RE: [HCDX]: History/R Americas

[Kenneth R Simon <p003115b@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I wrote an article on Radio Americas for Radio TV Experimenter in the 
mid-sixties. I was "given" a photo of the site by a radio ham would said 
he worked for the FAA beacon on the island. I also visited the station 
headquarter in Coral Gables and let them tell me it "commericial station" 
and showed me a rate card. From a propaganda viewpoint their rhetoric was 
pretty lame and Castro's jamming of 1557-1563 KHz gave them added cachet.
It wasn't too hard for anybody to figure out the Langley VA hand was on 
the station's on-off switch. Besides 1560 KHz they were often on 6MHz 
and I belived there was another listed frequency but I have forgotten it.
The US has had a bug up it's bum when it comes to Castro and in Miami FL 
(where I use to live) being Anti-Castro was almost an invitation to CIA 
funds.


Ken Simon
p003115b@xxxxxxxxxxxxx



On Thu, 21 Oct 1999, Thomas R. Sundstrom wrote:

> Radio Swan on 1160 had an incredible signal in New Jersey, on my
> Hammarlund HQ-150 and MW box loop or 150-foot LW. It dominated every
> night over Chicago and Salt Lake City. I first logged Radio Swan on 8
> August 1960.
> 
> If you want to read more about Radio Swan, read chapter 24 -- "CIA's
> Guano Paradise" -- in "The Invisible Government" by David Wise and
> Thomas B. Ross. Published in 1964 by Random House, the U.S. Library of
> Congress Catalog Number is 64-17933. (No ISBN numbers back then...)
> 
> There is also an interesting chapter titled "Black Radio" -- a radio
> that is captured and then operated as if all were normal to deceive the
> opposition.
> 
> The book is an interesting read. Try and track down a copy through
> larger libraries. I forget who steered me toward this book, but I think
> it was George Wood of Radio Sweden.
> 
> Tom Sundstrom
> http://www.trsc.com/
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-hard-core-dx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:owner-hard-core-dx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Jari Savolainen
> Sent: Thursday, October 21, 1999 7:56 AM
> To: hard-core-dx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [HCDX]: History/R Americas
> 
> 
> subject: History/R Americas
> 
> THE EAGLE THAT BECAME A SWAN
> 
> In the September 1997 issue of the Electronics Now
> magazine there was an interesting article about the
> early days of RL/RFE. The article was written by
> Stanley Leinwoll, who worked for the VOA from 1952-
> 1957, then joined RFE. In 1975 he became Director of
> Engineering for RL/RFE. So, what he writes is "inside"
> information.
> In the chapter "The Eagle That Became A Swan" he tells
> how in 1953 RFE put a mobile 50 kW mw transmitter,
> code named Eagle, on the air. It was located in
> Germany near the Czechoslovak border and operated
> on 854 kHz. This frequency was earlier used by AFN
> Berlin, but they moved to another frequency enabling
> RFE to operate. Romanian Radio Bucharest also used this
> frequency and heavily protested RFE using same channel.
> Also Czech jamming on 854 was severe. So the transmitter
> was closed down in 1956 and put into storage in Bremen for
> several years. Later (59-60 I think), the transmitter still
> inside its van was shipped by CIA to Swan Island in the
> Caribbean. There it became "commercial" Radio Swan, later
> Radio Americas. After eight years, in 1968, Radio Americas
> left the airwaves for good and this time the transmitter
> was moved to Vietnam. Broadcasting from an aeroplane, this
> clandestine was called Blue Eagle.
> -------------------
> Radio Americas was well heard also here in Finland those
> days, mw 1160v kHz and sw 6000 kHz (7.5 kW). The statistics
> show a total of about 100 QSLs in Finnish collections.
> -------------------
> Well, maybe to the younger listeners the names Swan Island
> or R Americas doesn't mean much, but those of us who scanned
> the bands in the 60's surely remember this station.
> 
> Best 73
> Jari Savolainen
> Kuusankoski
> Finland
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> This is a message from "Thomas R. Sundstrom" <trscons@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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> 
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This is a message from Kenneth R Simon <p003115b@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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For more information, please check http://www.kotalampi.com/hard-core-dx/
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