Mosquito Network

Are YOU repellent? Yes? Then use Toujours Gai; it keeps the mosquitoes away. Remember, rub it in your delicate skin each evening as the sun goes down. Thank YOU.

This is a typical "commercial" on the Mosquito Network, a South Pacific branch of the Armed Forces Radio Service. U.S. Army doctors hope that the plug for Toujours Gai will lead G.I.s to use' their insect repellent, which not only smells bad but is also considered sissified by many fighting men.

The Mosquito Network consists of just five* of AFRS's 100 stations and 200 public-address systems now established, from Greenland to China. But its tiny 50-watt voices are very welcome in a lonely area where short-and medium-wave reception is uncertain.

Ants in the Plant. Mosquito's first transmitter (Noumea) opened up last February. Built and operated by Major Purnell Gould, peacetime manager of Baltimore's Station WFBR, and his staff of former commercial radiomen, the network at first had tough going. "Juice ants" fancied the insulation around the transmitter wiring and ate it, causing short circuits; microphones had to be blown out twice a day with bellows because fungus sprouted from them. AFRS's biggest single problem was getting receiving sets for its soldier audience. Furthermore, ordinary radio sets were good for only about four months' service before they succumbed to the tropics.

The receiving-set supply problem has finally been licked. A compact plastic-sprayed set (all-wave, with considerable range) is so resistant to tropic damp that it can even be submerged under water for hours without damage. Other difficulties have been met with diesel powder, well-equipped studios, etc.

Mosquito's weekly broadcasting includes 13 1/2 hours of U.S.-made AFRS transcriptions, 28 1/2 hours of decommercialized U.S. network shows--flown in from the States. The rest is local material, ranging from the reading of war correspondence in the area to burlesques such as McGoo's Booze Hour ("Next time you visit your PX take home a handy family-size container of McGoo's Old Man in the convenient 60-gallon drum").

Lie Back and Relax. What such programs can mean to G.I.s was suggested recently by an AFRSman who had helped set up the India network. Said he: "I don't care whether you're a highly educated technical officer or the most ignorant draftee. You're sitting in nowhere after a hard day and you have nothing to read but a couple of old magazines you've read ten times. It's raining solidly, so there aren't any movies. The Indian radio is full of Urdu and Hindustani and that monotonous music which drives Caucasians crazy. So you go out and get yourself a bottle and a woman. This may sound silly or sissy or something, but when you turn on your set and hear good old corny Jack Benny and stuff like that, well, you might, just might lie back on your cot and relax."

* Guadalcanal, Munda, Noumea, Bougainville, and one (unidentified) about to open.

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