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• Between East Pakistan and West Pakistan, a thousand miles of India intervenes. One of the world's mightiest radio networks, born with a new nation, speaks many languages to its people and the world.

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Pakistan found its place on the world map only six years ago. This State of 80 million people is divided into two parts with one thousand miles of alien territory separating them. The new sovereign State was heralded by the chime of the midnight hour of the 14th of August, 1947.

It had inherited three low power medium-wave stations from British India one at Peshawar, in the Northwest Frontier Provinces; one at Lahore, the Capital of Punjab, 300 miles away from Peshawar; and one at Dacca, in East Pakistan, over a thousand miles away from Lahore. And there were not more than nineteen engineers to man these three stations. Karachi, the Federal Capital, had no radio station at all.
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Some of the problems which confronted the handful of Radio Pakistan workers on the morning of the 14th were: how to man the existing stations - there was chaos in the country and no recruitment was possible - how to maintain the technical efficiency of the three stations when spare parts were left unredeemable at Delhi; how to centralize the news; and how to provide and where to locate a radio station to reive the Federal Capital.

The questions of maintaining the stations and the procuring of spare parts were left in the hands of Providence. News Units were created at Lahore and Dacca which also fed Peshawar on telephone lines.
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The News Units at these two places had to solve the problem of supplying news for, at that moment, there was no News agency in the country. The telephone wires connecting EFast and West Pakistan passed through India and, consequently, were of no real aid to Pakistan at the time. The small number of News Fditors available to the Service struggled hard and managed to broadcast at least four news bulletins a day in four different languages.
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To secure equipment for the new State, the Chief Engineer of Radio Pakistan was flown first to England then to America; however, the equipment was just not available. The war had recently ended and the manufacturing countries were busy putting their own house in order.

After a great deal of investigation, Radio Pakistan decided that the terms and the date of delivery of RCA were best, and an order for three short-wave and two medium-wave transmitters was placed.

A search was soon begun to select a suitable site for the location of these transmitters in Karachi, the Federal Capital of Pakistan. Karachi, at that time, had eleven aerodromes, and Radio Pakistan had to keep five miles away from each of them for the erection of its masts.

It appeared as if Radio Pakistan would have to locate its facilities fifty-five miles away from the population of Karachi. This introduced another set of difficulties. Would the reception of medium-wave stations be good from such a distance? Since there was no public transportation available, how could personnel be transported to and from Karachi and the transmitter site?

After a considerable search, a piece of land (suitable from a technical point of view) was discovered only seventeen miles from the town. Suggested designs for the building were obtained from RCA and the work was soon begun.

In the meantime, it was still necessary to serve the town of Karachi with broadcasts. A discarded 200-watt medium-wave transmitter (Army-type) was discovered in a junk shop. This was installed in a hut to provide an interim of program service to the town. Offices were located in tents surrounding the transmitter.

Erection of the High Power Transmitter building took longer than Radio Pakistan had anticipated. Meanwhile, Radio Pakistan engineers erected masts for the antenna at the selected site and located a 10-kw medium-wave transmitter, supplied by RCA, in a 20' x 20' building on the other side of the road.

This transmitter replaced the 200-watt station previously set up while improvised studios and the tents still remained to provide program service.
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• Anmerkung : Wir reden hier vorerst nur über 10 Kilowatt für den Sender und einige Kilowatt für die anderen Geräte.

As soon as the main building was ready, the transmitters were installed by Pakistan engineers. The local electric supply company could not meet its commitments to supply power to the transmitters, so generators were obtained from RCA - two to run 50-kw short-wave transmitters and two to run the medium-wave transmitter.
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The 10-kw medium-wave transmitter at Karachi came into operation in November 1948. The installation of a short-wave transmitter at Dacca (in East Pakistan) was completed on January 15. 1949. This short-wave transmitter was meant to give an extended program service to East Pakistan and, also, to serve as a link between East and West Pakistan.

The East-West link, however, was completed on the 14th of August (1949) in the same year when the first 50-kw transmitter went on the air. The inauguration of this transmitter coincided with Pakistan's Second Anniversary. It was on this day, too, that Radio Pakistan centralized its "Home News Service", and started four external program services directed toward its immediate neighbors Hurina on the east, and Afghanistan, Iran and the Middle EKast on the west.

Even though reception of such external program services was uncertain in the target areas, the conviction that Pakistan had something to say of interest to the rest of the world sustained Radio Pakistan. Every effort was made to provide as effective a signal as was possible under the circumstances.
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Meanwhile installation of the second 50-kw transmitter was speeded up and Radio Pakistan was able to put it on the air on December 25. 1949, the birthday anniversary of the Father of the Nation, Mohammad Ali Jinnah.

Radio Pakistan had installed three short-wave and one 10-kw medium-wave transmitters in addition to a low power short-wave transmitter at Lahore in little more than a year. Scores of newly graduated students had been recruited and intensively trained to do the job. Their zeal to serve the State enabled them to do it successfully.

The Federal Capital of Radio Pakistan was no longer without an effective broadcasting station. However, the studios were still located in a two-room barrack and program services and production units were still working in tents. Radio Pakistan had not succeeded in obtaining any suitable site for its "Broadcasting House".

One site after another was approved, obtained, and then lost to those with better or more pressing claims. Finally, Radio Pakistan decided to postpone any new construction for an indefinite period.

A building was selected at Bunder Road in the Federal Capital and plans were made to modify the location to suit the requirements of a broadcasting house. The ground floor was converted to accommodate the various offices.
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The second floor was selected to house fourteen studios but, when the plans were finalized, it became apparent that the second floor was too heavy for the ground floor to support.

This disheartening and perplexing situation led Radio Pakistan technicians to design a novel plan of construction. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the studios at the Broadcasting House, Karachi, are the only hanging studios in the world. Supported by a mechanism from above, the roof of the ground floor does not have to earn any of the weight from the second floor.

These streamlined, multicolored studios of the Broadcasting House were completed in 1951. Personnel of Radio Pakistan moved from their tent city which, in the past three years, had been mistaken by many a passerby for a gypsy village.
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The inauguration of the Federal Broadcasting House, which completed the first phase of development was preceded a few months by the installation of a low power medium-wave station at Rawalpindi, a district nearly 120 miles from Peshawar and 180 miles from Lahore.

This station was to cater to an area that previously had not been effectively served by either of the two older stations. The first phase of Radio Pakistan Development had ended.

The second phase is actively in hand and some of its projects are making considerable headway. The low power medium-wave transmitter at Rawalpindi has been replaced by a 10-kw medium-wave transmitter, and the installation of two 10-kw short-wave transmitters at Karachi is well under way.

Today, after six years, Radio Pakistan is no longer a disorganized Broadcasting system consisting of three low power zonal stations. It is a small, compact organization meeting the internal as well as the external needs of the fifth largest State in the world.

Although still far from its ultimate goal, it is an organic system with a Central Directorate and Central News Organization having departments of installation, research, and maintenance and a staff training school.

It broadcasts thirty-nine news bulletins as against the four original ones, and puts out ninety-six program hours in seventeen different languages, as against twenty-seven program hours in seven languages at its inception.

• Anmerkung : Der Text stammt aus dem RCA Werbemagazin von 1953 für Broadcast-Produkte. Darum wurde kein Wort von den Mißverständnissen und Kultrunterschieden der Amerikaner und der Ex-Inder erwähnt. Aus anderen Quellen wird berichtet, daß es gar nicht so "harmonisch" ablief, denn die Amerikaner wollten natürlich auch Geld (Dollars) sehen.

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The modern Center of Radio Pakistan. 17 miles outside of Karachi (see map. left hand page).
bears the insignia of the organization. The Islamic reference is clearly defined while the eye and the wings of the falcon are symbolic of radio broadcasting and those whose lives are devoted to that service.
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The new Radio buildings provide the facilities where the high power transmitters and electric power generating equipments are installed, as well as offices for the engineering staff. The building in the foreground contains the transmitter hall, offices and emergency studio and associated speech input and transcription recording equipment. The electric power generators are housed in the building to the rear.

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The spacious Transmitter Hall is equipped with two RCA 50 kilowatt, dual-channel, hiqh frequency broadcast trans mitters and one RCA 10 kilowatt medium frequency broadcast transmitter. The building has been designed so that additional equipment may be installed and additional construction carried out for future expansion.
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View of No. 2 RCA transmitter in Radio Pakistan's Transmitter Hall. The front panels of the transmitter are designed to allow ready access to the various units of equipment. Door actuated switches connect to an interlocking system to protect personnel against exposure to dangerous voltages.
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The tube complement for the RCA transmitters has been carefully selected so that the number of different types is kept to a minimum in order to simplify the stocking of spares. The tubes shown here are those in the last modulator stage of one of Radio Pakistan's 50 kilowatt transmitters. These are the same type as those used in the radio frequency power amplifier.
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Multilingual Radio Pakistan prints its daily station logs in both English and Urdu; broadcasts regularly in seventeen languages and dialects, speaking to Europe, the Middle East. Africa. East Asia. Australia, and New Zealand.

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Pakistan's Radio City is the Broadcasting House at Karachi. This center of program activities houses studios, executive offices, news bureaus and the many facilities marking a modern radio network. Here one of Radio Pakistan's mobile units prepares to leave for a remote province from which a series of broadcasts will be initiated.
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The brain of Radio Pakistan is this master control room in the Karachi transmitting station. In this room the link is forged between Pakistan and the outside world, as well as between the stations of the Pakistan network.