Check out this brilliant video tour of the BBC Woofferton Transmitting Station, presented by Senior Transmitter Engineer Dave Porter (G40YX). The video is divided in seven parts, thus I’ve created a playlist that will automatically load each video in order.
Click here to start the playlist on YouTube, or simply watch the tour through the embedded video player below. Enjoy:
Many thanks to Dave Porter for hosting this video tour and to Mike Barraclough for the tip!
If you would like to read a detailed history of Woofferton, be sure to check out our post:
Shortwave Radio History: 50 years of transmitting at BBC Woofferton
That was very interesting for me to watch. Thank you Dave.
Dave went to Wof in 1982 but I went to Wof in 1965, quite a lot earlier. The station was all very modern and state of the art when I joined.
I see that there have been several upgrades to the original BD272s since 1965 and the most amusing in one way was the replacement of the original Leak audio amplifiers which must have been one of the most reliable valve amps ever made. I doubt the replacement solid state amps were as reliable.
Another upgrade referred to but not shown was the incorporation of the 6 MHz coils into the output stage area . Originally the 6 MHz coils were huge things about 6 feet across, very heavy and they became very hot after a few hours transmitting and needed to be removed and changed within a short, often 15 minute, break in transmission.
I was only at Wof for a short period until going to earlier technology at Droitwich for a few years, nice friendly place to work but frustratingly old fashioned. Eventually I got moved to TV at Crystal Palace and to secondments in Libya and Qatar before moving out of anything operational to the Site Acquisition Section in the Head Office
Tony Glazier
G8ABQ
I had the pleasure of meeting Dave Porter a few years ago during a BDXC visit to Woofferton. I could have spent many more hours listening to this man. It was impossible to take it all in during the visit and have found his videos very interesting and helpful.
Really loved watching Dave’s presentations, and was interested to see just how large these transmitters were. Having physically seen (and been inside) the former Radio Australia transmitters at Cox Peninsula (aka Darwin), which were also used by Radio Canada at Sackville, it brought back memories. The Cox Peninsula transmitters – from recollection – were not physically as large and had large moving things inside them to change frequencies. I also recall (while listening to RA in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in 1991) phoning the transmitter guys – who I knew personally – to advise them of some very poor modulation. Within a minute the senior tech had taken the faulty sender off air and replaced the signal with a good one from one of the other 2 senders, which were on stand by at time of the night in Darwin.
Can anyone provide me with Dave Porter’s present email address please. Thank you.
Hey Dave can you please give me a call when you have a few moments spare 🙂
I have tried to email Dave Porter but the mail cannot be delivered (It has probably changed).
The email used was:- david.porter@merlincommunications.com
If you can send me Dave’s email address I would appreciate it.
Thank you.
Douglas Denny. G3ZQE
Hi Jeff,
I’ll be happy to answer your questions about the WOF site but visit the bbceng.info site first and go to Technical Reviews and then go to the box labelled Tricks of the Trade in there you will find four articles all about HF arrays.
I wish to email Dave Porter with some questions about the curtain arrays at Wooferton, and a few others relating to the site.
Would you be so kind as to pass along Dave’s email or pass along my email so he may correspond with me?
Thanks,
Jeff
Fantastic tour, so interesting. This is one I will watch several times. It reminds me of the tour of the Crystal Palace IBA transmitter I was on when I was a young trainee engineer at Philips in the 1970`s
73`s Peter GW4OZU