Page 1 of 25 Significant Dates International Shortwave Propaganda Broadcast 1921 The earliest documented licensed shortwave broadcaster from the United State began as a 1921 “garage gimmick” of engineer Frank Conrad, evolving into Westinghouse- operated station 8XK (also 8XS and later W8XK), using a 40-kW transmitter in east Pittsburgh used to relay KDKA programming. 1922 Radio Moscow established a transmitter station RV-1 in the Moscow region. 1923 General Electric builds shortwave stations W2XAD and W2XAF in Schenectady, New York. 1923 With the encouragement of the US Navy, RCA setup a broadcasting station in China called Radio Corporation of China, RCC. It was not a radio station run by Chinese citizens and was shut down by the Northern Chinese warlords before 1927. 1924 Crosley’s W8XAL (originally 8XAL and eventually WLWO) first went on the air as an experimental station using 10-kW with a non-directional antenna. 1925 March Radio broadcasting began in Japan. They soon opened relay stations in Liaotung in 1925, Korea in 1927 and Taiwan in 1931. 1925 NBC/RCA began shortwave programming using a 25-kW transmitter in Bound Brook, N.J., with the call sign W3XAL. 1926 The League of Nations passed a resolution preventing nations from making radio broadcasts which might have a political religious or spiritual content damaging to international relations. 1926 February JOAK (Tokyo Central Broadcasting) began shortwave transmissions to amateur radio hams overseas, asking them to write in if they had received the transmissions, which were made on 30 and 35 meters shortwave. These transmissions were principally directed towards Australia and the West Coast of the United States. 1927 Feb 23 The bill creating the Federal Radio Commission was signed into law by President Calvin Coolidge. The FRC regulated all broadcasting in the United States. 1927 The Netherlands began regularly scheduled shortwave broadcast beyond its own borders. 1928 NHK, Nippon Hoso Kyokai (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) formed domestic radio stations into a national shortwave network using 5-kW transmitters. The Sendai Central Broadcasting station focused on the Japanese community in California. 1928 The first major Chinese radio station established with a legitimate infrastructure was the Central Broadcasting System in 1928 by the Nationalist Party. The Communist Party of China , CPC, then established the Yan'an Xinhua Broadcasting Station in 1940. 1928 Holland begins shortwave broadcast. Version 4/17/2021 Page 2 of 25 1929 Soviet Union begins shortwave broadcast targeting Europe, the Americas, the Middle East and Japan. Initial languages were English, French and German (with additional ones by 1939). 1931 France began broadcasting to French colonies in Asia, Africa, and the West Indies. 1931 In the late 1920’s Berlin started to jam the programs of Radio Komintern. In 1931 the USSR jammed Romanian radio. 1932 BBC, Italy and Great Britain began shortwave broadcast. 1932 ITU ITU adopted its current name, the International Telecommunication Union, to reflect its responsibility for total oversight of communications on a global basis. 1932-34 The League of Nations called on all countries to use radio "to create better mutual understanding among peoples.” 1933 Aug. 18 Volksempfanger Josef Goebbels introduces the German radio Volksempfanger model VE301. 1934 Belgium began shortwave broadcasts to the Congo. 1934 Austria jammed German radio. 1934 June 19 FRC>FCC The Federal Communications Commission replaces the Federal Radio Commission to regulate radio communications. 1935 June 1st Japan began using shortwave propaganda to promote its worldwide propaganda with English and Japanese directed to the United States. Additional languages were soon added, and broadcast extended to Europe, South America and the Pacific region using 50-kW on 14.6 MHz. Their broadcast showed little resemblance to the propaganda of Nazi Germany, but more to the propaganda of wartime BBC. Many broadcasts contained a high degree of "truth," although "selective truth" favorable to Japan. The exception was the propaganda issued by the Army and Navy Ministries, which was less truthful. 1935 By 1935, Radio Moscow was devoting considerable effort to warn the rest of Europe about the dangers of German national socialism. 1935 Germany begins barrage of radio transmissions in Spanish to Latin America attempting to get several countries to go to war with the United States. A new model Volksempfanger was introduced. 1935 August Japanese criticism of the American government began with shortwave broadcast about possible war with America resulting from the American policy in the Pacific. 1935 October Japan’s shortwave broadcast moved from 14.6 MHz using call sign JVH to 10.66 MHz with call sign JUN. Version 4/17/2021 Page 3 of 25 1936 January 1st Japan formed its own news agency, Domei, to provide news from a Japanese perspective. They stopped using news reports from established news agencies that gave the news from a British or American viewpoint. 1937 CBS - W2XE installs new 10-kW RCA transmitter in Wayne, New Jersey and was used broadcast to South America, eventually becoming WCBX in 1939. 1937 Denmark, NBC and CBS (W2XE) began in international shortwave broadcast with 10- kW transmitters. CBS used a pair of Vee (half Rhombic) antennas aimed at Europe and South America. 1938 April 1 28 countries signed a League of Nations convention entitled "Concerning the use of International Broadcasting in the cause of Peace." The agreement prohibited the radiation from their territories of broadcasts detrimental to good international understanding, of warlike and subversive propaganda and of false news, and to promote cultural and peaceful relations with other countries. Germany and Italy did not sign the agreement. But this effort did little to stop the worsening propaganda war of the late 1930s. The Middle East was the scene of the first full-scale "war" between democratic and fascist shortwave radio stations. 1938 German Goebbels concentrates all radio operations to Zeessen with longwave, mediumwave and shortwave transmitters. They now have 1000 employees, announcers, musicians, writers and engineers Germany employed sympathetic foreigners or those who had lived overseas extensively, such as: Chicago-born Douglas Chandler known on air as “Paul Revere” Iowa born-and-raised defector Fred W. Kaltenbach (who opened each of his programs with “Greetings to my old friend, Harry in Iowa” William Joyce as “Lord Hee Haw” Edward Delaney “E.D. Ward” Former London Daily Mail correspondent Jane Anderson “Georgia Peach” Former Chicago Tribune correspondent Donald Day, Robert Best “Mr. Guess Who” Constance Drexel and Prof. Max Otto Koischwitz “Jim” and “Mr. OK” Mildred Gallars from Maine “Axis Sally” 1930s late Russia began jamming German broadcast using their Italian medium wave service. 1938 Federal Communications Commission (FCC) accepted the Frequency Allocation Bill of the Cairo Conference in and distributed new frequencies. 1938 Japan is now broadcasting shortwave into Europe, South America, Eastern and western United States, Hawaii, Java, Australis, the Straits Settlements and China using 50-kW. In addition, Japan broadcast to China in English, Japanese, French and Chinese using a 10-kW mediumwave transmitter with call sign XGOA. 1938 July NBC, Westinghouse and General Electric pooled their resources and established two networks – one for Europe and one for Latin America. NBC’s outlet in Bound Brook, N.J. (W3XAL) relayed five daily broadcasts in German. Version 4/17/2021 Page 4 of 25 1938 Fifty percent of German household have a Volksempfanger receiver which totaled over 8 million receivers. 1939 Mongolian, Manchu and Russian languages were added to Japanese broadcast. 1939 From their studios at Naven, Germany, and from ten short-wave transmitters located near Berlin at Zeesen, Nazi broadcasters were sending 12 hours of short-wave broadcasts to the United States each day. According to U.S. analysts, Nazi propaganda sought to split Americans from their leaders and pit labor against management, blacks against whites, and Gentiles against Jews. 1939 The BBC set up a large scale monitoring service that continued throughout the cold war named BBC Monitoring (BBCM). Alongside the BBCM in Caversham, Berkshire, England is a US monitoring organization called Open Source Enterprise (OSE), which was and today is part of US Intelligence. During the Cold War over 60 people at BBCM followed Soviet radio broadcasts, TV and wire agency reports 24/7, including Radio Moscow’s shortwave output in over 80 languages. OSE concentrated on China and BBCM kept track of the USSR, although OSE always translated Soviet newspapers. Today BBCM handles all open source media from 25% of the world while OSE handles the remaining 75%. 1939 CBS Queens, NY was the first sponsored foreign propaganda broadcast listening station. They monitored 24 countries and provided linguists for translations. 1939 July W8XAL>WLWO W6XBE>KGEI The Federal Communications Commission converts the licenses of the shortwave stations from experimental to commercial to allow commercials to support their operation and were given regular call letters. Power limit was increased to 50-kW and directional antennae were required. They could now sell commercials but were expected to promote “international good will.” W8XAL became WLWO Cincinnati. W6XBE became KGEI (GE International). 1939 November Princeton University set up the Princeton Listening Center in its School of Public Affairs.