Radio Aphrodite... A glimpse into the past

<BGSOUND src="http://www.archive.org/download/RadioAphrodite/Radio-Aprodite-uamuzik.mp3">
While many are so much into their digital devices now for listening to their personal selection of music and not much more, it once wasn't the case. Nor is it a fact that people prefer to listen to streaming radio, and while there are many radio listeners are into FM for music and AM for talk radio in North America, there is still a frequency of the radio spectrum that should never be overlooked. It's something called shortwave and it has played a role not only in reporting on emergencies but also in the theater of war.

"Aphorodite" - was a short wave (43 m) radio station of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army which was set up in the summer of 1943 in order to inform the western world about the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists' battle on two fronts – against the Nazis and the Red Army, both of which they considered foreign occupiers of their land. They purchased the equipment from the Polish underground for 45,000 zloty (approximately 5,400 USD at the time, still a considerable sum of money).

First, through the underground channels they had established and trusted they first transported the equipment to a store located on Bernardynskiy Square (Now Soborna Square in L'viv, the picture in the link is from the mid 1880s and will allow you to orient yourself to just where that this is if you have been to L'viv - if not you don't have to fret you can visit via Google maps.)

From that location they then transported it by cart to a home on Blyakharska St. (This is now Ivana Fedorova Street, which runs parallel to Pidvalna - perpendicular from Virmenska Street(Armenian Street) to just past Staroevreyska Street (Old Jewish Street). Purportedly the cart driver thought he was transporting horilka, he must have been a teetotaler given that it arrived to its destination. Later it was transported to the Striy region.

The equipment was assembled by an engineer from Krakow, a Ukrainian by the name of Hoshowsky. It was placed in a cabin not far from the village of Yamelnytsya. The station went into operation in the autumn of 1943. There were twelve fifteen minute broadcasts daily in four different languages: Ukrainian, Russian, French and English. There were seven full time employees at the station with Y. Starukh as their director, the others were B. Halaychuk, L. Lemyk, K. Yavorivsky, V. Makar, D. Lushpak and K. Tsmots'. The foreign language programs were hosted by A. Hazenbruk. The station was discovered by the NKVD, the precursor to the KGB, and destroyed by its agents on On April 7, 1945.

(Drop outs and hiss in this recording are due to jamming by the enemy.)

This blog entry is a translation of part of the following site: http://politiko.ua/blogpost60065 with additional locational information added.