Tag Archives: The Guardian

The Guardian: “Hundreds of jobs to go as BBC announces World Service cutbacks”

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(Source: The Guardian via Mark Hirst)

Hundreds of jobs to go as BBC announces World Service cutbacks

Corporation to end production of radio output in 10 languages, including Chinese, Hindi and Arabic, as it blames licence fee freeze

The BBC has announced deep cuts to its World Service output that will result in the loss of hundreds of jobs, saying it has been forced to act by the government’s ongoing licence fee freeze.

In a move that could weaken the UK’s soft power around the world, the corporation will stop producing radio output in 10 languages, including Chinese, Hindi, and Arabic.

BBC Persian will end its audio broadcasts aimed at Iran, with the announcement coming at a time when widespread protests are taking place in the country.

There will also be a change in focus of the World Service’s English-language radio output, with more time dedicated to live news and sports programming at the expense of standalone programmes.

About 382 jobs will be lost as a result of the proposals, which the BBC said was required to make £28.5m of annual savings. The broadcaster blamed years of below-inflation licence fee freezes imposed by the government, in addition to the rapidly increasing cost of producing programmes because of the state of the economy.

Philippa Childs of the broadcasting union Bectu said she recognised the BBC needed to adapt to the digital era but that the government’s licence fee freeze has “potential ramifications for the BBC’s reputation globally”.

The World Service was traditionally funded directly by the government and was seen as a soft power tool that provided British news and information to hundreds of millions of people around the globe. This money largely dried up as part of George Osborne’s austerity measures in 2010, when the bill for World Service operations was loaded on to domestic licence fee payers.

Since then the BBC has had to go cap-in-hand to the government to seek extra funding to support specific World Service projects, with ministers providing around £400m in additional cash since 2016. However, there are doubts about how long these deals will continue. Earlier this year the BBC had to ask ministers for an emergency £4m to keep its operations in Ukraine and Russia on air. [Continue reading at The Guardian…]

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The Guardian: “BBC website ‘blocked’ in Russia as shortwave radio brought back to cover Ukraine war”

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Chris, who shares the following report from The Guardian:

BBC website ‘blocked’ in Russia as shortwave radio brought back to cover Ukraine war (The Guardian)

Website reportedly available at only 17% of normal levels in Russia, hours after broadcaster revives radio technology to reach Ukraine and parts of Russia

Access to BBC websites has been restricted in Russia, hours after the corporation brought back its shortwave radio service in Ukraine and Russia to ensure civilians in both countries can access news during the invasion.

State communications watchdog Roskomnadzor restricted access to BBC Russia’s online presence, as well as Radio Liberty and the Meduza media outlet, the state-owned Russian RIA news agency reported on Friday.

According to Globalcheck, a service that tracks internet censorship in the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the availability of the entire BBC website was at 17% of normal levels in Russia, which suggests some services have been blocked.

BBC Russia also reported that Meta, formerly known as Facebook, also appeared to be blocked, as was Google Play.

The signs the BBC was being blocked emerged hours after the BBC’s decision to revert to a mostly obsolete form of broadcasting, broadcasting four hours of its world service, read in English, to Ukraine and parts of Russia each day.

“It’s often said truth is the first casualty of war,” BBC director general Tim Davie said in announcing the move on Thursday. “In a conflict where disinformation and propaganda is rife, there is a clear need for factual and independent news people can trust … millions more Russians are turning to the BBC.” [Continue reading at The Guardian…]

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Radio Waves: United Biscuit’s Radio Station, WMAL Towers Demolished, Canada’s First Off-Grid Station, and St. Helena Gets Fiber

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Radio Waves:  Stories Making Waves in the World of Radio

Because I keep my ear to the waves, as well as receive many tips from others who do the same, I find myself privy to radio-related stories that might interest SWLing Post readers.  To that end: Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributors Todd R, Skip Arey and Tracy Wood  for the following tips:

Cracker factory records: the surprising story of United Biscuits’ radio station (The Guardian)

Playing Bollywood soundtracks and songs about safety shoes, this shopfloor station made stars out of Dale Winton and Nicky Horne, and paved the way for UK commercial radio

nless you spent your summers packing Jaffa Cakes into boxes in the 70s, you are unlikely to have heard of the United Biscuits Network (UBN). It was a radio station for biscuit-makers, broadcasting around the clock to factories in London, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow. One part industrial psychology, another part community radio, UBN was intended to make factory life more bearable, but over its nine-year lifespan, it emerged as one of the most daring, anarchic and pioneering stations to hit the UK airwaves.

Music has long been a point of contention in the workplace. Prof Marek Korczynski, who co-authored Rhythms of Labour (2013), describes the history of British working life as “a battle over soundscapes”. Bosses first wanted silent factories, but during the second world war, Korczynski says, “industrial psychologists – the forerunners to HR departments – started looking at playing cheerful music in factories, at the times of day when productivity would dip”. After the war, as Britain rebuilt itself, this strategy was maintained with muzak: inoffensive background tunes, played to lighten the monotony of factory work.

There was one issue, according to Korczynski: “Workers grew to hate muzak.” As jobs on the production line were deskilled and made ever more monotonous, muzak’s effectiveness weakened and staff turnover soared. For Sir Hector Laing, the chairman of United Biscuits in the 1960s, stemming the flow – and its cost – was desperately necessary. Drawing on the success of commercial pirate stations such as Radio Caroline, Laing put adverts in Melody Maker, bought state-of-the-art broadcasting equipment and set up his very own station from UB’s headquarters in Osterley, west London (where Sky’s HQ sits today).[…]

Demolition of Bethesda radio towers takes a piece of history, rare open space (Washington Post)

When the four orange and white steel towers first soared over Bethesda in 1941, they stood in a field surrounded by sparse suburbs emerging just north of where the Capital Beltway didn’t yet exist. Reaching 400 feet, they beamed the voices of WMAL 630 AM talk radio across the nation’s capital for 77 years.[…]

Manitoulin boasts Canada’s first off-grid radio stations (Manitoulin Expositor)

LITTLE CURRENT – Great Lakes Country 103 FM and Hits100 FM have opened a new broadcasting studio and office space at the Flat Rock Entertainment Centre, home of Manitoulin Countryfest and Rockin’ the Rock, becoming the first off-grid commercial radio stations in Canada, according to CEO Craig Timmermans.

“It’s super nice to not have an electricity bill anymore,” says Mr. Timmermans as he leads The Expositor on a tour through his company’s new headquarters at 1 Radio Road on the southeastern edge of Little Current.

Through the front doors of the building lies a reception area floating in the centre of a large, open rectangular space. All of the central furniture is moveable so the team can empty the space for special events and small live concerts.

To the right is a small seating area featuring a wood and epoxy tabletop made by Kelly ‘KT’ Timmermans, president of the company. She has also built the live-edge wooden shelving and a table inside the adjacent boardroom.

“This is what I did with my quarantine,” she says with a laugh. “It’s nice to have our own space and to be in charge of our own destiny. We loved being downtown but it didn’t help our business like we had hoped.”[…]

Telecom Egypt signs agreement with St Helena Government to provide it with its first subsea solution (Capacity)

02 November 2020: Telecom Egypt and St Helena Government (SHG) have signed an agreement to connect the Island to Telecom Egypt’s subsea system over the Equiano submarine cable system.

Telecom Egypt will be the first to provide St Helena with a fibre optic connection to the rest of the world, which is a crucial step towards the Island’s economic growth. The cable, along with the associated high-speed internet, is planned to be delivered to the Island by early 2022.

The branch that connects Telecom Egypt’s system to St Helena will be 1,140km long. The cable itself will run from the West Coast of Africa and provide St Helena with access to both Lisbon, Portugal and Melkbosstrand, South Africa with scalable connectivity ranging from a few hundred gigabits up to multiple terabits, as demand varies. It, therefore, provides the most cost effective solution to the growth in the Island’s bandwidth needs.

In light of its vast experience in the subsea connectivity business, Telecom Egypt, in conjunction with SHG, will provide a Dynamic Circuit Network functionality, which will ensure that SHG’s communication partners have access to fixed bandwidth.?Telecom Egypt will also support SHG in the design, installation, and configuration of the submarine and network equipment.[…]

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Radio Waves: BBC radio reporters axed, Ham Radio on BBC Surrey, K6UDA on IC-705 features, and VLF balloon launched with request for detailed reception report

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Radio Waves:  Stories Making Waves in the World of Radio

Because I keep my ear to the waves, as well as receive many tips from others who do the same, I find myself privy to radio-related stories that might interest SWLing Post readers.  To that end: Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributors Mark Hist, Kris Partridge, John Palmer, and the Southgate ARC for the following tips:

Radio reporters to be axed by BBC and told to reapply for new roles (The Guardian)

Radio reporters to be axed by BBC and told to reapply for new roles
Critics fear end of an era because of plans to make audio journalists work across media platforms

BBC radio voices have described and defined modern British history. Live reports from inside a British bomber over Germany during the second world war, or with the British troops invading Iraq in 2003, or more recently from the frontline of the parent boycott of a Birmingham school over LGBT lessons have also shaped the news agenda.

But now the BBC plans to axe all its national radio reporters and ask them to reapply for a smaller number of jobs as television, radio and digital reporters, rather than as dedicated audio journalists. Many fear it is not just the end of their careers but the premature end of an era for the BBC.

“Radio reporting is a different job. Of course, you can do both, but a report designed for television starts from a completely different place. Radio is also more agile and also a lot less expensive,” said one experienced broadcast journalist. “I am pretty sure most of us will not be given new TV roles. It seems sad to lose all that specific radio expertise.”

Among the well-known voices likely to be affected are Hugh Sykes, Andrew Bomford – who has just completed a long feature on the child protection process for Radio 4’s PM show – and the award-winning and idiosyncratic Becky Milligan, as well as a wider team of expert correspondents.[…]

Amateur radio on BBC Radio Surrey (Southgate ARC)

RSGB report Board Director Stewart Bryant G3YSX and SOTA organiser Tim Price G4YBU were interviewed on BBC Radio Surrey on Friday, September 11

The interview starts just before 1:43:00 into the recording at
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p08pkykw

RSGB https://twitter.com/theRSGB

What is Amateur Radio?
http://www.essexham.co.uk/what-is-amateur-radio

Free UK amateur radio Online Training course
https://essexham.co.uk/train/foundation-online/

10 Things That Make The Icom IC 705 A Revolution in Ham Radio (K6UDA YouTube)

 

VLF Balloon with 210m long antenna launches Sept 12 (Southgate ARC)

A high-altitude balloon experiment, launched by Warsaw University of Technology, is planned to lift off September 12, carrying a VLF 210-m-long fully-airborne antenna system, transmitting on 14.2 kHz

14.2 kHz is the former frequency of the Babice Radio Station in Poland.

The project is delivering very important data for a doctoral dissertation – any and all feedback on the reception of the signal (reception location, SNR, bandwidth etc.) is extremely important; your help with the listening to the transmission would be invaluable!

The balloon will also be transmitting APRS on 144.800 MHz FM, callsign SP5AXL.

Full details at
https://alexander.n.se/grimetons-sister-station-shall-reappear-in-the-stratosphere/?lang=en

Kris also points out this article which provides more detail about the station and request for reception reports:

Invented for the first time in 2014, in 2020 it will finally be implemented – the idea of „restoring” the TRCN, but in the stratosphere, where there are no mechanical limitations at the height of the antennas, and the achieved range can be gigantic.

The launch of a stratospheric balloon from the Przasnysz-Sierakowo airport of the Warsaw University of Technology is planned for September 12, 2020, in order to perform atmospheric tests – measuring UV radiation, recording the cloudy surroundings with a high-speed camera and conducting an inductive experiment at 14.2 kHz using a special antenna system.

The inductive system uses a modified long-wave transmitter (A1 emission, unkeyed) from the GLACiER project of the Warsaw University of Technology, implemented as part of the IGLUNA – a Habitat in Ice programme (ESA_Lab / Swiss Space Center). The power of the transmitter, due to the emission limits for this type of inductive devices, shall not exceed a few watts. The antenna system is a centrally fed (35: 1) dipole with capacitive (Hertzian) elements and a vertical axial coil. The electrical length is between 400 and 500 m, with a total system length of 210 m. The antenna is equipped with metalized radar reflectors.

The entire balloon mission will use 144.8 MHz (as SP5AXL) and 868 MHz (as part of the LoVo system) for navigation. Flight information will be available in advance in NOTAM (EPWW).
Planned balloon launch (even if the sky is full of ‘lead’ clouds) at 12.00 UTC (14.00 CEST, local time). The 14.2kHz experiment will be switched on on the ground, with the antenna initially folded in harmony. The predicted total flight time is 3 hours – around 13.30-14.00 UTC / 15.30-16.00 CEST it is planned to reach the maximum altitude of 30 km above sea level.

Source: https://trcn.pl/do-stratosfery-to-the-stratosphere/

How can you help with the experiment? By recording as much as possible! Every parameter is valuable – from the spectrum / screenshot with the spectrum, to the EM field strengths, SNR and bandwidth, to the change of the EM field strength over time. The collected data can be sent to our e-mail address: [email protected]. On the day of launch, we plan to post updates on the launch, flight and the experiment itself via our Facebook page: facebook.com/radiostacjababice.
Stay tuned!

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Radio Waves: Burning 5G, WAUK Simulcasts C-19 Radio, Remote US Ham Exams, and Guardian’s Top 10 Radio Stations

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Photo by Joshua Anderson Slate

Radio Waves:  Stories Making Waves in the World of Radio

Because I keep my ear to the waves, as well as receive many tips from others who do the same, I find myself privy to radio-related stories that might interest SWLing Post readers.  To that end: Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributors Tom Daly and the Southgate ARC for the following tips:

5G Conspiracy Theories Trigger Attacks On Cellphone Towers (NPR)

Dozens of cellphone towers and equipment boxes have been set aflame in Britain, apparently by people who believe 5G technology is helping to spread the coronavirus.

Milwaukee AM Station Temporarily Simulcasting SiriusXM Channel (North Pine)

Good Karma Brands has temporarily set aside the ESPN Radio lineup on WAUK/540 (Jackson-Milwaukee) and is simulcasting a COVID-19 information from a satellite radio channel.

The temporary programming is coming from SiriusXM’s Doctor Radio and coronavirus information channels. The simulcast on WAUK began Monday, April 20. It wasn’t announced how long it will continue.

WAUK operates in tandem with “ESPN Milwaukee” FM signal WKTI/94.5 (Milwaukee), with the AM station normally continuing to carry ESPN from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. while the FM side is in local programming.

Locally, Good Karma also owns News/Talk outlet WTMJ/620 (Milwaukee).[…]

USA: Fully-Remote Amateur Radio License Exam Administration (Southgate ARC)

The USA’s Ham Study group have released the latest update on the Fully-Remote Amateur Radio Exam Process

On March 26th, 2020, the first-ever fully-remote amateur radio exam was held to demonstrate the capabilities of these technologies and align with the needs of the W5YI VEC that authorized the trial.

Several other VE Teams have begun administering fully-remote exams using ExamTools.org along with video conferencing systems.

Read the Press Release at
https://blog.hamstudy.org/2020/04/fully-remote-amateur-radio-license-exam-administration/ […]

10 of the best music radio stations around the world (The Guardian)

Thousands of radio DJs are employed around the globe to play Anglophone pop and rock. If there’s such a thing as “world music” to them, it’s REM and Queen.

But there are many more radio stations around the world that play music from their own cultures, past and present, mainstream and marginal. When it comes to virtual travel, music is arguably the easiest and most enjoyable way to transport your brain out of Covidland to places you’ve visited – or plan to – in person.

The net is pretty chaotic, with dozens of aggregators and formats. But here are 10 soundscapes to explore. Turn up the volume to Mexican cantina level.[…]

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“My father paid four times his weekly wage for the greatest gift of my life”

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Photo by Markus Spiske

(Source: The Guardian)

He bought me and my brother – both of us blind – a tape recorder that dominated Christmas Day and the remainder of the holidays, and led to a long and happy career

It’s eight o’clock on Christmas morning, and Uncle Tom wants to hear the news. My 11-year-old self is wondering why on earth grownups want to hear the news on Christmas Day when there are vital things to be done, such as handing out presents. And then, while I am only half-listening, something weird happens: the Greenwich time pips start. Surely we have already heard those. And then the boring man with the plummy voice begins going on about a Christmas message to the world from the Vatican. Surely that’s been on already, too.

It’s my older brother, Colin, who gets it! “Pete, Pete, it’s a tape recorder, you idiot! We’ve got our tape recorder.”

The penny drops: Uncle Tom and my dad have recorded the headlines, and are playing them back.

I think it’s often quite rare to experience real excitement over a present: in my experience, children are as good as adults at knowing what is expected of them and simulating joyful surprise, even when they don’t feel it. But for me this was one of those rare moments when my insides gave an involuntary lurch and the world did a little somersault.

Colin and I had both been blind from birth, and at this point were spending most of our time at a special boarding school, Worcester College for the Blind (now called New College Worcester). In the late 1950s, Britain had just reached the point when exciting consumer goods were coming within reach of the not-really-rich, and at Worcester reel-to-reel tape recorders were definitely the consumer gizmos of choice. For blind kids, they would trump cameras every time, especially at this moment when rock’n’roll was more of a religion than a pastime. For us, you could spot the better-off kids not by the clothes they wore, or the holidays they boasted about, but by the tape recorders they owned. So in our class, Iain Hopkin was marked out as something of a plutocrat by his Brenell recorder. Fortunately for us, Hoppy was a generous soul, and gave us all access to his recordings of Tony Hancock and Peter Sellers.

Still, a recorder of your own was the height of aspiration, and Colin – better informed and more realistic about family finances than me – had no real expectations.

I realised, much later, that at this time my dad, a very good joiner and carpenter, was probably earning about £8 a week. The tape recorder my parents had bought us, although nowhere near at the top of the range, would have cost more than four times his weekly wage. My parents could only afford it by borrowing the money from Uncle Tom, who had a thriving grocery business. Family or not, I know my mum and dad would have thought long and hard before incurring the debt.

The new toy, mains-powered and the size of a small suitcase, dominated the rest of Christmas Day and the remainder of the holidays. Once we had mastered the controls (Colin was the technical one, but was surprisingly patient in sharing his discoveries with me), we recorded everything in sight: each other, our parents, the milkman, the dog … And we very quickly learned the fun to be had at catching people unawares.[…]

Click here to continue reading at The Guardian.

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The Guardian: The loss of rural radio leaves US communities with “another cultural and informational gap”

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(Source: The Guardian via BJ Leiderman and Kris Partridge)

America’s rural radio stations are vanishing – and taking the country’s soul with them

When I arrive at the radio station, Mark Lucke is standing in the doorway, looking out at the spitting, winter rain. He’s slim and stoic, with sad, almost haunted, eyes. The first thing he asks is if I’d like to see “the dungeon”. Who wouldn’t?

Lucke pulls on a Steeler’s jacket and a baseball cap over brown hair that falls halfway down his back, and leads me across the five-acre yard. Out here, 90 miles east of Tucson, the desert is a long sweep of brush the color of beach sand. Lucke seems to slip through the rainy day like a ghost.

The radio station, whose call letters are KHIL, has long been the daily soundtrack for this frontier town (population 3,500) that prides itself on its cowboy culture and quiet pace of life. But six decades after the founding of the station, the property is in foreclosure, with utility disconnect notices coming nearly every month.

Small-town radio is fizzling nationwide, as stations struggle to attract advertisement dollars. And as station owners are forced to sell, media conglomerates snap up rural frequencies for rock-bottom prices, for the sole purpose of relocating them to urban areas. In a more affluent market, they can be flipped for a higher price. With limited frequencies available, larger broadcasters purchase as many as possible – especially those higher on the dial – in a race not dissimilar to a real estate grab.[…]

Click here to read the full article at The Guardian.

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