Addendum: Some clandestine radio operations

[1] The editor does not maintain in any way that this section contains any evidence that the radio broadcasting ships Galaxy and Olga Patricia had any (would-be)connections to clandestine radio operations or the AFVN/American Forces Radio Service.

See more at http://www.dxing.com/clandest.htm

[2] Other political colors were presumably waved from Voice of Greek Democrats Abroad, operating in 1971 on 908 kc(Burg-Magdeburg, GDR) and Voice of Truth, shortwave, from Bulgaria/Rumania, later GDR.(©Larry Magne)

[3] Similar stations in 1971 were Radio Red Flag and United Lao Races. ©Larry Magne.

[4] You may also be interested to read ”The Mystery Station On ”Island X”. Two secret Anti-Castro Stations! By Alice Brannigan, Popular Communications July 1998. And this material from

http://www.hard-core-dx.com

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. (J.Savolainen-FIN Oct. 21, 1999 in HCDX)

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. (T.Sundstrom-USA Oct 21, 1999 in HCDX)

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. K.Simon-USA Oct 23, 1999 in HCDX

Anyone interested in the history of Radio Americas may also want to read my article on La Voz de la Liberacion at

http://www.swl.net/patepluma/central/guatemala/vozlib.html

La Voz de la Liberacion was used by the CIA in its 1954 overthrow of Guatemala's elected democratic government. It was, in effect, the predecessor of Radio Americas and was run by the same people – David Atlee Phillips and E. Howard Hunt. David Atlee Phillips' book "The Night Watch" (1977) has interesting stories about both stations as well as other CIA operations that Phillips was involved in.(D.Moore-USA Oct. 25, 1999 in HCDX)