Iceland Marks 100 Years Since Its First Radio Broadcast

2026-01-31 - 11:18

Iceland is marking 100 years since radio was first broadcast in the country, an event that began with a seamen’s church service transmitted from the Free Church in Hafnarfjörður. According to RÚV, an exhibition on the pioneering station Hf Útvarp is due to open in Hafnarfjörður in March 2026. What's the Story? First radio broadcast in Iceland: 31 January 1926 Location of initial broadcast: Free Church, Hafnarfjörður Organised by: Ottó B. Arnar, telegraph engineer Content of broadcast: seamen’s church service and memorial mass Audience reach: heard across Iceland and on ships at sea Operations ended: private station ceased broadcasting in 1928 Hafnarfjördur Free Church. Photo: Ypsilon from Finland. Wikimedia Commons. The historic broadcast took place on 31 January 1926 and was organised by Ottó B. Arnar, a 30-year-old telegraph engineer, RÚV reports. By that time, Arnar had secured official permission to operate a private radio station. The service was both a mass for seafarers and a memorial for fishermen lost in the Great Storm of 1925, which claimed 70 lives. Reports at the time suggest the transmission was heard across large parts of the country and even by ships at sea. Arnar had become fascinated with radio technology after visiting American engineer Lee De Forest in 1916. De Forest later described early broadcasting experiments, including covering the re-election of President Woodrow Wilson “by wireless”, in his autobiography Father of Radio: The Autobiography of Lee de Forest. Regular broadcasts began later in 1926 but the station struggled financially and technically, with only around 200 radio sets in use nationwide. Operations ended in 1928, shortly before the state established the Icelandic National Broadcasting Corporation, also known as RÚV.