Guest Speaker Roger Castle-Smith

24 May 2012

Our speaker has worked in radio for most of his life and told of installations around the UK and Europe. Topics covered were:

  • Why is part of the FCO at Hanslope Park ?
  • A simplified organogram of the Diplomatic Wireless Service.
  • The origins of high power radio broadcasting in the FCO, Black Propaganda.
  • A tour of the Crowborough transmitter site where it all began.
  • How do listeners abroad know what is being broadcast and in what band ?
  • Block diagrams to illustrate improved methods of generating a double sideband signal which led to big improvements in transmitter efficiency.
  • A tour of the medium wave (648 and 1296 kHz) site at Orfordness.
  • The origins of FCO broadcasting in the Middle East.
  • The short and medium wave transmitter sites in Cyprus.
  • The medium and short wave transmitter sites on Masirah Island (Oman), now relocated on the mainland.
  • A brief mention of the FCO’s contribution to providing broadcast stations in such places as Tristan da Cunah, St Helena, and the Turks & Caicos  Islands