The Regional Scheme

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 26, 10 January 1930, Page 30

The Regional Scheme

Recent Inauguration oe HAT is claimed ot be the most economic and satisfactory system of nationa] broadcasting has recently been inaugurated in England. It is what is known as the Regional! Scheme and is aimed to cover the whole country with a choice of at least two widely different types of programmes, sent out so as to be easily receivable on the simplest apparatus The English system in the past has consisted of a series of "main" stations, located in the centre of the populous areas they serve, and being augmented by a number of very lowpower "relay" stations, with two hignpower transmitters i. fill -in’ the "blank" spots. All told England har had twenty-one stations in operation, but nineteen of these, of course, have had ‘a purely local service area. The new method invc'~es the use of only six or seven transmitters, all operating on very high power-generally 80 kw.-and all located well outside the populous part of their service areas, The London station, for ample, was put into commission recently, located at Brookman’s Park, in a very sparsely-populated district. fifteen miles from the metropolis. It is,

of course, connected by land-line to the existing studios at Savoy Hill, London, an arrangement which will be carried out with all the other stations. Hach of these new stations is designed to give two individual programmes, simultaneously transmitted on two different wavelengths separated by something-in the neighbourhood of 8000 ke. Naturally the London station was the first in the new system to be erected, although work on the eregtion of some of ‘the others is in hand, while practically all the sites have been decided on, after protracted experiments with portable apparatus in many different areas. — The new station is designed to serve a large "area in the south-east of Eng. land, extending to the South and Hast Coasts and also up towards the Midland counties. The first broadcasts at present being given are mainly of av experimental order, since the existing London transmitter is still used for the larger part of every day’s programme.