According to the Asahi Shimbun (Newspaper),
Nagoya edition, Sunday September 1 and Tuesday September 3, 1963, FEN at Nagoya began
broadcasting from Sorami-cho, Minato-ku, Nagoya in October 1953.
The FEN transmitter and antenna (but not the studio)
were loacted at a facility operated by the 1st Communications Squadron, the unit
that provided communications for Headquaters, 5th Air Force. According to the
1953-1954 Yearbook of the Squadron, they called the site the
"Little Alcatraz" of Nagoya because of its extreme isolation.
Headquarters, 5th Air Force was in Nagoya from May,1946
to June 30, 1957 except for the period from December 1, 1950 to August 31, 1954 during
when it was in Korea. 5th Air Force, along with the 1st Communications Squadron,
relocated to Fuchu Air Station. By July 1, 1957, the FEN transmitter and antenna
were all that remained at "Little Alcatraz."
Sorami-cho is reclaimed land extruding from Nagoya Port
and Ise Wan (Bay). Nagoya Jo (Castle) which is referred to in "A Brief History
of the Far East Network" written by H. Jordan Roscoe, is about 14km north of
Sorami-cho.
With a transmitter power of 10,000 watts, it's probably
more appropriate to think of Nagoya as a full-fledged transmitter rather than a relay
The Nagoya station ceased broadcasting at 2400 hours
JST on Tuesday, September 3, 1963. As the station prepared to leave the air, FEN
broadcast special announcements to Nagoya listeners inviting them to tune to either the
station at Iwakuni or shortwave. In spite of the good intentions, the signal from
Iwakuni was too weak to be listenable in Nagoya.
During a very large typhoon in September 1959, FEN
Nagoya was knocked off the air for an extended period of time. The same storm killed
approximately 5,000 people in and around Nagoya.
Zenro also provided two interesting articles from 1953.
This page last modified on Saturday, 25-Oct-2003 10:03:07 EDT
