When the Eagle became a Swan ©

At 04:50 AM, December 2, 1953, Radio Free Europe put a 50 kw, mobile, medium-wave (AM band) transmitter, code name “Eagle” on the air to Czechoslovakia, with the playing of Beethoven’s “Egmont Overture.” This transmitter was in addition to the medium wave transmitter operating in Holzkirchen, near Munich, which was so heavily jammed that RFE decided to add the second transmitter. The mobile transmitter complex, located in Cham near the Czechoslovak border, consisted of seven trailers: a cooling van, studio van, frequency receiver, power supply van, diesel tanker, shop van, and a RCA 50 kw transmitter, identified as MB-50.

The frequency chosen for its broadcasts was 854 kHz, which happened to be the primary frequency of Radio Bucharest. That frequency also had been used with low power by the Armed Forces Network (AFN) in Berlin for the American military. High-level negotiations were required to get the AFN to agree to dropping the frequency so that RFE could use it. AFN moved to another frequency, and almost immediately began complaining that coverage was not as good as it had been previously on 854 kHz.

It is doubtful that RFE’s programs were heard as interference from Radio Bucharest was severe and two Czechoslovakia jammers began blocking the frequency within minutes after it went on the air. Romania protests to the United States and to Germany eventually  forced RFE to close down the transmitter.

The “Eagle” was quietly shipped to the Germany port of Bremenhaven, where it remained in storage for several years, until CIA thought it would be useful to move the transmitter into the Caribbean and begin a black radio operation beamed toward Cubs as “Radio Americas”.

The medium-wave transmitter, still inside its van, was shipped to Swan Island, where it broadcast to Cuba for the next eight years. The transmitter was then moved to Vietnam, where it conducted clandestine operations until the end of the war in 1974. While in Vietnam, the transmitter operated from an airplane, and was often referred to as “The Blue Eagle.”

Radio Romania today is still using the 855 kHz frequency with a 250 kW transmitter located at Tancabesti.