Malabar, Indonesia

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For other uses of Malabar, see Malabar (disambiguation).

Malabar is a town in Indonesia on the island of Java. It lies in West Java province near Mount Malabar (Gunung Malabar), a stratovolcano.

Radio History of Malabar

In the era just before the beginning of World War One, two spark wireless stations were established in the Dutch East Indies for naval communications. This was in the days before internationally recognized callsigns were in general usage and one of these stations, located at Sabang, was on the air in Morse Code under the irregular callsign SAB.

Immediately after the end of the war, there were four such stations in the Dutch East Indies, and these were all designated with callsigns in the new PK series as PKA Sabang, PKB Weltevreden, PKC Sitoebondo, PKD Koepang.

Soon afterwards, the Dutch government in Batavia, now known as Jakarta, announced that a monster-sized arc transmitter station, using Telefunken arc equipment, was under installation at Malabar, near Bandoeng. This massive 3.5 megawatt station was established for communication with the home office in the Netherlands.

The date for the official opening of this station was set at May 5, 1923. However, a tropical lightning strike destroyed some of the equipment and the opening was postponed until repairs were completed. However at this stage, arc transmitters were becoming obsolete and valve, or vacuum tube transmitters were soon afterwards installed at this same location on the island of Java.

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