→History: does not belong on this page as the presidents are presidents of the organization... not the radio station. Should only be on the organizational pagete
[[File:Hcjb staff 1946 cropped.jpg|thumb|left|250px|HCJB radio station staff in 1946, including engineer Clayton Howard (front row left), co-founder Clarence Jones (front row right) and future HCJB president, Abe Van Der Puy (front row, 4th from left)]]
[[File:Hcjb staff 1946 cropped.jpg|thumb|left|250px|HCJB radio station staff in 1946, including engineer Clayton Howard (front row left), co-founder Clarence Jones (front row right) and future HCJB president, Abe Van Der Puy (front row, 4th from left)]]
Since its beginnings in the 1930s, HCJB and its larger organization, [[World Radio Missionary Fellowship, Inc.]] (now [[HCJB Global]]), has had seven presidents overseeing the entire ministry. In chronological order, they include co-founder Clarence W. Jones; co-founder Reuben Larson; co-founder D.S. Clark; HCJB missionary Abe C. Van Der Puy; one-time pastor Ronald A. Cline; son of missionaries and former [[Campus Crusade for Christ]] minister David Johnson; Wayne Pederson, current [[HCJB Global]] president and former Moody Broadcasting manager.
HCJB, "The Voice of the Andes", was the first radio station with daily programming in the South American country of Ecuador and the first Christianmissionary radio station in the world. The station was founded in 1931 by Clarence W. Jones[1][2] and Reuben Larson along with Stuart Clark, John Clark and Paul Young.[3]
History
What is today HCJB Global began in Quito, Ecuador, as Radio Station HCJB with its first program being broadcast on Christmas Day, 1931.
The grounds of Radio Station HCJB in Quito, Ecuador
Radio Station HCJB started as the vision of Clarence W. Jones, a trombone player, graduate of Moody Bible Institute, and the son of a Salvation Army minister. In the early 1920s, Jones became a member of the music, youth and radio staff of the Chicago Gospel Tabernacle, founded by Paul Rader.[4] Seeing the effectiveness of Rader's radio ministry on Chicago radio station WJBT, Jones and his wife, Katherine, felt called to establish missionary radio in Latin America. In February 1928, Jones traveled to Venezuela, Colombia, Panama and Cuba on a seven-week trip looking for a suitable location for his radio station, but was unable to get the necessary government permits.[5] Back in Chicago nearly two years later, Jones met several missionaries from Ecuador - Reuben and Grace Larson, John and Ruth Clark and Paul and Bernice Young, who were with the Christian & Missionary Alliance. The group of missionaries encouraged Jones to come to Ecuador to start his missionary radio station.
Reuben Larson, another CMA missionary, D.S. Clark, and Luís Calisto, an Ecuadorian lawyer, helped procure the initial contract with the Ecuadorian government. On August 15, 1930, the Ecuadorian Congress approved a bill which granted Jones to operate the country's first radio station with a 25-year contract.[6]
Like all countries with a governing body over broadcast operations, the call letters HCJB were obtained through the government of Ecuador, beginning with the internationally allocated prefix for Ecuador's broadcast stations (HC). Station co-founders Jones and Larson advocated for, and were granted by the government, call letters that were an acronym indicative of the station's purpose - Heralding Christ Jesus' Blessings. In Spanish (one of the broadcast languages of the South American station) the call letters represent Hoy Cristo Jesús Bendice.[7]
Radio Station HCJB's inaugural program on Christmas Day, 1931 was English and Spanish from the Jone's living room studio at Quinta Corston. The program was broadcast using a table top 200-watt transmitter built by Eric Williams using a single wire antenna strung between two tall ecualyptus poles.
File:Hcjb staff 1946 cropped.jpgHCJB radio station staff in 1946, including engineer Clayton Howard (front row left), co-founder Clarence Jones (front row right) and future HCJB president, Abe Van Der Puy (front row, 4th from left)
Frequencies, QSLs, and programming
HCJB'S first broadcasts in 1931 were in English and Spanish. In 1941, live programs were added in Russian, Swedish and Quechua. By 1944, the station had aired programing in 14 languages including live programs in Czech, Dutch, French and German. Programs in languages such as Arabic, Italian and Hebrew were recorded elsewhere and sent to Quito on large acetate coated aluminium transcription discs. By 1967, live programming would be added in Portuguese and Japanese.
Following the first years of HCJB's broadcasts on 50.26 meters (5986 kHz), the shortwave frequencies utilized by Radio Station HCJB in its broadcasts from Quito to regions around the world were 6050 kHz, 9745 kHz, 11775 kHz and 15155 kHz.[8] As the station's wattage increased, shortwave radio enthusiasts in North America started picking up the station's signals and would submit reception reports in order to give the station engineers feedback on the station's signal strength and quality.
An HCJB envelope with a 1938 postmark which contained a QSL card sent to the addressee
Since a popular practice in the hobby of shortwave radio listening was to request a QSL card, Radio Station HCJB began creating its own QSLs sometime in the 1930s.
By the 1970s, the station was one of the most powerful and easy to receive shortwave stations; HCJB was heard around the world and received hundreds of letters each week with reception reports from shortwave DXers. The correspondence department of HCJB would respond in kind to its listeners with QSL cards and Christian tracts.
As requests for QSLs became more frequent, HCJB missionary and radio engineer Clayton Howard suggested a shortwave listeners' club be created, and in 1974, the Andes DXers International, (or "ANDEX") began. Members would receive a membership certificate and membership card with the member's name and individual member number, along with Howard's signature. ANDEX eventually had a membership in the thousands and continued as a service of HCJB until 1996.
Since the station's first year of broadcasting, staff members produced the HCJB's own original radio programming.
File:Hcjb music staff 1940s.jpgHCJB musicians during live broadcast in the 1940s. Co-founder Clarence W. Jones is on the far right with his trombone.
The station's original programming has ranged from programs completely in Quechua (the primary language of the people of the Andes in South America), Andean-music programs, Christian music programming, talk and mail-reading programs featuring mail received from listeners around the world, Bible study and teaching programs, and programming featuring information about shortwave radio listening.
File:Hcjb qsl card 1981.jpgAn HCJB 50th Anniversary QSL card from 1981 showing 1930s in-studio music production and the station's antenna complex as of 1981
Some of the most popular HCJB-produced programs over the years have been "Morning in the Mountains," "Musica del Ecuador", "Musical Mailbag," "Happiness Is" and "DX-Partyline." "DX-Partyline" was hosted from its inception by HCJB missionary Clayton Howard and his wife, Helen. The program was heard for more than 40 years, twice a week, and included the reading of letters from shortwave listeners around the world as well as DX and reception reports sent to the station. "DX-Partyline" also included shortwave radio listening tips, information on antennas, and equipment reviews. Programs not produced by HCJB were also broadcast from the Quito station. Typically of a religious nature, some of the non-HCJB produced programs broadcast from the station were the Pacific Garden Mission's "Unshackled!"[1], the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association's Hour of Decision, the Salvation Army's "Wonderful Words of Life" and Moody Bible Institute radio station WMBI's "Nightsounds"[2] with Bill Pearce, among many others. Much of HCJB's original programming also included music recorded, produced and performed by HCJB missionaries.
Much of the HCJB-produced music broadcast on the station was also available on LP record albums and later on cassette tapes.
Broadcasting milestones and achievements
File:Hcjb radio log 1946.jpgCover of the 1947 HCJB Radio Log sent to the missionary station's contributors and partners
The the HCJB World Radio Engineering Center (most recently called the "HCJB Global Technology Center") began in an effort to design and build specialized, cost-effective shortwave transmitters. The first time a group of HCJB engineers accepted an offer from a private donor to work in Elkhart, Indiana. From that location, they built a 500,000-watt shortwave transmitter capable of overcoming any Russian jamming efforts.
Project Outreach began in 1975 and was completed in 1980 with the installation of the HC500 (500,000-watt) transmitter in Ecuador.
A special relationship existed between HCJB and Crown International via its founder, Clarence C. Moore, who had served at Radio Station HCJB as chief engineer during the early days of the station. The Moore family again extended the invitation to HCJB to take up residence at Crown International, this time at the technology center. The goal was to build HC100 (100,000-watt) shortwave transmitters for HCJB and its the ministry's contributors in the "World by 2000" challenge. "World by 2000," started in 1985, was a joint effort of HCJB, Trans World Radio, Far East Broadcasting Co., FEBA Radio, SIM, Words of Hope and other Christian broadcasters to make Christian radio broadcasts available in all of the world's major languages by the year 2000. It was later renamed "World by Radio." A Siemens transmitter at Radio Station HCJB's international transmitter site in Pifo, Ecuador
In 1986 the HCJB World Radio Engineering Center was officially established under the direction of David Pasechnik. Staff members have been involved in research, development, training and technical support for AM, FM and shortwave radio stations as well as satellite distribution and satellite-based Internet services. In recent years they developed station automation systems and a fixed-tuned, solar-powered SonSet® radio that can be pretuned to pick up a specific Christian radio station. HCJB has also been a pioneer in the development of equipment for a form of digital radio broadcasting called DRM.File:Hcjb pennant.jpgAn HCJB pennant sent to shortwave radio listeners in the 1970s
In the 1940s Clarence Moore obtained a patent for the development of the cubical quad antenna. This antenna is frequently used by amateur radio operators around the world. He developed this after problems developed with his beam antenna due to the thin mountain air, the type of antenna and the power of his transmitter. The tips of the beam antenna developed strong coronal discharge which caused his antenna to melt.
HCJB has directly involved in many engineering activities such as hydroelectric facilities in the small Ecuadorian town of Papallacta and an international transmitter site in Pifo, a town 18 miles west of the nation's capital, Quito. Various other communication systems and equipment are part of the engineering efforts of this station.
Starting in the early 1990s following the fall of the Iron Curtain, HCJB became increasingly involved in a ministry now known as "radio planting," working with local partners to develop Christian radio ministries worldwide. The mission provides any or all of the following: equipment, technical and programming support and training. Each site has its own local governing powers, programming and follow-up strategy.
Radio education and training
Over time, HCJB implemented training - eventually employed in all five of the regions where HCJB was a presence. The "Christian Center of Communications" (CCC) is a three-year higher education program based in Quito, Ecuador, that teaches Spanish-speaking students about radio, television and the print media. It is an accredited branch campus of Northwestern College in Roseville, Minnesota and is also accredited by Ecuadorian authorities. The Christian Academy of the Air (formerly called Bible Institute of the Air) is operated by the World Radio Network, a cooperating ministry based in Texas. This outreach, dating back more than 50 years, focuses on teaching a wide range of classes centered on the Bible, theology and Christian ministry. The Radio School of Mission, first held in Singapore in 2005, is a week-long course that provides training to broadcasters from across the Asia Pacific Region. Radio School of Mission II is the more advanced course. Radio seminars are also held in Euro-Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa/Middle East.
End of a broadcasting era
After nearly 80 years of shortwave broadcasting from Ecuador, Radio Station HCJB discontinued the vast majority of its shortwave transmissions on Sept. 30, 2009. Currently, the international transmitter site in Pifo is in the process of being dismantled and the operation should be completed by the end of 2009.
HCJB's steerable "mixer-antenna" in Pifo, Ecuador
According to HCJB Global President Wayne Pederson, the change was made because, “the way people consume media has changed, so we have the opportunity to change to delivery systems such as satellite, AM/FM and the Internet. The closing of shortwave in Latin America is strategic because of the planting of local radio stations across the region and around the world. These stations are staffed and programmed by local [Christians] who can speak to the culture in their own communities.”[9] HCJB Global's focus is now on “radio planting”—assisting local Christian ministries in beginning implementing their own Christian radio ministry. Worldwide, more than 350 local stations have been assisted in this type of endeavor, including nearly 60 stations in Latin America alone. Although the historic station and transmitter sites in Ecuador will no longer operate on the shortwave bands, HCJB's shortwave broadcasts continue from HCJB Global Australia's site in Kununurra,[10]Australia and and from commercial broadcast sites in the United Kingdom.
