Ancient Web: Taiwan Radio Museum Students Preserved the Living Antique Transmitter

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.

The largest exhibit in this old school website isn't a dinosaur skeleton or a painting. It's a radio transmitter that its curators call a living antique.

Visit the Minsyong National Radio Museum equipment page.

The Taiwan school CyberFair project documents the Minsyong Broadcast Center in Chiayi County. Its preface describes the station's construction under Japanese colonial rule beginning in 1938. Transmission commenced in September 1940, aimed partly at political messaging to Southeast Asia and China's coast.

The original complex included two T-shaped antenna towers described as 206 meters tall. The preface says visitors were not admitted until 1999, when the formerly restricted facility opened to the public.

A broadcasting machine with its own biography

The equipment gallery describes the NEC MB15-A 100-kilowatt medium-wave transmitter as the last surviving example among five of its type. The project attributes its design to Tanaka Nobutaka, a Kyoto-born engineer who advocated an efficient Doherty-type arrangement during bidding for the colonial broadcasting installation.

The authors say the preserved transmitter was still capable of functioning when they documented it. That was the basis for the living-antique nickname, not a claim that it remains operational today.

The same page shows how ownership and technology changed after 1945. It identifies a Westinghouse transmitter built in 1950 and used in 1963 to broadcast programming in Minnan and Hakka. Two older U.S. military long-wave sets were later adapted for Taiwan's broadcasting needs; the site gives 1995 retirement dates for both.

The English translation is sometimes awkward, and several statements about colonial-era aims reflect the project's account rather than a fully sourced academic history. Yet the preserved photographs, equipment designations, engineer's name, and dated operations make it valuable primary documentation of the exhibit.

The page ends with a recommendation to browse at 1024-by-768 resolution. Its image navigation and static explanatory panels are recognizable educational-web design choices rather than a modern interactive museum.

This is a small example of schoolchildren and teachers using the early web to give old industrial equipment a public memory beyond the walls of its building.

Explore the illustrated equipment gallery and the site's historical preface.

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.