Want to own an bit of shortwave radio broadcasting history? Many thanks to Mike Barraclough who shares this listing on eBay: a BBC World Service Broadcast Radio Studio Desk from the Bush house in London.
Starting bid is £999–yep, that’s some serious money–and you’ll need to travel to Bristol, England to pick it up.
Here’s the full item description:
This is a genuine BBC World Service Studio from Bush House. I bought this when the BBC moved out of Bush House in July 2012. Unfortunately I have no room for it and so sadly I must sell it. All the components are still original as seen in the images.
Just think of the famous people who were interviewed at this desk. The whole desk is bespoke, beautifully made and crafted by BBC engineers, there is nothing quite like it. It still has all the detail such as the panic button underneath the desk, stands for computer monitors, telephone, the professional CD player and cassette desk player. Also original mixing desk, router board and switches – all you need to start your own radio station! The desk is mono as used by the BBC World Service.
Original Revox Professional Series CD player C-221
Original Kenwood Stereo Cassette Deck KX-4520
The original ElectroVoice RE20 Microphone with adjustable stand is NOT included and will be sold separately on eBay
BBC speaker will be sold separately.The lucky winner will have to ship this from my home in South Bristol at their own expense. It will require a medium sized van and two people to lift it.
More pictures to follow including accurate measurements. Approx 8ft wide, 3 feet deep and 3.5 feet high.
All of these Audionics MC Series consoles were installed in the early 1990s as special-edition mono versions (at great cost), and subsequently converted to stereo (at great cost). Such was the forward-thinking of World Service at the time. In fact I went to the factory in Sheffield to help carry out acceptance testing of a couple of them. This one will be stereo.
They weren’t that great; using Philips capacitors that went bad after only a few years, having PSU issues (e.g. burnt-out rectifiers) and a monitoring section that was – frankly – a nightmare. Badly-soldered wires that would pull out of the sleeve at the slightest tug – I could go on.
It was my job to maintain these from the 1990s into the 2000s, and I don’t miss them one bit (despite being a fan of analogue consoles).
There’s nothing professional about that Kenwood cassette deck (but the Revox CD player is a lucky find).
The concept of “famous people being interviewed at it” is a bit misguided; it’s possible (if you count some obscure foreign politician), but most of these desks (of which there were maybe 10 or so) were self-op “annexes” next to full-sized studios, with a few interlinking facilities that never got used. This was simply a way of getting extra studios through the books – saying that it was part of a bigger one, but never intending it to be used as such. Most of the time they were just used for the recording of phone interviews, and editing.