Major radio broadcasting facility at Orford Ness
2km
1.2miles
N
O
R
T
H
S
E
A
Jetty
'Pagodas'
Orford Ness
National Nature
Reserve
Orfordness Beacon
transmitting
station
Havergate
Island (RSPB)
Cobra Mist
R i v e r A l d e
R i v e r O r e
Lighthouse
Castle
Orford Ness, Suffolk, showing locations of main sites.
[1]
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.
[2]
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.
History
[
edit
]
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.
[3]
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.
BBC transmissions
[
edit
]
From September 1982, the 648 kHz channel was used to carry
BBC World Service
programmes in English around the clock. From 1987 and into the 1990s, the channel carried a tailored service, branded
BBC 648
, in which some French and German programmes were interwoven with the main output in English.
[4]
The French service closed in 1995,
[5]
and the BBC's German service in 1999, and 648 reverted to being English-only.
[6]
The 1296 kHz channel, which Orfordness transmitted from 1978, was used for BBC broadcasts in east European languages during the evening and early morning. This use of 1296 was phased out after it became possible to relay the BBC on FM within the target countries, following the end of the
Cold War
.
Post BBC transmissions
[
edit
]
648 kHz
[
edit
]
Following cuts in the BBC World Service budget, its transmissions in English on 648 from Orfordness ceased at 0000
GMT
/
UTC
on 27 March 2011.
[7]
The 648 channel came back on the air in August and September 2011 as a temporary measure for the Dutch domestic news/information network
Radio 1
. This was broadcast from Orfordness following fires at the
Lopik
and
Hoogersmilde
FM transmitting sites in the Netherlands on 15 July 2011.
[8]
[9]
1296 kHz
[
edit
]
In 2001, the Dutch station Radio Nationaal hired the use of 1296 to beam its signal to the target audience in the Netherlands and Belgium.
In 2008, an
EU
-funded programme in English,
Network Europe
, was aired on 1296 for half-an-hour a day.
Between 2003 and 2012, BBC World Service used Orfordness on 1296 kHz at limited times of the day for transmissions using the
DRM digital radio system
.
Radio Netherlands
hired 1296 at other times of the day for analogue broadcasts in Dutch.
The final transmission from Orfordness (on either frequency) was a farewell 24-hour broadcast by Radio Netherlands on 10?11 May 2012, marking the end of its Dutch service.
[10]
Current status of the site
[
edit
]
In October 2012, the UK broadcasting regulator
Ofcom
withdrew Babcock’s authorisation to use 648 kHz.
[11]
Notionally, therefore, Babcock still retained the right to transmit from Orfordness on the other frequency (1296 kHz). However, no further broadcasts were made.
Prior to selling the site to Cobra Mist Ltd, Babcock removed all transmitter equipment, although as of August 2016 all three aerial systems were still standing.
[12]
In 2017 Cobra Mist Ltd entered into an agreement with
Radio Caroline
to transmit their services on 648 kHz using the omni-directional mast (see below).
[13]
Test transmissions began in November 2017 and full service commenced on 22 December 2017.
[14]
The Ofcom licence for 648 kHz was awarded to Radio Caroline in June 2017.
[15]
Transmitters
[
edit
]
A number of transmitters were installed on the site over the years, the most powerful being an
AEG-Telefunken
S4006 which had a maximum output of 600
kW
. However, registration listings for both 648 and 1296 kHz always gave 500 kW as the maximum power used on both frequencies.
Transmissions on 648 kHz from the AEG-Telefunken S4006 used
dynamic carrier control
, an energy-saving technique in which the power of the transmitter's
carrier signal
is reduced when the audio level is low.
Other transmitters included two Doherty 250 kW units, designated ORF 2A and 2B (both originally at Crowborough), whose outputs could be combined to give 500 kW on a single frequency.
[16]
A DRM-capable
Nautel
NA200 transmitter was commissioned in 2003 and radiated digital signals on 1296 kHz. It was designated ORF 4. Although rated at 200 kW, when operating in DRM mode it generally ran with an output power of 35 kW.
The original 50 kW transmitter (a
Continental Electronics
type 317), installed at Orfordness in 1975 and used for the station's initial tests, was brought back into service following the
major storm
that hit southern England during the night of 15-16 October 1987, which cut the main electricity supply to the site.
Aerial systems
[
edit
]
The station has two directional aerial (antenna) systems: one for 648 kHz and one for 1296 kHz.
The directional aerial for 648 kHz (erected in 1981-82) consists of a row of five 106.7 metre (350 ft) freestanding
steel
lattice
towers
of
triangular
cross section, insulated at their base. All five towers were driven. It was beamed at 131 degrees (i.e. south-east) though for practical purposes the exact bearing was nominal as the beam was very broad towards the east and south. It provided daytime coverage of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, north-east France and north-west Germany by
ground wave propagation
; and night-time coverage of much of Europe by
skywave propagation
.
The directional aerial for 1296 kHz (erected in 1978) consists of six freestanding steel lattice towers. Unlike the directional aerial for 648 kHz, they are arranged in two parallel rows with three towers in each. Only the middle tower of each three was driven; the other towers acted as passive reflector and director elements. It was beamed at 96 degrees (i.e. east) and was originally mainly intended for night-time (skywave) coverage of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and the western USSR, key target areas for the BBC during the Cold War. It could also be used for daytime coverage of the Netherlands and Belgium.
Both the 648 and 1296 directional aerials have limited radiation to the west, meaning that, despite the high power of the transmitters, reception of Orfordness within the UK was poor or non-existent, with the notable exception of parts of south-east England (including London) and
East Anglia
.
There is also a back-up omni-directional
mast radiator
for 648 kHz, erected in 1983, which can only handle transmitter powers of up to 250 kW and was used when maintenance work was being carried out on the directional antenna. This mast is now used to transmit Radio Caroline on 648 kHz.
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"Orfordness Visitor Map"
.
National Trust
. 2018
. Retrieved
19 March
2023
.
- ^
Update on Orford Ness
Article on the station by Alan Pennington and Dave Kenny in
Communication
, monthly journal of the British DX Club, September 2016.
- ^
Orfordness Transmitting Station, Orford, Suffolk
History of the station, written in July 2011 by Andy Matheson and reproduced in
Communication
, monthly journal of the British DX Club, September 2011.
- ^
Elliott, Kim Andrew (13 February 2011).
"BBC World Service ends its version of border radio. MW 648 kHz will sign off 27 March"
. Retrieved
22 July
2019
.
- ^
[1]
75 years BBC World Service - A History
.
- ^
[2]
BBC's German Service goes off air
, BBC News, 27 March 1999.
- ^
"BBC officially announces closure of 648 kHz"
.
Media Network
. Radio Netherlands Worldwide. Archived from
the original
on 21 February 2011
. Retrieved
10 March
2011
.
- ^
"Dutch Radio 1 to start using 648 kHz on 4 August"
.
Media Network
. Radio Netherlands Worldwide. Archived from
the original
on 14 March 2012
. Retrieved
3 August
2011
.
- ^
Dutch Radio 1 transmissions on 648 kHz end today
Media Network
. Radio Netherlands Worldwide. 22 September 2011.
- ^
RNW Dutch service to end with 24-hour broadcast
Archived
11 May 2012 at the
Wayback Machine
Radio Netherlands Worldwide. 7 May 2012.
- ^
Future use of 648 kHz medium wave
OfCom. 6 November 2012.
- ^
Update on Orford Ness
Article on the station by Alan Pennington and Dave Kenny in
Communication
, monthly journal of the British DX Club, September 2016.
- ^
"Radio Caroline"
.
www.radiocaroline.co.uk
. Retrieved
19 December
2017
.
- ^
"Radio Caroline returns to the airwaves"
.
- ^
"Ofcom awards five new AM community radio licences"
.
Ofcom
. Retrieved
19 December
2017
.
- ^
Tricks of the Trade
Archived
2011-09-29 at the
Wayback Machine
Article by Dave Porter, Andy Matheson and Pete Edwards in
Signal
magazine, issue 14.
External links
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Former programmes
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Language services
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Closed services
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