Hargeisa City Unofficial Home Page
an illuminating open window ... in a dark place
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Hargeisa City Unofficial Home Pagean illuminating open window ... in a dark place |
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Historical sites: Idaacadda
Idaacadda Hargeisa (Radio Hargeisa)
This building is (was) located on the top of a hill to the north of the town, idaacadda hargeisa. Unfortunately this beautiful tower was completely destroyed during the Hargeisa aerial bombardment in 1988. It is historical place for all Af-Somali speakers, as it hosted the first radio station in Somaliland. The regular broadcasting in Hargeisa begin in 1943, the KUDU radio, but this new installation was completed in the mid 1955.
(*)From: (**) The author of this book, Suleiman M. Adam, after he quoted mr. Martin, he commented this wonderful piece of our history that "The occasion illustrated what can be done with next to no technical facilities but with enthusiastic and dedicated help". I perfectly agree with Suleiman Adam, and we really need today the same spirit of the late Abdi Dualeh and his colleague Davis. Copyright info: these pages were created and maintained by (me) for the sole love of Hargeisa city. I mentioned the sources of my information with the copyright info of the owner. Unless stated by the owner of third-part materials I used, there are no copyright restrictions to the use of these materials. Jama Musse Jama. |
"Mr. R. C..J. Davis distinguished himself in this capacity from around 1948 onwards and as Abdi Dualeh was Radio Somali in the broadcasting sense, Davis was Radio Somali in the technical sense. In those days broadcasting was almost an impossibility -- one was attempted for the -- first time in, I think, late 1950 for a relay from an important meeting in the Hargeisa Community Centre but it was not exactly successful. The first OB of which I know was in December 1951 on the opening of a session of the Protectorate Advisory Council in Hargeisa. It was a ceremonial occasion with a police parade, police band and an investiture. It took place in the grounds of the Hargeisa Medical School building. [...] Abdi Dualeh commented live from a window of the Medical School -- we possessed only one serviceable mike at that time -- and that was in the sole studio. When Davis knew of my anxiety to try this OB he produced a home-made microphone using the speaker from one of the 'Saucepan' radios as the principal component and he spent the preceding week-end anxiosly testing lines etc. so that Abdi's commentary could be fed to the Radio Somali transmitter (which was less than a quarter of a mile away!!) The OB worker and we felt triumphant. An amusing sidelight on the occasion was that now and then during the protracted ceremonial, in order to give Abdi a rest, we returned the listeners to the studio. On one of these occasions we changed over immediately after Abdi had been enthusing over the performance of the Police Band (then admirable, but it must be admitted, rather elementary) and the person in the studio filled in the interval with a recording of the Band of the Royal Marines playing 'Anchors Aweigh' -- some listeners in Hargeisa later expressed themselves amazed at the improvement in the performance of the Police band".(**) |