AROUND AND BEHIND THE DIALS

Radio Record, Volume VIII, Issue 17, 2 November 1934, Page 57

AROUND AND BEHIND

THE DIALS

Serving Nearly 30 Million Listeners How The B.B.C. Performs. Its Colossal Task

T the end of 1923 there were just over half a million licensed listeners in Great Britain, served by nine main and eleven relay stations. To-day there are over seven million licenses in force, representing nearly thirty million listeners, and yet the bulk of the broadcasting service is provided by only five "twin-transmitter" stations situated at strategic points throughout the British Isles. Nevertheless. every listener has the choice of two high-quality programmes, even with the simplest of sets. The extreme simplicity of the B.B.C. service, which at the same time is recognised by many as the best in the world, is a notable triumph for the engineers who planned it. Broadcasting in Britain on an organised basis began in 1922, when the British Broadcasting Company was formed. When it came into being there were already three stations operating, one in London, another in Birmingham, and a third in Manchester. These stations had, of course, been

erected by private concerns, and they were bought out by the Company, which immediately proceed-, ed with the erection of several more under the terms of the license issued by the Postmaster General. The original idea was to provide eight new transmitting sta-" tions which would give a service of an area of some 70 miles in radius, but radio was a somewhat crude affair twelve years ago, and it was found that the coverage from each station was more in the neighbourhood of 25 miles, These eight stations were in

operation by the end of 1923 and a ninth was built in Belfast to serve the heavily populated district of Northern Ireland. It was quite apparent by this time that there were large parts of the country that were receiving no sort of service at all, and the erection of a number of low-powered stations was decided upon to augment the existing service. The first of these was put up in Sheffield, and by the end of 1924 there were twenty-one low-powered broadcasting stations in operation in Britain, each one of them in the centre of a city. Still the service was not entirely satisfactory, and there were still large areas with very unreliable service or no service at all. For this reason, in July 1924 it was decided to put up an experimental transmitting station to transmit on a wavelength of 1600 metres, with considerably greater power than had previously been used. This station was erected at Chelmsford, with a power of 15 kilowatts-about three

times the power of the present 2YA-and it was an immediate success, easily covering an area of radius of 150 miles or more. Toward: the end of the same year it was decided to build a permanent longwave station at Daventry along similar lines, The main stations established according to the original plan were. entirely. selfcontained from a programme point of view, except that the general news bulletins were common to them all. The relay stations, on the other hand, took the bulk of their programmes from London, There

Was no studio at the longwave station at Daventry, which took its programme from either the London studios or from one of the provincial centres, and so this station also assumed a national role. Thus arose the idea of presenting every listener with a "National" and a "Regional" programme. This scheme was not developed until later, however. and British broadcasting continued along the original lines for some yeurs. At the end of 1926 the original Company’s license expired, and on January 1, 1927, the British Broadcasting Corporation took over control. International Wavelength Conf erence. By 1925 the very rapid development of broadcasting in other European countries had begun, and it was apparent that unless some international agreement was arrived at, interference between transmitting stations in various parts of Europe would become intolerable. For this reason the B.B.C. suegested an international union of broadcasting organisations so that the problem of allocation of wavelengths iv Kurope might be tackled. A preliminary meeting of representatives from most European countries was held in London in 1925, and ag a result the International Union was. formed. The first step was towards a genera! agreement concerning the sharing of wavelengths. According to this agreement, each country was allocated a cer-

tain number of wavelengths for its exclusive use, the number varying according to the size of the population of the country. These wavelength limitutions prompted the B.B.C. to replace its low-powered stutions with a system of high-powered regional stations. Each one of them served a dual purpose-it transmitted one programme particularly fitted to the requirements of the region in which it was situated, and a national programme identical with the one transmitted from Daventry. This in brief is an outline of the service which until just recently has been provided for listeners-in the British Isles. At present, however, the system is undergoing alterations which finally will make the service more efficient. yet even simpler. High-power, Longwave National Station, Before the last of these regional stations Was completed in 1933, the B.B.. was already considering its next step The immense value of the long wavelengths was being realised, ‘and the 6.B.C. thought that the best possible use Was not being made of the seven-year-old transmitter at Daventry. After some consideration it was decided to erect a longwave transmitting station of 150 kilowatts power at Droitwich, in Worcestershire. The opening of this station, which took place in September last, has meant that the whole of the

British Isles is covered by a sigual more than twice us strong as that proyided in the past from Daventry, In fact, the coverage is sv good that tbree o£ the national stations are now reduudant, and hence will be closed down, leaving only one of the "twin-transmit-ter" stations in Scotland. A photograph of the new Droitwich station uppeurs on the previous page. lt is easily the largest station in tie British Isles, and as it was built only recently it incorporates all the improrvemeuts in design which are now considered: desirable as the result of tive years’ operation of the regional stations, The pair of masts suppurting the verial are 700 feet high-among the highest in the world. Power is developed from crude ‘oil stored in huge tanks shown at the fuot of one of the musts. Before the new station opened some sections of the English press claimed that the tremendous power used would mike reception of foreign stations impossible for miiny listeners with unselective sets. With the opening of the station these suggestions were effec. tively disproved, and no undue inter: ference by Dritwich with the reception of continental programmes has yet been reported.