Armed Forces Radio Service

The American Forces Network (AFN) is a government television and radio broadcast service the U.S. military provides to those stationed or assigned overseas. Headquartered at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, AFN's broadcast operations, which include global radio and television satellite feeds, emanate from the AFN Broadcast Center/Defense Media Center in Riverside, California. AFN was founded on 26 May 1942, in London as the Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS).

History

The American Forces Network can trace its origins to 26 May 1942, when the War Department established the Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS). A television service was first introduced in 1954 with a pilot station at Limestone Air Force Base, Maine. In 1954, the television mission of AFRS was officially recognized and AFRS (Armed Forces Radio Service) became AFRTS (Armed Forces Radio and Television Service). All of the Armed Forces broadcasting affiliates worldwide merged under the AFN banner on 1 January 1998. On 21 November 2000, the American Forces Information Service directed a change of the AFRTS organizational title from Armed Forces Radio and Television Service back to American Forces Radio and Television Service. A timeline of the history of AFN is available online.

Origins

KODK began broadcasting from the U.S. Army base Fort Greely at Kodiak, Alaska, before the inception of the AFRS. Fort Greeley was built to defend and was an integral part of the Kodiak Naval Air Station, sometimes called Naval Operating Base. Construction of both was under way in 1940. The naval station and AFRS radio remained in operation, but Fort Greely closed at the end of World War II. Years later the name Fort Greely was resurrected for the Big Delta (near Delta Junction) Army base. The small town of Kodiak, located six miles away, had no radio station, while Anchorage and Fairbanks, where Army and Army Air Force bases soon would be established, had civilian radio stations. Thus KODK had a primary role to bring radio to the armed forces and civilians in the Kodiak area. The sign-off at KODK was the memorable "Goodnight, Sweetheart" set to a stirring melody from Liszt's Les Preludes. The station lived on to bring the first television to Kodiak.

The first radio station began in Delta Junction, Alaska, on what was then known as Fort Greely. It was called KODK and was operated by on base personnel. In the years just before World War II, there were several radio stations based in American military bases, but none were officially recognized until 1942. The success of these individual radio stations helped pave the way for the AFN. As such, there was no single station that could be called the "first" to sign on as an AFN station. About two months before formal establishment of AFN, however, a station called "PCAN" began regular broadcast information service in the Panama Canal Zone, primarily for troops on jungle bivouac. The station, located at Fort Clayton, was later to become part of AFRS, first simply as "Armed Forces Network" located at Albrook Field.

World War II

The U.S. Army began broadcasting from London during World War II, using equipment and studio facilities borrowed from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

The first transmission to U.S. troops began at 5:45 p.m. 4 July 1943, and included less than five hours of recorded shows, a BBC News and sports broadcast. That day, Corporal Syl Binkin became the first U.S. military broadcaster heard over the air. The signal was sent from London via telephone lines to five regional transmitters to reach U.S. troops in the United Kingdom as they made preparations for the invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe.

Fearing competition for civilian audiences, the BBC
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