf.

Test broadcasts from the two Japanese-made Kokosai shortwave transmitters began on the frequencies 9720 kHz and 11840 kHz on December 11, 1990. Three weeks later, on January 1 of the following year (1991), these two transmitters were taken into regular service, with programming provided via satellite from NHK in Tokyo. Both organizations, NHK in Tokyo and SLBC in Colombo, utilized these two transmitters for the broadcast of multi-language programming into Asia and the Middle East.

There were occasions when technical problems at NHK Ekala interrupted the usage of these two transmitters. Japanese technical personnel serviced the electronic equipment at Ekala six years later, and the station returned to the air again on December 9, 1996. Then another six years later again (2002), NHK transferred the relay of their programming from Ekala to the Deutsche Welle relay station at Trincomalee on the east coast of Sri Lanka, while renovation was underway at Ekala.

Then, finally, the end came. On the last day of May in the year 2013, without any fanfare, the SLBC finally closed the historic shortwave station at Ekala in Sri Lanka and transferred their own programming to Trincomalee. It was just too expensive to operate this relay station, and spare parts for the transmitters were becoming unavailable. However, as the well-known international radio monitor in Sri Lanka, Victor Goonetilleke, informs us, the equipment at the station appeared to be still in good condition, even at that stage. Along with the historic SEAC station at Ekala, the NHK station is now gone forever.