BBC Bush House 1955 - Tony Cunnane's Afterthoughts

Written on 27 February 2011

This afterthought was added on 27 February 2011 but, except for the first paragraph, the text is exactly as I wrote it in my 1955 diary (apart from a few spelling and grammar corrections!)

46 years ago, on 27 February 1955, I was given a conducted tour of Bush House, the HQ of the BBC overseas services only a few days after I'd arrived back in UK after my premature repatriation from my first RAF overseas tour at RAF Gangodawila,  Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Gangodawila was a specialist short wave receiving station. Just halfway through my scheduled 30-month tour of duty in Ceylon, the Signals Officer, Flight Lieutenant Gibb, had persuaded me to re-apply for aircrew training. (I'd failed the first time I went in 1953.) I never knew why he did this but he may have been prompted by the Hornchurch system whereby after a decent interval they would recall some candidates who had previously failed to be selected for aircrew but were considered  worthy of a second opportunity. Much as I was enjoying myself at Gangodawila I didn't hesitate: I told the Signals Officer that I was willing to be sent back to UK to visit Hornchurch again.

In the 1950s short wave propagation was still a bit of a mystery to amateurs and professionals alike. Shortly after arriving at RAF Gangodawila I had started seriously studying the subject with the help of some very friendly BBC engineers in Bush House, London.  In return, I cabled regular (every few days) reception reports to the BBC overseas HQ in Bush House. When the BBC started using its Far East Relay from Singapore, I was one of the first 'amateurs' to start reporting on reception from those transmitters. When I connected our 'spare' specialist receivers to our high gain rhombic aerials beamed towards UK and Singapore, I was able to comment accurately not only the BBC signals but on the interference experienced from other short wave stations – including the numerous Soviet jammers.

After a while the BBC came to trust me and value my comments and they then asked me to monitor additional frequencies and report on propagation conditions at specific times (1954-5 was a minimum sunspot period in the 11 year cycle and propagations conditions between UK and the Far East were especially difficult). They also got me to report on test signals from the new BBC relay station in Singapore before this station went officially 'on the air' to south Asia, Australasia and other target countries in the Far East.

When the BBC heard that I was returning prematurely to the UK, the Senior Superintendent Engineer (whose name, sadly, I did not record in my diary) invited me to visit Bush House. It was a fascinating day. I spent time in the Control Room where I was able to see how the many studios were connected via land lines to the appropriate transmitters in many dispersed locations around England. Timing was all important – it had to be to the nearest second otherwise a transmitter might be switched off before the closing announcement from  the studio.

I watched the 1100 GMT news bulletin being read – that was the one bulletin that most ex-expats spread throughout the world always listened in to because it covered breakfast time in the western hemisphere and either lunch, or evening times in the east. It was also a bulletin that was re-broadcast by dozens of foreign stations through the British Commonwealth.

I also met a young chap sitting in front of a patch panel in what was little more than a corridor. He had the important, but to my mind rather boring, job of ensuring the Greenwich Time Signal (the 'pips') was sent to the transmitters on schedule. He  told me that the pips went out to somewhere in the world every 15 minutes, night and day. As far as I could tell all he had to do to was to wind up a volume control at the appropriate time and wind it down again 6 seconds later.

Before I left, I was asked by one of the senior engineers if I was interested in applying for a place in the BBC Engineering School. I had to say that I could not because I was still committed to another 3 years in the RAF.