Memory Corner: Wireless and Television

Name: Bernard Curtis G4UEY. Via Tony Marriott Date of Birth: withheld Topic: Wireless and Television In the days when short wave ruled. By Bernard Curtis G4UEY. Listening to Radio Australia recently playing requests for the Australian Forces in East Timor reminded me of the time when I was in Burma in 1945-1946. In those days Short Wave was the only means we had to hear any English broadcasts at all. So we were all compulsive Short Wave listeners then. That is if we were lucky enough to get our hands on a radio receiver at all. Up in the forward areas while hostilities were still in progress I hardly ever came across a receiver at all for recreational purposes. As I was a Regimental signaler and operated a number "48" type Transceiver, I could at times tune off net and hear the English news broadcast from All India Radio. These broadcasts were on 6 & 7 MHz., which these sets covered. But for the ordinary front line soldier there was precious little radio, either for news or entertainment. For the first few months after the War ended things didn't improve very much in this respect. My Battalion became stationed in the Shan Hills in Eastern Burma in the little Hill Station of Kalaw. In our bamboo hut that most of the Signal Platoon were housed we utilized a couple of "48" sets for our entertainment by making some home-brew loud speakers. This consisted of soldering a thin brass bolt to the center of the diaphragm of one earphone after detaching it from the head band, and then attaching a cone made from stout map paper to the end of the bolt with the aid of two thin tin washers. We would then mount it to the side of the set. It was rather a tinny sound. But at least we could hear the radio without the need to wear the headphones. We were restricted to 6 and 7 MHz. still, but a British Forces Programme was transmitted from New Delhi by All India Radio on 7 MHz. During the early morning and again in the evening. We could also hear a couple of Programmes on 6 megs from Rangoon at Breakfast time and Lunch (or Tiffin Time,) as we called it. One innovation we made at that time so that the news of the day was made known to all members of the Battalion was this. The BBC were at that time broadcasting a news bulletin read at dictation speed. This reached us at our local time of 07.30 in the morning. We could just hear this on 6.195 MHz. before long distance reception faded out for the day on 49 meters. So a "48" set was installed in the Signal Office, and one of the exchange operators would tune it in at that time, and a Corporal from the Intelligence Section came in and wrote the Bulletin down. This was then duplicated and a copy was then posted on each Companies notice board. In early 1946 the Battalion moved further into the Shan States to a place called Taunggyi, and I was made Signal Store man, the older Campaigners having departed for Blighty on Demob. One day a portable radio was brought in to the Stores, to see if we could do anything with it. Of course it was a valved job, no transistors then. It only covered the Long and Medium waves and of course we had no suitable batteries to power it. I did fix up some external power source, but there were no Medium Wave stations within day light range, and we could hear precious little after dark. But of course it did contain a good quality 5 inch moving coil Loud Speaker. So by connecting a lead to the output transformer of this Speaker and with a jack plug on the other end which I plugged into the Headphone socket of a "48" set we had excellent sound reproduction at last! This became our nightly entertainment as we sat outside the store tent and fried up our eggs and chips on a make shift fire, (there being no canteen for the first few weeks there). When the Signal Officer eventually found out what I had done he called me a crafty so and so for not telling him that this was possible to do. About the middle of February two proper amenity radio sets arrived from the UK I am not quite sure of their make, they were not P.C.R. sets, they came later. But these were in green metal boxes with two metal box type external loudspeakers. The sets had band spread tuning on all the international broadcast bands. The power supply involved a vibrator unit for use with a 6 or 12 volt car type battery. This was absolutely necessary, as there was no main electricity in these parts. Unfortunately, for transit purposes they had to be sent dry and so they had to be topped up with acid before they could be activated. Our Motor Transport Company did not have any. So these sets had to sit in the stores for about a fortnight before acid could be obtained. Then we had to activate the batteries and organise the charging of them from the engine of the truck that drove an ex Japanese generator that supplied light to the Officers Mess and Company Offices and the Canteen that had been organised by that time. One set was allocated to the Officers Mess and the other one was for the other ranks. As I said earlier everything we could receive had to be on short wave and involved tuning in different frequencies according to the time of day. So as the Canteen building was but a short distance from the Signal Store tent the set remained in the stores, and we mounted the Speakers in the Canteen connected to the set by signal cables. In this way I could keep the set tuned in and look after the charging of the batteries. The speaker in the portable set was wired in parallel for me to hear. This worked very well for a time, until one Morning the Roman Catholic denomination decided to hold a service in the Canteen. I hadn't read the orders the night before and did not know about this. When I came back from Breakfast I turned on the set for a bit of music while I tidied up. Some records were being broadcast from Rangoon, when suddenly a chap came running in shouting for me to turn off the radio right away. When I asked why he said that ther. Shortly after this episode I went on leave to India. It was the only leave I had in two and a half years. Apart from the journey up the Bay of Bengal from Rangoon to Calcutta, I then travelled almost the length of the sub continent to reach my leave destination, but that is another story. By the time I returned to Burma in May 1946 the Battalion were stationed in Southern Burma in a place called Toungoo and the Monsoon was imminent. Many more radio's had appeared by this time. As most of the Companies were then housed in fairly waterproof huts each hut had its own radio. One of our Signalers had the job of going round and servicing all the car type batteries that powered them. Woe betides him if the battery went down when the Andrews Sisters were singing "Rum and Co-Ca-Cola"! I think the provision of these radios went a long way in keeping up morale during this terribly wet and humid period. In May also of that year in Ceylon [now Sri Lanka) a high power short wave transmitter had just came on the air at Ekala and with studios in Columbo. It became The Forces Broadcasting Service Radio SEAC Ceylon It beamed its programmes 18 hours a day across the Bay of Bengal to all the forces that were stationed in Burma, Malaya, and Singapore at that time. It broadcast for most of the time on 15.120mhz.in the 19 meter band and reception was usually quite good. The programmes were mostly records and request items, like the Andrews Sisters and Bing Crosby and The Ink Spots and News on the hour. Sometimes they relayed the BBC General Forces Programme or Overseas Service as it was fast becoming. It was on this station in Ceylon that David Jacob's and Desmond Carrington first cut their teeth as announcers and D.J.'s and they can still be heard on the air till this day on Radio Two. Radio SEAC, which actually stood for South East Asia Command, had the ability to switch its beam antenna in the opposite direction and beam a programme of request items to relatives back here in the UK This was usually done on a Sunday Evening UK time, long after we were gone to bed. I tuned in to a few of these broadcasts after I had returned to a very much snow covered and frozen UK in early 1947.