BC-DX TopNews WWDXC #945 BC-DX 945

previously on the air at the large and historic BBC shortwave station at
Daventry in England, and when Daventry was closed these two units were
removed and shipped for installation on Ascension Island.
The original BBC Receiver Station was installed at Butt Crater, three
miles from the transmitter station, and it contained six receivers and two
rhombic antennas beamed for reception from England. However, a quarter of
a century later, a satellite receiving dish was installed at the English
Bay transmitting station, and Butt Crater was then maintained for standby
usage.
In addition to the two radio stations, transmitter & receiver, the BBC
also operates support facilities for its personnel, and these include a
school, hospital, farm, and power generators, as well as local radio
broadcasting stations. Currently, it is stated, the British government
owes Ascension Island more than one million pounds, and this places the
entire island and all of its activities and its nine hundred imported
workers into bankruptcy.
Over the years, the BBC Atlantic Relay Station has re-broadcast the
programming from other well known international radio organizations. In
1994, the first of these new relay services began with the programming
from the Voice of America. Twenty years later, RAI Italiana took out a
relay from the BBC shortwave station on Ascension Island.
Since then a dozen or more other international broadcasting organizations
have increased the international coverage of their programming with relays
from the Ascension Island shortwave station. Among these extended relay
services from the BBC shortwave station on Ascension are the following:-
Government Stations NHK Tokyo Japan RCI Montreal Canada CRI Beijing China
Radio Prague Prague Czechia RFI Paris France RTE Dublin Ireland
Religious Gospel Stations HCJB Quito Ecuador FEBA England WYFR Oakland
California USA
During the events associated with the brief 1982 war in the South
Atlantic, the usage of the Ascension shortwave station was commandeered by
the British Ministry of Defence for the relay of two different forms of
programming beamed to the Falkland-Malvinas Islands.
Beginning at 2300 UTC on May 19, a program service identified as Radio
Atlantico del Sur was broadcast daily via Ascension Island. At times two
channels were noted in parallel. The final broadcast of Atlantico del Sur
was a little less than a month later, on June 15.
The other program service beamed to the South Atlantic during this short
era was on behalf of the BFBS, the British Forces Broadcasting Service.
These two program services originated in London and they were relayed to
Ascension Island via communication transmitters located at Daventry.
An additional BFBS program relay was on the air during the Gulf War in
1990. It is known that feeder transmitters in England relayed the
programming to another transmitter location, and research would suggest
that this was also located on Ascension Island.
QSL cards, and at times letters, have been issued by many of the
file:///Z|/DOKUMENTATION-BULLETINS/WWDXD-BCDX/2010/BCDX968.TXT[11.06.2012 10:40:09]