Focus on Africa: BBC East Mediterranean Relay Station Cyprus - Part 2
In this our second topic in the
mini-series on the BBC East Mediterranean Relay Station, we pick up the story
at the time of the transfer of the station, the shadowy Sharq al Adna, from the
Royal Air Force Base near Jaffa in Palestine to a new location near Limassol on
the island of Cyprus. This transfer took
place during the era when events were heating up in the Middle East just before
the British mandate over Palestine ended on May 14, 1948.
Initially,
just two sites on Cyprus were chosen as the locations for the transferred Sharq
al Adna radio station. The head office
and studios were located at Polimia, or Polemydia, a suburban location in the
northwest of Limassol the island capital.
The transmitter base was located at Zygi some twenty miles to the east
of Limassol on land beside a British navy base overlooking the Bay of
Limassol.
The
four shortwave transmitters at 7½ kW from Sharq al Adna in coastal Jaffa
Palestine were re-installed at the Zygi transmitter base on Cyprus and test
broadcasts from the new location began at low power in October 1948. A schedule of regular program broadcasting
was introduced right at the beginning of the following month, November 1.
This
re-introduced shortwave broadcasting service was on the air, still under the
original slogan, Sharq al Adna, the Near East Arab Broadcasting Station. Programming at this stage was produced
locally in both Arabic and English, though it was under the auspices of the
Allied Command, Psychological Unit in England.
Strange
as it may seem, not only were the equipment and the personnel transferred from
one country to another, Palestine to Cyprus, but so also were the
callsigns. In Palestine, so in Cyprus;
the basic callsign for the entire station was ZJM, which was usually the
identifier for the mediumwave outlet. On
shortwave, the callsigns ranged from ZJM2 up to ZJM8, with the final numeric
designator indicating the specific shortwave channel.
Quite
soon afterwards a mediumwave transmitter was installed at Zygi with 7½ kW on
635 kHz. Then in the 1950s, a series of
developmental projects was implemented on Cyprus to increase the broadcast
coverage and reliability of programming from the Sharq al Adna radio station.
In
1953, a new 20 kW shortwave Marconi BD262 was installed at Zygi, with another
similar model during the following year.
In 1955, two additional Marconi shortwave transmitters BD260 at 7½ kW
were installed, followed by two more at 20 kW just two years later.
At
another location some distance away, an additional new transmitter station was
under development. This new location was
at Lady’s Mile on the other side of Limassol, some five miles distant from the
capital city, on the south west coast of Cyprus. This tourist beach stretches some three or
four miles and it was named Lady’s Mile, in honor of a horse, Lad. This horse was owned by an officer in the
Royal Air Force who used to exercise it along the beachway.
Between
the beach and a shallow salt lake inland, a new broadcasting station was
constructed for Sharq al Adna with a 100 kW mediumwave transmitter. This facility was inaugurated on May 12, 1955
on 638 kHz.
Around
this era, the political situation in Middle Eastern areas was changing and
Egypt was moving towards taking over the Suez Canal. Active conflict broke out on October 29,
1956, though a cease fire was implemented a week later, on November 6.
To
counter these aggressive moves, sudden changes were introduced at the Sharq al
Adna radio station. On October 22, a
British army officer arrived from England to take over the management of the
station.
At
11:30 am, the British Foreign Office in London informed the BBC that it was
taking over the station at 3:00 pm the same day. The name was changed from Sharq al Adna to
the Voice of Britain, and announcers from the BBC Arabic Service were arriving
in Cyprus to take over program production.
This station was now relaying BBC programming for 4¾ hours daily.
After
the Suez crisis was over, an attempt was made to turn the station into a
commercial operation with on air advertising.
This endeavor was only partly successful. Then, early in the following year, the
station was offered to commercial interests in England but none were interested
in investing funding in this project.
Thus
it was that the British government announced surreptitiously in the House of
Lords that they had “bought” the station, even though in reality the government
already owned the station. On March 31,
1957, the Voice of Britain on Cyprus was turned over to the BBC, and the
station then became the BBC East Mediterranean Relay Station, the name that it
still carries to this day.
Next
time, we plan to present the interesting story of the development of this large
relay station on the island of Cyprus into a giant facility of electronic
outreach on behalf of the BBC London.
(AWR Wavescan/NWS 214 via Adrian Peterson)