The Woofferton transmitting station is owned and operated by Encompass Digital Media, as one of the BBC's assets which were handed over as part of the privatization of World Service distribution and transmission in 1997. It is the last remaining UK

shortwave Shortwave radio is radio transmission using shortwave (SW) radio frequencies. There is no official definition of the band, but the range always includes all of the high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30 MHz (100 to 10 me ...

broadcasting site, located at

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 ...

, south of

Ludlow Ludlow () is a market town in Shropshire, England. The town is significant in the history of the Welsh Marches and in relation to Wales. It is located south of Shrewsbury and north of Hereford, on the A49 road which bypasses the town. The t ...

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to th ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The large site spreads across into neighbouring

Herefordshire Herefordshire () is a county in the West Midlands of England, governed by Herefordshire Council. It is bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Monmouthshire ...

. The station was originally built by the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

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 ...

to house additional shortwave ( HF) broadcasting transmitters. When it officially started broadcasting on 17 October 1943 it had six 50 kW

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...

transmitters, obtained by

lend-lease Lend-Lease, formally the Lend-Lease Act and introduced as An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States (), was a policy under which the United States supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and other Allied nations with food, oil, ...

. The site has been modernised many times over the years and is now DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale) capable providing daily digital radio programmes. Woofferton is used to broadcast shortwave radio programmes on HF 4 MHz – 26 MHz to Europe, Russia, North/Central Africa, Middle East and South America for

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 ...

Deutsche Welle Deutsche Welle (; "German Wave" in English), abbreviated to DW, is a German public, state-owned international broadcaster funded by the German federal tax budget. The service is available in 32 languages. DW's satellite television service con ...

Voice of America Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is the state-owned news network and international radio broadcaster of the United States of America. It is the largest and oldest U.S.-funded international broadcaster. VOA produces digital, TV, and radio content ...

, and Voice of Vietnam, among other international broadcasters. The site is also used for satellite communications and monitoring.

Construction

The site was built by

J. L. Eve Construction J. L. Eve Construction was a civil engineering company from south London. History The company was formed on 8 February 1930 by John Leonard Eve (3 February 1887 - 25 June 1954) from Aveley in Essex. In 1924 he was appointed as the Chief Engineer ...

during the Second World War, for short-wave transmissions across Europe.

Cold War era

During the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

, the station was equipped with six Marconi BD272 250 kW shortwave transmitters. Much of the capacity was leased by the BBC to the

(VoA) in order to enhance the latter's coverage in the

Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...

. It provided a stronger shortwave broadcast signal into the Eastern Bloc than any other western shortwave broadcast transmitter during the years of Soviet jamming.

Privatisation

All the BBC's transmitting facilities were privatised in the 1990s. The shortwave sites were sold to Merlin Communications, which was acquired by VT Group plc trading under the name

VT Communications VT Communications was a part of VT Group plc. VT Communications was essentially the company formed from the privatisation of the BBC World Service transmitter sites. It was initially named Merlin Communications, then, after acquisition by VT, V ...

until acquired by

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 ...

in March 2010. Subsequently, Babcock's Media Services was acquired by global technology services company Encompass Digital Media in September 2018.

Transmitters

Woofferton Transmitting Station currently has ten HF transmitters. There are 3 × Riz 250 kW (installed 2007–2008), 1 × Riz 500 kW (installed 2006), 4 × 300 k
Marconi B6124s
(installed 1980) and 2 × 250 k
Marconi BD272s
(installed 1963). The Riz transmitters are

Digital Radio Mondiale Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM; ''mondiale'' being Italian and French for "worldwide") is a set of digital audio broadcasting technologies designed to work over the bands currently used for analogue radio broadcasting including AM broadcasting—pa ...

capable and transmit digital programmes on a daily basis for BBC World Service, NHK & KBS. It also has a 300-watt mediumwave (MW) transmitter for BBC Hereford and Worcester (formerly used by

BBC Radio Shropshire BBC Radio Shropshire is the BBC's local radio station serving Shropshire. It broadcasts on FM, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from studios on Boscobel Drive in Shrewsbury. According to RAJAR, the station has a weekly audience of 61,00 ...

), as well as a 1 kW VHF FM transmitter for local Ludlow commercial station Sunshine Radio.

Services available

;Analogue radio (FM VHF) ;Analogue radio (AM medium wave)

References

* Campbell, D., 1983. ''War Plan UK'', p. 251. Paladin edition. . * Pawley, E., 1972. ''BBC Engineering 1922–1972'', pp. 259–60, 348, 458. BBC. . * Shacklady, N., and Ellen, M, 2003. ''On Air: A History of BBC Transmission'', pp. 29–32. Wavechange Books. .

External links

Encompass Woofferton

Encompass Digital Media Services Woofferton Transmitting Station

Introduction to Woofferton Transmitting Station Part 1

Cant, J. ''Fifty years of transmitting at BBC Woofferton 1943–1993: A social and technical history of a Short Wave Station''
(3.7MB PDF)
Woofferton's entry at mb21

{{BBC World Service Buildings and structures in Shropshire Cold War sites in the United Kingdom History of Shropshire Ludlow Science and technology in Shropshire Telecommunications in World War II Transmitter sites in England Shortwave radio stations