Madras Presidency RadioClub

Madras Presidency Radio Club

First Radio Transmitter in Madras.

If you visit the Government Museum in Chennai, you can see the first Radio Broadcasting transmitter which was beaming Radio waves for the first time in Madras, under the Call Sign 2GR, from July 31, 1924. It was Rao Bahadur C.V.Krishnaswami Chetty, an Electrical Engineer with Madras Corporation who formed Madras Presidency Radio Club (MPRC) with some of his Armature Radio Enthusiasts, and took the trouble of going to England to learn the technique of Radio Broadcasting, where Marconi and Co,had just started Broadcasting in 1922.
 
On his return to Madras Mr.Chetty and his friends in MPRC assembled a 40 W Medium Wave transmitter and got the permission to broadcast in Madras. H.E.Viscount Goschen, the then Governor of Madras Presidency who was also the Patron of MPRC, inaugurated transmission on July,31, 1924. Later it enhanced the broadcast to 200 W Transmitter, to broadcast 2.1/2 hrs programs in the evenings, and Proigrams in the mornings on Sundays. It is said the broadcasts of this transmitter had the reach upto Chittoor, Vizayanagaram, Vellore and ever upto Ceylon (Sri Lanka)! The MPRC ran the Radio till October 1927 from Holloway's Garden, Egmore and wound up their transmission activities due to financial difficulties. They presented this transmitter to Corporation of Madras , who in turn took three years to start regular broadcasting from April, 1, 1930 and continued the service till June 15, 1938. Then the Government owned All India Radio started their broadcasting from Madras on June 16, 1938 with their own Transmission equipment.

The Corporation of Madras decided to Present this first Radio Transmitter to the Madras Museum in 1939. Thus it had become a Museum piece.