The Requisitioning of Sender 302 — a detailed look at the controversy

Disclaimer: I was employed by the BBC at the time of the 1982 war, and continue to be so. However, this is an entirely personal blog post, reflecting only my views.

This article is about the use by the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) of a requisitioned transmitter at the BBC Atlantic Relay Station on Ascension Island to beam Radio Atlantico del Sur's signal to its target audience. I took a first look at this controversy in a previous post. 

For background to this article, new readers of this blog may wish to read the post MOONSHINE - A story of psychological warfare. (MOONSHINE was the MoD's codename for Radio Atlantico del Sur.) 

The key transmitter 

In theory, RAdS could have used shortwave transmitters in the UK. Their signals could reach the Falklands. But it was essential that RAdS had the strongest possible signal, to have the best chance of being heard with reasonable quality on the simple sets that Argentine troops might have packed in their kit bags.
And as it was expected that RAdS would be jammed (as indeed turned out to be the case), only the best possible signal would do.

So, from the very start of the planning for RAdS it was assumed that one of the Ascension transmitters would have to be used.

The criticism

RAdS's critics – in 1982 and since, not least in the Foreign Office (FCO) – have claimed that the MoD's operation therefore deprived the BBC of a valuable transmitter for its own broadcasts to Latin America and Africa at a time when it was particularly important for Britain that the BBC External Services were heard as well as possible. [1]

Sender 302

In BBC-speak, shortwave transmitters are "senders", and each one has a unique "S" number. For example, at the time of the Falklands War the 12 senders at the BBC's transmitting station at Daventry, Northamptonshire, were numbered between S8 and S21 (S10 and S15 were no longer in service). Today, the sole remaining shortwave broadcast station in the UK is at Woofferton (straddling the Shropshire/Herefordshire border) where the 10 transmitters are numbered S81 to S84, and S91 to S96.

In 1982, there were four shortwave senders at the Ascension Island station: S301, S302, S303 and S304. They were identical and had 250 kilowatts of output power each. This made them among the most powerful of all the BBC's shortwave transmitters at the time, whether at the five transmitting stations it used in the UK or at its other overseas relay sites in Antigua, Cyprus, Lesotho, Oman and Singapore.

The government would have to requisition a specific transmitter to carry Radio Atlantico del Sur. After consulting the BBC, it was decided that it should be S302.

The evening scheduling problem

Although Radio Atlantico del Sur was on the air in both the morning and evening, it was the latter broadcasts that were seen as the more important "because less of the audience is then likely to be involved in their military duties" as RAdS's planners put it.

The initial plan (circulated within government on 28 April 1982) was that the evening programmes would go out for four hours from 2000 GMT – i.e. at 1700 to 2100 Falklands time. [2]

This posed a considerable challenge, as evenings in May 1982 were busy times for the Ascension relay station. Each day the station had been beaming BBC World Service in English to Africa on at least one transmitter (and at times on all four of them) since early morning, and continued to do so on one frequency until 2245 GMT. From 2000 it was also airing WS English to Latin America. Then there were the evening foreign-language broadcasts to Africa: French at 1815-1915, Hausa at 1915-1945 and Portuguese at 2030-2115 GMT (all carried on two Ascension frequencies). There was the "Calling the Falklands" programme, the BBC's lifeline service for the islanders, at 2115-2200. And from 2200 there was the BBC Portuguese service to Brazil, followed at 2315 by Spanish for Latin America (both languages being aired on two Ascension frequencies).

Accommodating Radio Atlantico del Sur in this busy schedule would therefore have been very difficult before 2245 GMT. (The MoD had made it clear from the start of its planning that the sender would only need to be requisitioned for the hours that RAdS would be on the air. It would be free during the rest of the day for its regular service for the BBC.)

Possibly because of that difficulty, the planned timing of the evening broadcast was quickly changed, and within a week of the initial plan the MoD had modified its proposal by pushing back the start time by three hours to 2300 GMT.

This made things simpler for the BBC's frequency managers. By 2300 GMT, all BBC transmissions to Africa had ended for the day, and the vital "Calling the Falklands" programme was also safely out of the way.

What was left to occupy Ascension for the hours immediately after 2300 was using two transmitters to carry the BBC Spanish service and the remaining two to carry World Service in English to the Americas.

To accommodate Radio Atlantico del Sur, WS English lost one of its frequencies from Ascension. The channel that was dropped was instead carried by a transmitter in the UK. The BBC estimated that this would result in a "50 per cent loss in quality" in the target area on that particular frequency. It should be noted that WS English continued to be beamed to South America after 2300 GMT on a total of eight frequencies (one from Ascension, one from the BBC Caribbean Relay Station in Antigua and six from the UK).

Possible overnight schedule for each transmitter

Using my admittedly incomplete notes from 1982, my best estimation is that each transmitter at Ascension was scheduled as follows overnight:

Before 19 May:

• S301 carries BBC World Service to the Americas at 2000-0230 GMT (on 15260 kHz).
• S302 carries "Calling the Falklands" at 2115-2200 (on 15400), Portuguese to Brazil at 2200-2315 (on 15390) and then Spanish to Latin America at 2315-0315 (on 15390).
• S303 carries "Calling the Falklands" at 2115-2200 (on 11820), Portuguese at 2200-2315 (on 11820), Spanish at 2315-0215 (on 11820) and English to South America at 0230-0330 (on 11750).
• S304 ends carrying BBC World Service to Africa (on 6005 kHz) at 2245, then makes a frequency and aerial change (from east to west) to carry BBC World Service to the Americas at 2300-0230 (on 11750). 

After S302 was requisitioned on 19 May:

• S301 ends carrying BBC World Service to the Americas at 2200 (on 15260 kHz), does a quick frequency change to 15390 kHz and carries Portuguese at 2200-2315 and Spanish at 2315-0315. Meanwhile, a transmitter in the UK takes over carrying WS English on 15260 from 2200 onwards.
• The requisitioned S302 ends "Calling the Falklands" (on 15400) at 2200 and shuts down. It switches frequency to 9710 kHz (but stays on the same aerial) and comes on the air again at 2255 with RAdS's interval signal, prior to the start of programming at 2300.
• S303 no change - schedule as above.
• S304 no change - schedule as above.

The morning scheduling problem looked easier...

Accommodating the morning broadcast was simpler than the evening one, though again this was only after the original plan for the timing was changed.

In the early morning, after the overnight transmissions to the Americas had ended, all of Ascension's efforts were focused on Africa. As well as World Service in English (from 0300 GMT), there were the dawn transmissions in French (0430-0445, 0515-0545 and 0630-0700) and Hausa (0545-0600). By 0730 all four Ascension senders were carrying the WS in English to Africa: one on 11860 kHz, one on 21660 and two transmitters doubled-up to give 500 kW on 15400.

For an RAdS transmission starting at 0815 (as was the orginal plan) it was simply necessary to take Sender 302 off 15400 kHz (still leaving another transmitter radiating on that frequency).

Some listeners in Africa might notice a reduction of power on 15400, but they still had the alternative frequencies of 11860 and 21660 from Acension and four other frequencies (two from the UK and one each from the BBC relay stations in Cyprus and Lesotho).

... but for the Voice of America problem

So far, so simple. But there would be a problem if the RAdS transmission continued beyond 1000 GMT. For this would mean a clash with the Voice of America's (VOA) morning transmission in Portuguese to Brazil, which was carried on two Ascension transmitters between 1000 and 1100.

The relay of the VOA by Ascension was part of a swap arrangement under which some BBC broadcasts to Latin America were relayed by VOA transmitters in the USA.

Upsetting the arrangement with the VOA would therefore cause embarrassment to the BBC, and possible irritation in Washington.

The planned timings for the morning RAdS broadcasts went through several changes. At one point a two-and-a-half hour broadcast at 0815-1045 GMT was envisaged. By the time the proposal for Project MOONSHINE was put to the War Cabinet this had been reduced slightly to 0830-1030, and when the MoD issued its 19 May press release announcing the start of broadcasts there had been a further reduction to 0815-0945.

When the morning broadcasts eventually began on 28 May they were at 0830-0930. So, there was no clash with the VOA.

The requisitioning

Someone in government had to write to the BBC to give formal notice that one of its Ascension transmitters was being requisitioned. There was an argument in Whitehall about which ministry should do this. Up to that time it was assumed that in the case of the BBC's domestic service transmitters it would normally be the job of the Home Office. For the BBC External Services the expectation was that the Foreign Office would take responsibility for the task.

But the FCO, which had opposed the setting up of the RAdS ever since Project MOONSHINE was first mooted, rejected the suggestion that it should requisition the Ascension transmitter and wanted the MoD to do the deed instead.

(For more about the arguments between the FCO and the MOD over Radio Atlantico del Sur, see my post "The War Cabinet is invited to agree".)

By 13 May the FCO had been working for over a fortnight to stop RAdS from taking to the air, but seems to have realised that it was likely to lose this particular Whitehall battle. That day, Keith MacInnes, head of the FCO Information Department and a key player in the Foreign Office's agitation against RAdS, wrote to the MoD to say:

[...] this is a special case and it is our view that entire responsibility for the operation should rest with the Ministry of Defence.

In other words, the FCO wanted to cover itself should RAdS prove to be a fiasco, and so the MoD would have to requisition the transmitter itself. This was although a Mr Chamberlain, an FCO legal adviser, had said in an internal memo on 6 May that "it would be better for the letter [to the BBC] to go from the FCO".

So, on 19 May, the day after the War Cabinet had agreed that Project MOONSHINE should go ahead, the Permanent Under-Secretary at the MoD, Sir Frank Cooper, wrote to Sir Ian Trethowan, Director-General of the BBC:

Dear Ian, 

In the circumstances of the present Falkland Islands operations, I am writing on behalf of the Secretary of State for Defence to say that Her Majesty's Government require the use of a transmitter number 302 at the BBC Atlantic Relay Station, between the hours of 0815 to 0945 and 2300 and 0200 GMT, from 2300 GMT on 19 May 1982 until further notice. [3]

2. In accordance with Article 19 of the Licence and Agreement of 2 April 1981 between Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Home Department and the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Corporation are hereby directed to permit the use of the said transmitter by Her Majesty's Government for the periods stated in the preceding paragraph.

3. I should be grateful if you would acknowledge receipt of this letter.

Yours sincerely,

Frank Cooper

Sir Ian replied:

Dear Frank,

I am in receipt of your letter of today's date informing me that Her Majesty's Government require the use of transmitter number 302 at the BBC Atlantic Relay Station at the specified times of day until further notice.

We will, of course, comply.

Yours,

Ian

And when it was all over, after Argentine forces surrendered late on 14 June, Sir Frank wrote again to the BBC on 16 June:

Dear Ian,

Further to my letter of 19 May, I am writing again on behalf of the Secretary of State for Defence to inform you that following the surrender of the Argentine forces on the Falkland Islands, Her Majesty's Government will no longer require the use of Transmitter Number 302 at the BBC Atlantic Relay Station from 1800 GMT on 16 June 1982.

2. I should like to take this opportunity to express my thanks for the BBC's prompt action in making the transmitter available in the exceptional circumstances of the Falkland Islands operation.

Yours sincerely,

Frank Cooper

Conclusions

The BBC coped remarkably well with the loss if one of its Ascension transmitters for four hours a day. No BBC transmissions from Ascension in foreign languages were lost, nor was there any interruption to the important "Calling the Falklands" programme or the relaying of the British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) programme for the Task Force. The relaying of the Voice of America was also unaffected.

The small price of a loss of power on one (of three) Ascension frequencies carrying BBC World Service for Africa outside prime listening hours, and on one frequency (of many) carrying WS English to South America, seems one well worth paying to get Radio Atlantico del Sur on the air. 

Notes

[1] What is now known as the BBC World Service (operating in English and many other languages) was in 1982 still referred to as the BBC External Services – and in internal BBC bureaucracy as External Broadcasting (XB). At that time, the "World Service" name was reserved solely for the service in English. This distinction was abandoned in 1988 when the "External Services" name was dropped and all international broadcasting by the BBC came under the World Service brand.

[2] When Argentine forces invaded the Falklands they announced that local time in the islands would be the same as that in Argentina, which was 3 hours behind GMT. Meanwhile, local time on Ascension is the same as GMT.

[3] The wording ("a transmitter number 302") suggests that whoever drafted this letter assumed that "302" was a type of transmitter, rather than the designation of one individual sender.

© 2017. Material may be reproduced if attributed to Chris Greenway and any original source.

"London Calling the Falkland Islands" — the BBC's lifeline service

Disclaimer: I was employed by the BBC at the time of the 1982 war, and continue to be so. However, this is an entirely personal blog post, reflecting only my views.

About this blog post: When I began this blog I intended to focus exclusively on Radio Atlantico del Sur, the Spanish-language shortwave station operated by the British Ministry of Defence in the final four weeks of the April-June 1982 Falklands War. Later, I felt that to tell the story of RAdS to the fullest I needed to look also at some other radio broadcasts during the 1982 war. 

So, I devoted one post to Argentina's Liberty station and another to a service run by the British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS).

This blog post looks at the long-running BBC programme Calling the Falklands.

Control panel for a 1980s Bush House studio of the type used for the Calling the Falklands programme
Photo credit: Neale Bateman

A "lifeline for the islanders"

From the 1984 edition of the BBC Handbook:

[In 1982] the weekly thirty-year-old record request show Calling the Falklands came into its own. Overnight, the programme changed its format and during the Falklands conflict became the lifeline for the islanders. Every day throughout the Argentine occupation, the programme carried special news bulletins, interviews, press reviews, despatches and special messages from leading personalities such as the Foreign Secretary and the Archbishop of Canterbury as well as thousands of messages to the Falkland Islanders from relatives and friends in Britain and around the world. The programme also caught the attention and imagination of the world's television, radio and press, who filmed and interviewed staff in Bush House during the period.

After the liberation, the programme reverted to three transmissions a week until the end of 1982, and is now broadcast twice a week. The effectiveness of these programmes has been clearly indicated to Topical Tapes by the flow of letters, telegrams and messages from the islanders to the producers, and the rapturous welcome received by the Calling the Falklands team during a visit to the Islands.

[...]

Calling the Falklands is estimated to have received 3,000 messages for listeners in the islands at the time of the crisis, followed afterwards by many hundreds of letters of overwhelming appreciation and anecdotes highlighting the vital role of the programme. 

"London Calling the Falkland Islands" – profile of a lifeline service

Origins: The service began in 1944 as "a weekly compilation of record requests and personal messages from friends and relatives to the islanders". 

That description of the programme – in a BBC press release in 2006 announcing the closure of the service – still held good immediately before the 1982 war. 

Name(s) of the programme: Both London Calling the Falkland Islands and Calling the Falklands were used on the air and in documents referring to the service. During the 1982 war, and for some years afterwards, the full name was used at the start of each programme. For example, a recording from 1988 starts: "This is London Calling the Falkland Islands on 9.915 megahertz in the 31-metre band."

In later years the frequency announcement was dropped and the programme always began: "From the BBC in London, this is Calling the Falklands presented by..."

In an excellent study, 'Strangers in the Night’: The Falklands Conflict as a Radio War, Alasdair Pinkerton says the programme was often known in the islands as London Bridge, after its signature tune. This is a problematic explanation, as the signature tune was not "London Bridge is Falling Down" but another British nursery rhyme, albeit one still referring to London, "Oranges and Lemons".

Programming during the Falklands War: The description in the BBC Handbook quoted above – that programming during the war included "special news bulletins, interviews, press reviews, despatches and special messages from leading personalities" – is how I remember it.

In particular, Falklands Governor Rex Hunt, deported by the Argentines from the islands immediately after the invasion, was a frequent guest on the show. 

An account from a listener in the islands has been provided by Graham Bound, a local journalist who would later become a Calling the Falklands presenter. He wrote in 2012:

[...] we would take comfort from tuning through the crackling interference to hear Calling the Falklands. This programme had been broadcast once a week for many years, but until 1982 it had simply been a medium for music and messages from families in the UK. Now, though, Bush House began broadcasting a longer edition every evening, dedicated to news about the conflict and inspiring messages from public figures and the families of those who were effectively imprisoned in the Falklands. These were often highly emotional broadcasts. 

The presenters did not avoid controversial topics. I remember some pointed comments in one show during the war about the role of the Falkland Islands Company (owned by the UK-based Coalite group, and which seemed to have a quasi-feudal dominance over aspects of the islands' economy) in its commercial dealings with the occupying forces.
  
Presenters: The main presenter during the war was Peter King, who came out of retirement specifically to take up this role. He had been a presenter on both BBC domestic and external radio since the 1940s. King's sign-off catchphrase at the end of each night's show – "Keep your heads down and your hearts high" – became well known.

The other main presenter in 1982 was Kathleen Cheesmond, who was already an established presence on the programme and who continued to work on it in later years.

Expansion of the service after the start of the 1982 crisis

At the time of Argentine invasion (2 April 1982), Calling the Falklands was aired each Sunday at 2209-2245 GMT. That was 1809-1845 local time, so the show must have been a notable Sunday evening fixture in many Falkland homes. As well as being aired by shortwave from the UK, it was also relayed by the Falkland Islands Broadcasting Service (FIBS), though of course these relays ceased after the arrival of the Argentines, who took over FIBS and renamed it "LRA60 Radio Nacional, Islas Malvinas". Islanders then had to rely entirely on the BBC's shortwave transmissions of the show.

The invasion was on a Friday, so islanders had to wait just two days before the first Calling the Falklands of the occupation. From the following Tuesday, transmissions went to three days a week (Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays) and were expanded to 45 minutes. The broadcast time was also made earlier, now going out at 2115-2200 GMT.

Importantly, the programme now went out live, rather than being pre-recorded.

A window of opportunity and further boosts to the schedule

The change in the broadcast time of the show (starting at 2115 rather than 2209 GMT) allowed for a significant improvement to its signals. 

For many years, Calling the Falklands had been aired on two shortwave frequencies from UK-based transmitters. 

When the thrice-weekly airings started on 6 April these were replaced by two frequencies (11820 and 15400 kHz) from the BBC Atlantic Relay Station on Ascension Island. This would have meant a considerable increase in signal strength in the Falklands. [1]

As the two Ascension transmitters in question were used by the BBC's Portuguese service to Brazil from 2200 GMT, Calling the Falklands had to air before that time. 

But it also had to go out after 2115 GMT, as before then the two Ascension transmitters were carrying the BBC's Portuguese service to Africa.

So, the window of availability was 2115-2200 GMT. 

(There were four 250-kilowatt transmitters at the Ascension relay station. While Calling the Falklands, and the Portuguese services to Africa or Brazil, were going out over two of them, the other two were being used for the BBC World Service in English, one on a beam to South America and the other to West Africa.)

A further boost to the service came went it went daily from Monday 26 April (at the same times and on the same frequencies).

Argentine jamming – and the BBC response

About a month after the invasion Argentina started jamming the broadcasts. In his 2012 article, islander Graham Bound said:

[...] at about the same time that the curfew was declared [around early May], an Argentine signals unit began jamming the programme. The voice of the main presenter, Peter King, would gradually be obliterated by a mechanical noise. This was hugely frustrating, and it was not until BBC correspondents Robert Fox and the late Brian Hanrahan landed with the forces at San Carlos [on or shortly after 21 May] that word of the jamming got back to Bush House. At that point, World Service began broadcasting on a second frequency. To our relief, the Argentines never succeeded in jamming that one, so normal morale-boosting service was resumed.  

This interesting account of the jamming from someone who was in the Falklands at the time is a counterpoint to observations that were made back in the UK by the BBC at its Crowsley Park receiving station. This only observed the jamming of Calling the Falklands to start on 25 May. [2] 

Yet, according to Graham Bound, the jamming began some time before then. In the first edition of his own newsletter Penguin News to appear after the war, Bound said the period of effective jamming (i.e. before the extra frequencies were added) lasted for about three weeks. 

The most likely explanation for this discrepancy is that the Argentines initially jammed Calling the Falklands using low-powered local transmitters on the islands themselves. These would have had the serious effect that Bound describes but would have been too weak to have been heard in the UK.

Later, more powerful jamming transmissions, perhaps from Argentina itself, may have been used, and it's likely that these were the source of the jamming heard at Crowsley.

Whatever the explanation, the BBC responded as soon as it became aware of the jamming. On 26 May – the day after Crowsley first heard the jamming and five days after the San Carlos landings referred to by Bound – the two original UK frequencies (9915 and 12040 kHz, both from Skelton, Cumbria) were reintroduced, while retaining both Ascension frequencies.

This schedule remained in place for the remainder of the war.

Argentina ended its jamming after the 14 June surrender.

After the war

The daily transmissions continued for more than a month after the surrender. From 25 July 1982, they became three days a week (Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays), still at 2115-2200 GMT.

From the start of 1983 this became twice a week (Tuesdays and Fridays) and the length of the programme was cut to 30 minutes (2130-2200 GMT). 

Although Calling the Falklands went back to being pre-recorded it never returned to its pre-war format of a record-request show. Instead it remained a speech-based programme, looking at political, economic, environmental, historical and other topics of interest to islanders.

There was a further cut to 15 minutes in 1992, though the twice-weekly airings were retained, as was the 2130 GMT start time.

That schedule remained in place for the remainder of the programme's life.

The final broadcast was on Friday 31 March 2006 at 2130-2145 GMT on 11680 kHz.

Archive

The BBC maintains an online archive of recordings of 755 editions of the programme aired between December 1988 and June 2005.

Conclusion

With a very clearly defined target audience and objectives, this was a supremely successful service during the war.  

As a 1984 article in the Falkland Islands Newsletter put it:

Calling the Falklands was like a rock for Islanders to cling to: essentially something British and familiar, broadcast direct from London, especially for the besieged Islanders, assuring them that they were not forgotten and to hang on.

The one major unsatisfactory aspect was the period of around three weeks (out of the almost 11 weeks of occupation) when Argentine jamming appears to have been a serious problem for many listeners. It was unfortunate, though perhaps understandable, that the BBC's intelligence-gathering did not spot this jamming sooner. 

Notes

[1] The programme was fed from the UK to Ascension by two BBC independent-sideband (ISB) shortwave transmitters, on 19455 kHz (from Daventry, Northamptonshire) and 15670 kHz (from Rampisham, Dorset). In both cases, Calling the Falklands was on lower-sideband (LSB) while the main BBC World Service in English was on USB.

Two simultaneous feeder frequencies were used so as to provide "diversity reception" at Ascension. This could reduce the effects of shortwave fading by allowing at any one time for the stronger feeder of the two to be selected for the programme relay.

As explained in an earlier post, all BBC external services (either individual languages or groups of them) were colour-coded for ease of reference throughout the signal chain from studio to transmitter. For example, the main World Service in English was always coded Green. Calling the Falklands was coded Red, as were the BBC's evening Spanish and Portuguese transmissions to Latin America which went out over the Red Network immediately afterwards (Calling the Falklands at 2115, Portuguese at 2200 and Spanish at 2315 GMT).

[2] By comparison, Crowsley had first noted jamming of the BBC's Spanish service on 3 May.

© 2017. Material may be reproduced if attributed to Chris Greenway and any original source.