Portishead Radio (callsign GKA) was a

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

in England that provided worldwide

maritime communication Maritime may refer to: Geography * Maritime Alps, a mountain range in the southwestern part of the Alps * Maritime Region, a region in Togo * Maritime Southeast Asia * The Maritimes, the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Princ ...

s and long-range aeronautical communications from 1928 until 2000. It was the world's largest and busiest long-distance HF maritime radio station. In 1974, the station employed 154 radio operators who handled over 20 million words per year. It was originally operated by the

General Post Office The General Post Office (GPO) was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Before the Acts of Union 1707, it was the postal system of the Kingdom of England, established by Charles II in 1660. ...

(GPO), then the Post Office (1969–1981) and subsequently by British Telecom, which was privatised in 1984.

1920–1939

The UK's long-range maritime service commenced from a site at Morgan's Hill, Devizes, Wiltshire, in 1920. In 1925, a remote receiving centre at Highbridge, near Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset, was opened, and in 1928 a transmitting station was opened at Portishead, from which the name 'Portishead Radio' was derived. The main transmitting station, which was remotely operated from the Highbridge site, originally consisted of a large array of radio masts at nearby Portishead Downs. High-power transmitters for the maritime service were operated from a site at

Hillmorton Hillmorton is a suburb of Rugby, Warwickshire, England, around south-east of Rugby town centre, forming much of the eastern half of the town. It is also a ward of the Borough of Rugby. Hillmorton was historically a village in its own right, bu ...

, Rugby. By 1936, the station had a staff of 60 radio officers who handled over 3 million words of radio traffic per year.

World War II

The station played a vital role during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

in maintaining communications with the

British merchant navy The Merchant Navy is the maritime register of the United Kingdom and comprises the seagoing commercial interests of UK-registered ships and their crews. Merchant Navy vessels fly the Red Ensign and are regulated by the Maritime and Coastguar ...

and with patrol aircraft in the

North Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Africa, Europe and ...

. During the war, all communications with ships were one-way in order to avoid revealing the ships' locations to the enemy. The station was short-staffed because many staff were on

secondment Secondment is the assignment of a member of one organisation to another organisation for a temporary period. Job rotation The employee typically retains their salary and other employment rights from their primary organization but they work close ...

s to various government services, such as operating other radio stations and training new radio officers to work in naval convoys. In 1943, the workload was so great that

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

officers and 18 telegraphists were brought in from (amongst others) HMS ''Flowerdown'', a Naval Shore Wireless Service station near

Winchester Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...

Expansion: 1946–1985

In 1948, the station was expanded again, adding two operating rooms with 32 new radio operator positions, a broadcasting and landline room, and a file of ship and aircraft positions plotted using magnetic indicators on a 36 by 16 ft steel map of the world. Other maps covered the North Atlantic and Western European areas. During the 1950s and 1960s there was a steady increase in traffic levels, and the

telex The telex network is a station-to-station switched network of teleprinters similar to a Public switched telephone network, telephone network, using telegraph-grade connecting circuits for two-way text-based messages. Telex was a major method of ...

-over-radio (TOR) system started operations. By 1965, the station employed 86 radio officers who handled over 11 million words of traffic per year, communicating with on average over 1,000 ships per day. HM Queen Elizabeth II visited the station in 1958. By 1974, traffic levels reached over 20 million words per year, handled by 154 radio officers. The rise in traffic was driven by demand from the oil market, the deep-water fishing industry, and the leisure boating market. Competition from satellite communications, which began in the 1980s, initially had little effect on the station's business, which continued to expand. Following the division of the Post Office in 1981, the station was operated by

British Telecommunications BT Group plc (trading as BT and formerly British Telecom) is a British multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is the largest provider of fixed-line, bro ...

. In 1983, a new control centre was opened, adding new radiotelephone and radiotelegraphy consoles, and an automatic radiotelex facility. In addition to maritime and aeronautical radio service, the station provided communications facilities for fixed stations worldwide such as relief agencies, emergency and disaster relief companies, and industries where reliable landline communications were poor or non-existent. This was known as the 'Gateway' service and operated from the early 1980s until closure.

Decline: 1985–2000

By the end of the 1980s, satellite communications had started to take an increasingly large share of the station's business, and a program of severe rationalisation was started, leading to the closure of two transmitting sites at Leafield and Ongar. The transmitting site at Portishead closed on 31 December 1978, followed by the site at Dorchester in 1979. In the station's penultimate year to March 1999, there were on average per month 571 radio

telegram Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas p ...

s, 533 radio telephone calls, and 4,001 radio telex calls.

Closure and redevelopment of the site

In 1998, British Telecom Maritime Radio Services announced the planned closure of Portishead Radio. The long-range services ( HF bands 3–30

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...

) were planned to cease at 12:00 GMT on 30 April 2000. The short-range VHF maritime band (156–174 MHz) services were scheduled to close at the same time, and the medium-range services ( MF maritime band 1.6–3.0 MHz) services at 12:00 on 30 June. The station formally closed at 1200 UTC on 30 April 2000. In September 2004,

Sedgemoor District Council Sedgemoor District Council was a local government district in Somerset, England covering the Sedgemoor district. It was Local Government Act 1972, established in 1974 by the merger of Bridgwater and Burnham-On-Sea Urban District Councils. It was r ...

adopted a local development plan that proposed the site of Portishead Radio for future housing development. In October 2007, planning permission for a development of 190 houses and flats on the site was granted, and shortly afterwards the radio station buildings were demolished. In 2007, the buildings at the Highbridge site were demolished to make way for the Mulholland Park housing estate, named after former station manager Don Mulholland and his father Robert, who also worked at the station.

Commemoration

Around 2015, a sculpture by

Rick Kirby Rick Kirby (born 1952) is an English sculptor born in Gillingham, Kent. He started his career as an art teacher, before quitting after sixteen years to focus on his work. Much of his work is figural, reflecting an interest in the human face a ...

of five female figures holding hands, titled 'Arc of Angels', was installed close to the Portishead transmitting site to commemorate the five radio towers and their role. In 2020, planned celebrations commemorating the 100th anniversary of the long-range maritime service were put on hold due to COVID-19. However, a book on the history of the service was published titled ''Portishead Radio – A Friendly Voice on Many a Dark Night'', and a special amateur radio station GB100GKU was activated, making over 2,500 contacts from 69 countries.

References

External links

Portishead Radio official website

Coast Radio Stations of the World websiteImage of 'Arc of Angels' sculpture
at

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{{BT Group British Telecom buildings and structures History of radio Radio stations established in 1928 Portishead, Somerset International telecommunications Defunct radio stations in the United Kingdom Radio stations in Somerset Transatlantic telecommunications