Next in the log on Friday 22nd October 2021 was the Voice of America (VOA) broadcasting in the English language on 15565 kHz in the 19m band.
The Voice of America is the largest and the oldest US-funded international broadcaster.
VOA was established in 1942, with the VOA charter signed into law in 1976 by President Gerald Ford. Prior to the Second World War, all USA shortwave stations were privately controlled. Some of these included the National Broadcasting Network, the Columbia Broadcasting System, the Crosley Broadcasting Corporation and General Electric.
In about 1940, the Office of Coordination of Information forwarded releases to each station for shortwave broadcast to Latin America to counter Nazi Germany propaganda.
Prior to the Second World War, the US Office of the Coordinator of Information in Washington had commenced providing war news and commentary to the various commercial American shortwave radio stations for use on a voluntary basis through its Foreign Information Service headed by playwright Robert E. Sheerwood. He served as President Roosevelt’s speech-writer and information adviser.
Direct programming commenced a week after the entry of the US into World War II in December 1941, with the first broadcast from the San Francisco office of the FIS via General Electric’s KGEI transmitting to the Philippines in English
Following this, there was a broadcast to Germany which was called Stimmen aus Amerika (“Voices from America”) and was transmitted on February 1, 1942, from 270 Madison Avenue, New York City. It was Sherwood who actually coined the term “The Voice of America” to describe the shortwave network.
By the end of the war, VOA had 39 transmitters and provided service in 40 languages.
VOA headquarters is located in Washington D.C.
The VOA program consisted of music. The overall reception was good.
| S | I | N | P | O |
| 4 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
Below is a short video of my reception of the Voice of America.
References.
- Wikipedia, 2021, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America>, viewed 1st November 2021.
VK5PAS 