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Orfordness transmitting station
The Orfordness transmitting station was a major radio broadcasting facility at Orford Ness on the Suffolk coast in the United Kingdom able to broadcast to much of Europe. It closed in May 2012 after more than 30 years of service. In 2017 Radio Caroline started broadcasting from the site, though not with the same intended coverage of an audience in Europe as the original station.
The station was designed to transmit powerful medium wave (AM) signals to much of Europe on two frequencies, 648 and 1296 kHz. Built by the British government, the facility passed through various owners after privatisation in 1997. From 2010, it was owned by a large engineering and defence services company, the Babcock International Group. The current owner of the site is a telecommunications company called Cobra Mist Limited, set up in 2015.
Over the years, the Orfordness station carried a variety of radio services. It was best known, particularly in the UK, for transmitting the BBC World Service in English around the clock on 648 kHz from September 1982 until March 2011.
The station's name is written as one word while that of the shingle spit on which it sits is two words.
The site was originally built in the late 1960s for an experimental over-the-horizon radar station known as Cobra Mist.
The radar never worked satisfactorily and the project was scrapped in 1973. The site and buildings were taken over in 1975 by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's Communications Engineering Department (still better known by its previous name, the Diplomatic Wireless Service), who installed a 50-kW medium-wave broadcast transmitter. Following successful tests and the installation of further transmitters, from 1978 the site shared responsibility for the BBC's medium-wave services to Europe which had been provided since the Second World War by an FCO transmitting station at Crowborough in Sussex. After the Crowborough station closed in September 1982, Orfordness handled all such BBC transmissions. In 1986, the BBC itself took over the running of the site from the FCO, although the latter retained ownership of the station.
In 1997, as part of the privatization of all transmitting stations in the UK used by the BBC, the station was bought by Merlin Communications International Ltd (usually known simply as Merlin), a company formed by former BBC engineers and frequency managers. In 2001, Merlin was acquired by VT Group plc (known as Vosper Thorneycroft until 2002) and renamed VT Merlin Communications, then just VT Communications. In 2010, VT Communications was bought by Babcock.
From September 1982, the 648 kHz channel was used to carry BBC World Service programmes in English to northern Europe. Initially, the transmitter broadcast programming in English around the clock but from 1987 and into the 1990s, the transmitter was used to carry a tailored service, branded BBC 648, in which some French and German programmes were interwoven with the main output in English. The French service closed in 1995, and the BBC's German service in 1999, and 648 reverted to being English-only.
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Orfordness transmitting station AI simulator
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Orfordness transmitting station
The Orfordness transmitting station was a major radio broadcasting facility at Orford Ness on the Suffolk coast in the United Kingdom able to broadcast to much of Europe. It closed in May 2012 after more than 30 years of service. In 2017 Radio Caroline started broadcasting from the site, though not with the same intended coverage of an audience in Europe as the original station.
The station was designed to transmit powerful medium wave (AM) signals to much of Europe on two frequencies, 648 and 1296 kHz. Built by the British government, the facility passed through various owners after privatisation in 1997. From 2010, it was owned by a large engineering and defence services company, the Babcock International Group. The current owner of the site is a telecommunications company called Cobra Mist Limited, set up in 2015.
Over the years, the Orfordness station carried a variety of radio services. It was best known, particularly in the UK, for transmitting the BBC World Service in English around the clock on 648 kHz from September 1982 until March 2011.
The station's name is written as one word while that of the shingle spit on which it sits is two words.
The site was originally built in the late 1960s for an experimental over-the-horizon radar station known as Cobra Mist.
The radar never worked satisfactorily and the project was scrapped in 1973. The site and buildings were taken over in 1975 by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's Communications Engineering Department (still better known by its previous name, the Diplomatic Wireless Service), who installed a 50-kW medium-wave broadcast transmitter. Following successful tests and the installation of further transmitters, from 1978 the site shared responsibility for the BBC's medium-wave services to Europe which had been provided since the Second World War by an FCO transmitting station at Crowborough in Sussex. After the Crowborough station closed in September 1982, Orfordness handled all such BBC transmissions. In 1986, the BBC itself took over the running of the site from the FCO, although the latter retained ownership of the station.
In 1997, as part of the privatization of all transmitting stations in the UK used by the BBC, the station was bought by Merlin Communications International Ltd (usually known simply as Merlin), a company formed by former BBC engineers and frequency managers. In 2001, Merlin was acquired by VT Group plc (known as Vosper Thorneycroft until 2002) and renamed VT Merlin Communications, then just VT Communications. In 2010, VT Communications was bought by Babcock.
From September 1982, the 648 kHz channel was used to carry BBC World Service programmes in English to northern Europe. Initially, the transmitter broadcast programming in English around the clock but from 1987 and into the 1990s, the transmitter was used to carry a tailored service, branded BBC 648, in which some French and German programmes were interwoven with the main output in English. The French service closed in 1995, and the BBC's German service in 1999, and 648 reverted to being English-only.