venerdì 19 agosto 2016

Special DRM transmission celebrating 50th Anniversary of SW broadcast from Ascension Island

Special DRM transmission from Ascension Island – Sunday 28th August 2016

DRM will be part of a big anniversary on a small island in the Atlantic Ocean. On 28th of August at 1155 GMT Babcock International will ensure a special BBC digital transmission from the BBC Atlantic Relay station on 21715 kHz, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the BBC’s first short-wave radio broadcast from Ascension Island.

Since 1966, the Atlantic Relay station has broadcast BBC World Service programmes to Africa and South America, and to this day, continues to broadcast over 250 programme hours every week to East and West Africa in English, French, Hausa and Somali.

The two hour-transmission will start with the old, special sound of Bow Church Bell in east London, the sound of which, even if in DRM this time,  will remind older listeners of the BBC broadcasts of many decades ago. The 2-hour transmission will be the regular BBC programmes for West and South Africa and will end at 1400.

This special transmission  will be sent with greetings from Ascension Island’s BBC and Babcock International staff and visitors, who will be celebrating half a century  of sterling broadcasting on August 28th.

(Ruxandra Obreja, Digital Radio Mondiale Consortium Chairman)

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Alokesh Gupta
New Delhi, India