A nostalgic look at radio station 2MT

 

The centenary of the first regular radio broadcasting station in England.

Radio historians in England inform us that the very first radio broadcasting station established anywhere in the British Isles was located at Writtle in England, and the auspicious date for their inaugural broadcast was Tuesday, February 14, 1922.  That would be exactly one hundred years ago tomorrow (Monday, February 14, 2022).  (International Radio Day)

The picturesque village of Writtle is located on the west side of the River Can, just 1 mile west of the center of the much larger town of Chelmsford in the county of Essex England.  This village is described as: One of the loveliest villages in England, with a ravishing variety of ancient cottages.  (Writtle in Essex is located less than 15 miles from where Ray Robinson was born.)

The village of Writtle traces its history back to the time of the Roman conquest more than two thousand years ago, and it was mentioned by name in the historic Domesday book of 1086.  The population of Writtle these days is a little more than 5,000.   

The historic inaugural transmission from station 2MT took place in a prefabricated wooden army hut that was constructed during World War 1 for use in France, though it never left England.  In 1919, the Marconi company obtained the hut as war surplus equipment and they installed it on the roadside edge of a sometimes flooded and soggy field in Writtle.  Marconi personnel installed early electronic equipment into the Radio Hut for experimented voice communication with aircraft.

A newly appointed Postmaster General gave reluctant approval for the new 2MT to broadcast a 15-minute program of speech and music, which was to be included within the weekly half hour frequency calibration transmission.  The responsibility for this (now!) historic radio broadcast was given to the Marconi Engineer, Royal Air Force Captain Peter P. Eckersley, in the morning of February 12, 1922, just two days before the intended inaugural transmission.

A new transmitter had been assembled with the use of parts already available at the new Marconi factory that had been established on New Street in Chelmsford, a ground that was part of the Essex County Cricket Club.  The completed transmitter was installed into the Radio Hut at Writtle.  This new radio transmitter used five Marconi glass-enclosed valves (tubes), and the filament voltage was generated by two 4-cylinder Austin motor car engines.  The incoming electrical current was rated at 400 volts at 300 cycles.  The antenna system consisted of 4 parallel wires on 12 ft spreaders, all of which were supported by two Marconi masts 110 ft tall and 200 ft apart.

This awesome though informal inaugural radio broadcast on February 14, 1922, began at 7:15 pm and it was transmitted on longwave 700 m (428 kHz) with a power of 250 watts.  The regular Tuesday night frequency calibration test began at 7:00 pm, and this was followed by the inaugural program broadcast.

Sixty-two years ago on February 16, 1960, Captain Eckersley gave a talk to the BBC Engineering Society about those early days.  Here in his own words are some of his recollections about how those broadcasts came into being at that time, some 38 years earlier.

The evening program began with a test announcement by Peter Eckersley in which he identified the station as Two Emma Toc, that is 2MT, in the Phonetic Alphabet that was in use by the British Army back then.  The quarter-hour program also included live vocal music presented by Robert Howe. 

Every Tuesday evening, there was a similar broadcast from that new Marconi entertainment station 2MT at Writtle, near Chelmsford.  Captain Eckersley was the organizer, the announcer and the operator, together with several Marconi staff as assistants.  On some occasions, recorded music was played on a gramophone player, and sometimes they borrowed a piano from a local public house for the presentation of live music.

The audience back then were mostly amateur radio operators, men and occasionally women, who had built their own radio receivers.  The wireless operators who were serving on naval and commercial shipping in nearby waters also enjoyed the programming from Marconi 2MT.  

All of these radio operators were also listening to similar radio programming that was on the air in regular short bursts from similar radio stations in France, (Radio Radiola in Paris) and Holland (the Hague Concerts) and occasional tests from Germany, as well as a host of European radio amateurs who were sometimes amusing themselves and others with the broadcast of recorded music. 

Two weeks after their official though the informal opening, station 2MT went on the air with a special broadcast, the first live broadcast of a wedding on the radio in England (February 28, 1922).  The marriage ceremony celebrated the wedding of 24-year-old Princess Mary (only daughter of King George 5) to 39-year-old Henry Lascelles (Earl of Harwood).

Three months after its inauguration, the operating channel for station 2MT Writtle was changed from 700 m (428 kHz) longwave to 400 m (750 kHz) mediumwave on May 29 (1922).  That technical change was necessary due to undesired interference from the many harmonics radiated by 2MT as well as by the arc transmitters at the Post Office Station at Leafield.  

During its almost one year of on-air service, the electronic equipment in the Writtle Hut was modified, changed, developed, and improved as circumstances would suggest.

Station 2MT, by that time now quite famous in the European radio world, was quietly closed, with its final broadcast on Tuesday evening January 16, 1923.  On Wednesday, January 17, 1923, the now historic Marconi broadcasting station 2MT, Two Emma Toc, no longer existed.  Already another Marconi station 2LO in London was indeed well established.  

So what happened afterward?  Ultimately, the usable leftover radio equipment from 2MT was removed and recycled at the Marconi radio factory in Chelmsford.  The Radio Hut at Writtle was subsequently relocated to the King's Road Primary School in Chelmsford, and later again it was re-erected at the Sandford Mill Museum near Sandon, and replica radio equipment was installed.  The soggy and sometimes flooded land upon which the Radio Hut had been erected at Writtle was sold off, and it became a housing estate. 

(Adrian Peterson/AWR-Wavescan)

Additional video on 2MT at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cY_skpeX3Y

Underwater Radio

The Radio Ship Radio Mi Amigo (rogermathew.com)

It is known that at least five radio broadcasting stations, or major components thereof, are lying at the bottom of the ocean in the ship that was carrying the equipment at the time.  Four of these sunken ships were due to enemy action, and one was the result of a fierce winter storm. 

            Back in the year 1940, soon after the onset of the European Conflict, a 100 kW shortwave transmitter, manufactured at the Marconi company in Chelmsford England, was shipped out to Singapore Island.  It was intended that this transmitter would be installed at a new shortwave station still under construction, adjacent to the early Radio Malaya station at Jurong on the western side of Singapore island.  When activated, this station was to act as a relay for the BBC London, with coverage into Asia and the Pacific.

            However, due to an attack by an enemy submarine, the ship was sunk en route and the entire cargo was lost, including the electronic equipment for the new BBC shortwave relay station.  Instead, a 50 kW RCA shortwave transmitter was subsequently consigned to Singapore, but before it could be activated, it was removed and taken to Barbados in the Caribbean where it was installed for Cable & Wireless at Bearded Hall under the callsign VPO.

            Back in the year 1941, plans were laid for the installation of a megapowered mediumwave station at a secret underground location near Crowborough in England.  This station was intended to  beam surreptitious programming in various languages to continental Europe, and also to act as a BBC relay station for coverage into the same continental areas. 

            At the time, a super powered 500 kW transmitter was nearing  completion at the RCA factory in Camden New Jersey which had been ordered by NBC for mediumwave WJZ at Bound Brook, New Jersey.  However, the FCC had imposed a 50 kW power limit for mediumwave stations in the United States and NBC-WJZ no longer needed this huge transmitter.

            China demonstrated an interest in procuring this megalithic transmitter, but while negotiations were still underway, the British government arranged to purchase it and have it shipped across the Atlantic.  The transmitter was re-engineered for 600 kW, disassembled into smaller units, crated and stowed separately into several different ships.

            One of these cargo ships, carrying the antennas and towers, was sunk in the Atlantic by an enemy submarine and the equipment was lost.  Very hurriedly, new towers and antennas were manufactured in the United States and freighted across the Atlantic where it was all installed above ground for the underground American transmitter, known as Aspidistra, at Crowborough.  

            During the latter half of the European Conflict, PWI Press Wireless International, manufactured and shipped across the Atlantic numerous transmitters, large and small, for use in islandic and continental Europe.  Some of these shipments contained their famous 40 kW shortwave transmitter, and other shipments contained complete mobile radio broadcasting stations.  The mobile stations usually contained a 400 watt transmitter, always capable of high speed Morse Code, and sometimes also capable of voice transmission. 

            Much of this radio equipment was manufactured at their new factory quite near to their large shortwave station at Hicksville on Long Island, New York and then shipped across the Atlantic.  PWI states that at least one of these mobile stations was sunk by an enemy submarine in 1944, and that station still lies to this day on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.    

            Also in the year 1944, Lord Louis Mountbatten expedited the construction of a large shortwave station at Ekala, a dozen miles north of Colombo in Ceylon, as it was known in those days.  A large shipment of radio equipment, including electronic items from the Marconi factory at Chelmsford and redundant antenna systems from the Isle of Wight, were shipped out from England. 

            However, the entire consignment was lost to enemy submarine action in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Sri Lanka.  Ultimately, a new consignment of equipment was sent out from England, and this was installed at the SEAC installation at Ekala, where it was in use for many years for the relay of programming by the BBC London, the Voice of America and Adventist World Radio.  This SEAC station also carried programming on behalf of SLBC, the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation.

            Back in 1965, Ronan O’Rahilly in England ordered a 50 kW mediumwave transmitter from Continental Electronics in Dallas Texas for installation on the ship Mi Amigo, which was on the air at the time as the famous pirate radio station, Radio Caroline.  During that era, Continental was constructing several 50 kW mediumwave transmitters, Model 317C, for various clients.

            However, the BBC suddenly needed two 50 kW mediumwave transmitters for its new Central Africa Relay Station at Francistown in Botswana and entrepreneur O’Rahilly agreed to allow the BBC to take the No 12 transmitter that he had ordered.  The BBC also took an additional unit, No 13, so O’Rahilly agreed to accept transmitter No 14 in this series which he installed on board the Mi Amigo.

            Some 15 years later, on March 19, 1980, the ship Mi Amigo encountered a Force 10 storm and she drifted for 10 nautical miles before running aground on the Long Sand Bank.  The ship sank next day where she now lies in 10 feet of water in the Thames Estuary out from London. 

            The 50 kW mediumwave transmitter also went down with the ship, and that is where it lies to this day, at the shallow bottom of the North Sea!    

(AWR Wavescan/NWS 308)