First radio broadcast from Haapsalu

On 11 May 1924, at 9.35 a.m., the first public radio test broadcast in Estonia – a concert of the mixed choir of Läänemaa Secondary School – aired from the transmitter of the Haapsalu postal office and long-wave telegraph station. The crew of the test broadcast included: E. Laurmann, G. Liidemann, E. Vidrikson, J. Velling, G. Punn. The broadcast was made using the transmitter of the Haapsalu postal telegraph station with a wavelength of 2,500 metres. The mast antenna of the transmitter was a 90-metre-tall guyed mast of steel construction which stood on support insulators. The broadcast was also heard in Tallinn, Vändra, and Pärnu.

Listen to Paul Sammet’s memories of the first radio show in Haapsalu and his performance with the school choir: https://arhiiv.err.ee/audio/vaata/mis-tehtud-mis-teoksil-mis-tehtud-mis-teoksil-50-aastat-raadiosaadete-algusest-eestis

On 1 November 1924, Raadio Ringhääling was founded as a private company. Regular radio broadcasting started two years later, in 1926.

On May 10, 2024, a was issued a stamp to celebrate the event with a denomination of €4.20, featuring a QR code on the coupon, which is a first time in Estonian postage stamp history.

The artist Triin Heimann, who designed the postage stamp, has said: “I only recently learned that the first radio masts were built in Haapsalu. I am myself from Haapsalu and was delighted to contribute to introducing this topic. When designing the postage stamp, I was inspired by the radio masts built in Haapsalu in the 1920s. Looking at old photos, I tried to graphically depict the architecture of the masts and added a flowing stream of radio waves oscillating up and down.

Designing the stamp was exciting because the complete solution consisted of two parts – on one side was the main design and denomination, and on the other side was a QR code that leads to the broadcasting page, where you can find more interesting information about the topic. My task was to design two stamps into a unified whole, and this succeeded precisely because of the oscillating radio waves.

First radio broadcast from Haapsalu

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