2LO, LONDON

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 9, 16 September 1927, Page 2

2LO, LONDON

HUGE ORGANISATION INTERESTING SUMMARY. .the average listéner who hears night after night "This is the wondon station calling,’ or when the time for the news bulletin comes round, "This is London calling the British Isles,’ has little conception of what an efficient organisation has been gradually built up at 2 Savoy Hill, says a Home paper. It is only a matter of two to three vears ego that the B. B. C. had only one large studio and the -announcer had to ask for "just a couple of minutes’ interval please while the orchestra take their places.’ Now there are no fewer than seven studios and three more are in course of construction. Some of these are interchangeable, while others are kept for special purposes. One of these is a heavily draped small room, comfortably fitted up as a cosy study for talks In the corner is a sound proof announcer’s box, from which the annwouncer can make his, perhaps, landatory remarks on the speaker’s achievements without the latter’s hearing them. Another studio is kept entirely for "noises" which can be transmitted Separately or superimposed on the main transmission, If necessary, a third studio for "noises or voices off? can be used. Another studio is devoted to the production of the correct amount of "echo."? Formerly this was achieved by the draping, partial or otherwise, ‘of the studio whence the transmission

was being made. One of the newer tooms has been made by taking in one on the floor above it, so as to give added height. It had been noticed that transmissions from the Grand Hotel at astbourne always came through particularly well, so the endeavour was made to achieve this at Savoy Hill by the added height, with a great measure of success, Experiments and research are always going on at 2L,0; the ettects of different draping, both on walls and ceilings; the effect of pictures on walls, carpets on floors, deadening of sourd, resonance, echo, are all minutely studied. At one time auditions were freely given to every aspiring radiocaster and these ran into 200 to 300 a week, while it was found that only some 5 or 6 per cent. ever reached the microphone, ‘Then the rule was made that some sort of credentials would be necessary and even s0 there ate about 150 anditions per. week, To the mechanically minded the most. interesting department is the control room. Flere, at the top of the building, eight young wireless engineers are engaged in looking after the transmission of the day’s programme. At the back of a large switchboard, oc~ cupying one end of the room, the writer was told that some 7000 connections linked up this room with every department of the British Broadcasting Corporation’s system. | Men seated at four control tables were faced with a panel ‘on which were numerous tell-tale lights. One of these glowing would tell of Newcastle, 800 miles away, ready to take the London programme or of Glasgow, ready to switch through an hour’s entertainment.

to London listeners, and so on. From 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. or midnight these control engineers have to be constantly on the alert. So far as is humanly possible everything is duplicated to guard against breakdown. And the result is that for rigid punctuality and elimination of vacant pauses the 210 station cannot be equalled anywhere in the world. In the secretarial department every letter of the enormous correspondence is courteously dealt with. Thanks are given for praise, and criticism is investigated and the causes remedied. And it is surprising how critical the proprietor of an annual 10s. license can be of his 10 to 12 hours’ programme per day. A mile away in a little hut on the roof of a huge London store is the transmitting apparatus at the foot of the aerial masts towering 300 feet above the London streets. ‘There, surrounded by great glass bulbs in which the electric filaments glow white bot, three engineers are on duty looking after the machinery which sends the electrical vibrations to the transmitting aerial wires whence they travel broadcast to be picked up in their flight by the | million or more little aerial wires wait- ing to receive them.