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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 N629, March 14, 2021

Moonbounce Radio

Just a few weeks back, on February 6 (2021), golf lovers were remembering an important golf event that occurred, not here upon planet Earth, but rather up there on the Moon. Just fifty years earlier (February 6, 1971), astronaut Alan Shepard hit a golf ball on the Moon for the first time in the history of lunar exploration.

With a touch of humor, we might say that golf is a foolish game; that is, you hit the ball and then you chase it yourself. However, if you play baseball, for example, then you hit the ball and send somebody else after it!

With the approval of the NASA administration, Alan Shepard took a modified golf club and two golf balls up to the Moon for the Apollo 14 Moon landing event in 1971. His space suit was too bulky to use two hands, so he swung the modified golf club with just his right hand.

After two single handed swings which produced nothing more than two small divots of scattered Moon dirt, he made contact on the third swing and sent the ball flying. He then hit the second ball also. Recent research regarding this first golfing attempt on the Moon reveals that the first ball travelled just 24 yards, and the second ball travelled just 40 yards.

According to the American weekly business journal with the title Broadcasting, the first occasion for a hole-in-one during a Golf Tournament that was broadcast on radio took place in Salt Lake City on August 11, 1946. The announcer who was covering the tournament on live radio was Jon Duffy, the radio station was mediumwave KUTA with 5 kW on 570 kHz, the Green was Number 6 at the Golf Club, and the happy golfer was Chub Utter.

In June 1934, a small news item about a coming attempt at bouncing a radio signal off the Moon was published in local newspapers in England, and also in radio magazines further afield. This Moonbounce radio experiment was intended, the news items stated, to discover whether it was possible to relay radio signals from one part of planet Earth to another part of planet Earth, via the Moon.

It was stated that this important experiment was under the direction of Professor E. V. Appleton of the University of London, and that a shortwave transmitter at Daventry would focus a signal up to the Moon. In addition, Professor Appleton sought the cooperation of amateur radio personnel all around the Earth to monitor the down coming signal reflected from the Moon.

However, that elaborate plan was never implemented; in fact it was simply a coverup ruse. The real Daventry event was staged eight months later, on Tuesday, February 26 (1935), when an RAF Heyford heavy bomber was flown in a predetermined flight pattern near the BBC shortwave station at Daventry.

Mobile receiving equipment was installed in an ambulance that was modified for the occasion, and it was stationed in an isolated farming location some five miles from the BBC shortwave station at Daventry. At the time, the BBC operated two shortwave transmitters at 10 kW each at Daventry, and the actual transmitter in use for this now historic experiment operated on 49.8 m. (6025 kHz) under the callsign GSA with an open carrier.

So secretive was this "Daventry Experiment" that there were only three people on the ground who witnessed the event, and the pilot in the plane above was unaware of the purpose for his strange flight pattern that day, until many years later. Yes, the metal aeroplane did indeed reflect the radio signal back to a radio receiver, and this was indeed the very first radar experiment in England.

In the meantime, Germany (among several other countries) was also experimenting in the development of what is now known as radar; that is, the use of reflected radio signals to indicate the position of distant planes and ships. The German test equipment was installed at Bakenburg on the island of Rügen, which is located in the Baltic Sea just off the extreme northeast coast of continental Germany.

The German system, which was identified as Würzmann, used a 120 kW Telefunken transmitter that radiated very brief pulse signals on a wavelength of 53 cm (564 MHz). This equipment was set up on the island of Rügen towards the end of the year 1943, and it was instrumental in successfully detecting a distant flight of airplanes and distant ships at sea.

However, in addition to the distant aircraft and ships, the Würzmann equipment also detected another distant reflected signal which, upon further investigation, turned out to be the rising Moon. There was a difference, though. The reflected radio signal from the Moon returned to the Earth at 30 Hertz above the frequency of the transmitted signal from Earth, due to the Doppler Effect caused by the speed of the Moon moving through space.

That was the story of the first radio signal reflected back to the Earth from the Moon. More about this interesting topic next time.


The Radio Scene on Rügen Island

As mentioned above, the first radio signal reflected from the Moon back to Earth was transmitted from the special Würzmann equipment that was set up on the island of Rügen at the end of the year 1943. Rügen Island, at the extreme northeast edge of Germany, was noted also for another significant era of radio information.

Rügen Island in the Baltic Sea is Germany's largest island, and it is an irregularly shaped island 30 miles by 25 miles. This popular holiday island is famous for its White Cliffs, somewhat similar to the White Cliffs of Dover in England.

Ancient settlements of Germanic peoples on Rügen date back to the earliest years of European history; and over the centuries, this island has been under the influence of several nearby countries, including Denmark and Sweden, as well as Slavic and German kingdoms. It was also an integral part of East Germany before reunification in 1990.

The first maritime wireless station in the southern reaches of the Baltic Sea was installed near the resort city of Swinemunde, which today lies at the border between mainland Germany and Poland. This Morse Code wireless station was taken into service on September 11, 1911 and it operated under the international German callsign DAS.

Almost 20 years later, in 1930, a new maritime radio station for the southern areas of the Baltic Sea was constructed on the island of Rügen, some 50 miles northeast of the original DAS station at Swinemunde. The transmitter building was constructed a little south of Lohme on eastern Jasmund Peninsula, with the tower on the hill known as Teufelsberg.

The callsign for the then defunct Swinemunde station DAS was transferred to the new station on Rügen. The receiver station was installed near Glowe, on the same Jasmund Peninsula.

Two days before the arrival of the Russian army at the end of World War II in 1945, Rügen Radio was deliberately destroyed with explosives. However, another Rügen Radio was rebuilt at the same site under the East German administration, and it was given a new callsign, Y5M.

After the reunification of Germany in 1990, the international callsign for Rügen Radio was amended, and Y5M became DHS, almost the same as the original DAS some 3/4 of a century earlier. Rügen Radio was closed in 1998, and the final mast at Lohme was felled on April 4, 2018.

The only mediumwave broadcasting station on Rügen Island was erected near the small city of Putbus, on the southeast coast. The Putbus station was installed under the East German administration in 1960, and it radiated the programming of DDR Ferienwelle with 4 kW on 729 kHz, though the power level was subsequently increased to 10 kW. The antenna mast stood 170 feet tall.

After reunification, the Putbus station carried the programming of Deutschland Radio Kultur until it was closed in 2009. In order to save the tower from demolition, the station was then offered out to commercial operation.