VT Communications was a part of

VT Group VT Group is a privately held United States defense and services company, with its origins in a former British shipbuilding group, previously known as Vosper Thornycroft. The British part of VT Group was integrated into Babcock International in t ...

plc. VT Communications was essentially the company formed from the privatisation of the

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is an international broadcasting, international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the Government of the United Kingdom, British Government through the Foreign Secretary, Foreign Secretary's o ...

transmitter sites. It was initially named Merlin Communications, then, after acquisition by VT, VT Merlin Communications. It provided transmission services to over 20 different customers from four main sites in the UK and many others in the rest of the world. In 2003, the company was awarded a £228m

public private partnership In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

contract to operate the

Defence High Frequency Communications Service The Defence High Frequency Communications Service or the DHFCS is a British military beyond line-of-sight communication system operated by the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and used predominately by the UK Armed Forces, as well as other authorised ...

for a period of fifteen years on behalf of the

Ministry of Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...

. It was based at the Blue Fin Building on London's South Bank, which hosted the company's broadcast Media Management Centre and where it formed part of

Babcock International Group Babcock International Group plc is a British aerospace, defence and nuclear engineering services company based in London, England. It specialises in managing complex assets and infrastructure. Although the company has civil contracts, its main b ...

, after its acquisition on 8 July 2010.Babcock Acquisition
/ref>

National Physical Laboratory time signal

From 1950, the

National Physical Laboratory time signal The Time from NPL is a radio signal broadcast from the Anthorn Radio Station near Anthorn, Cumbria, which serves as the United Kingdom's national time reference. The time signal is derived from three atomic clocks installed at the transmitter sit ...

, the UK's national time reference, was broadcast on 60 kHz from the MSF transmitter at

Rugby radio station __NOTOC__ Rugby Radio Station was a large radio transmission facility just east of the Hillmorton area of the town of Rugby, Warwickshire in England. The site straddled the A5 trunk road, with most of it in Warwickshire, and part on the other ...

by BT Communications under licence from the NPL. When that contract expired, VT Communications won the new licence and, following successful testing in early 2007, took over broadcasting the signal from its new location at

Anthorn radio station Anthorn Radio Station is a naval and government radio transmitting station located near Anthorn, Cumbria, England, overlooking the Solway Firth, and is operated by Babcock International (with whom former operators VT Communications are now merg ...

. The formal inauguration of the new facility was on 1 April 2007, when the signal from Rugby was permanently switched off, and the name of the service was changed to "The Time from NPL".

Main transmission sites in the UK

Woofferton Woofferton is a village to the south of Ludlow, in Shropshire, England. It is one of Shropshire's most southerly villages and lies on the border with Herefordshire. It is part of the civil parish of Richard's Castle. The larger Herefordshire vi ...

* Rampisham * Skelton *

Orfordness Orford Ness is a cuspate foreland shingle spit on the Suffolk coast in Great Britain, linked to the mainland at Aldeburgh and stretching along the coast to Orford and down to North Weir Point, opposite Shingle Street. It is divided from the m ...

Anthorn Anthorn (pronounced ) is a village in Cumbria, England. Historic counties of England, Historically in Cumberland, it is situated on the south side of the Solway Firth, on the River Wampool, Wampool estuary, about west of Carlisle, Cumbria, C ...

References

External links

VT Group plc
BBC World Service Telecommunications companies of the United Kingdom {{Telecom-company-stub