Music from the Pyrenees

Music from the Pyrenes

High in the Pyrenees Mountains, a cluster of craggy valleys comprises the semi-independent State of Andorra. A relic of the Middle Ages, the little (191 sq. mi.) country has been under the joint suzerainty of the French Government and the Spanish Bishop of Urgel since 1278, pays them a yearly tribute of about $86 in goats, sheep, cucumbers, other produce. Its 5,500 inhabitants scratch a hard living from the barren, upended land.

In 1927 smart Journalist Jacques Tremoulet and Radio-Manufacturer Leon Kierkowsky built a radio station at Toulouse in southern France, gradually formed an imposing radio chain. As insurance against unfavorable regulation by the French Government, in 1935 they began building Radio Andorra. In the face of heated opposition from Socialist members of the Chamber of Deputies, the pair went calmly ahead with the installation without official authorization. They finally finagled from France permission to broadcast, but were allocated no wave length on which to operate. Not to be stopped by such a triviality, in 1938 they blithely began experimental sending on the same frequency as Seville, which was in a war and could not do much about it.

Plunked down in the midst of medieval Andorra, the gleaming steel & stone station is unusual. Because of the technical difficulties of transmitting from the mineral-veined peaks, the 400-ft. pylons supporting the antenna rest not on native rock but upon special copper-bound, earth-filled piers sunk into mountaintop Lake Engolaster, 4,900 feet above sea level. Twenty-three hundred feet below, overlooking the valley, is a modernistic, three-story granite building which houses the control panels and living quarters of the operators. From its dizzy perch Radio Andorra has the strength to make itself easily heard in England, Italy and France: 200 watts of power would be enough to blow Andorrans' ears off; it usually uses 60,000* watts; may have more power in reserve.

Lately with many of their transmitters silenced by the war, French listeners seeking elsewhere for programs have been surprised to hear on the Madrid medium wave length not Madrid but full-throated Andorra. Puzzling, at a time when news, not music, is the order of the day, was the complete absence from its programs not only of news but of live performers, commercials, sponsors. It played nothing but dance records--tangos, rumbas, waltzes--one after the other, hour after hour, interrupted only by station announcements.

What purpose lay behind this purposeless performance no one knew. Possibly Radio Andorra was just gathering an audience against the day when it will join the game of political propagandizing.

* In the U. S. top power authorized for any commercial station by the FCC is 50,000 watts; enough on good winter nights to make Midwest stations audible on the Pacific coast.

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