'And now on Radio 4 the launch codes for HMS Vanguard followed by The Archers omnibus' - BBC Radio 4 Probably

I was a radio mechanic in the Fleet Air Arm in the 70s/80s. It was common to test HF receivers by tuning to either Radio Luxembourg (6.09MHz if I remember correctly) and the World Service, primarily because they were reliable - the equivalent of testing your internet connection by going to the BBC website (which has only gone down once as far as I am aware and was a major news story) but also because using the HF transmitter of another aircraft is problematic in safety terms - you would have to set up an exclusion zone around the transmitting aircraft. Anyway, it was pretty much the height of the Cold War and I think that the Radio 4 test was something which was common knowledge though I never understood it to be a formal test - merely an indicator that if Radio 4 was off the air, something was possibly amiss and it seems to have been embellished into a juicy tale. It would not have been used as an isolated determination. That's just my opinion. That said, given that nuclear submarines could be operating anywhere in the world's oceans, I can't help thinking that the test would have been complicated by many factors.

@jameswalker199

8 ай бұрын

It could also be an embellishment on the shipping forecast, which I think Radio 4 transmits. Some sort of officially unofficial procedure to say "If you lose our weather forecast and believe it to be a fault on our end, come to periscope depth and listen for the shipping forecast. If you don't hear that, assume your radio is at fault." Some sort of sanity check procedure that was chinese whispered to death when it got into the public sphere.

The problem with all of these stories is that they fall apart if you think about them for more than two seconds.

@confuseatronica

9 ай бұрын

shut up beckey omg you are such a downerrrrrrr im not inviting you to sleepover ever again etcetc

@TheActualJae

9 ай бұрын

You lost me on the word "think", what's that again? 😅

@blaydCA

9 ай бұрын

Two seconds .. That's a long time for some! 😂

@LIBERTYCAP2612

9 ай бұрын

They did it in ww2. BBC radio used to transmit coded messages and the Red Cross delivered Red Cross parcels to prisoners of war and they contained all the prisoner needed to manufacture a crude radio receiver to receive the coded messages.

@Us3d2b1

9 ай бұрын

Brain Damage 🤤

Never heard the rumor. But there's a couple of issues with it already. 1) Submarines are UNDER WATER most of the time. When they surface they expose themselves and are easy to attack and in any other case they give away their position. Submarines operate on absolute stealth at all times, surfacing would be very counterproductive. Even if they don't surface entirely, the mere fact that they would get closer to the surface at 6 pm every day would make them easier to spot and keep track of. 2) As per point one above, radio signals transmitted from a land based antenna tower doesn't penetrate water that well. In fact it most likely just bounces off the surface completely. So any sub would have to get a receiver antenna to the surface in some way. It doesn't need to break the surface, but then the signal transmitted needs to be VLF (Very Low Frequency) in the range of 3 to 30 kHz. BBC 4 transmits on FM which is 80 - 108 MHz Frequency Modulated, meaning slight shifts in frequency make up the audio signal. Way too high frequency for submarines. And BBC 4 also transmits on LW (Long Wave) at 198 kHz. Still not good enough for submersed antennas. So they really have to break the surface with a rather beefy antenna to pick up BBC 4 every day at the exact time. As per point one, this would put the submarine at an extreme risk. 3) Submarines communicate mainly through the aforementioned low frequency of 3-30 kHz and they do so at their own SECRET specified times that are not easily guessed by any hostile actor. And there are aircraft with air-to-surface SONAR that will hit the surface of the water and cause vibrations that the submarine's passive SONAR operator can hear and capture as a message. This can be done much deeper in the ocean so the submarine need not do much at all besides be in the general area that is flown over to capture the message. Of course the message is encrypted and only the submarine with the correct key can decrypt it. And we aren't talking Enigma here, we are talking modern encryption that isn't as easily broken. ..... In conclusion, should nuclear war break out. All nuclear subs will know about it because either... a) A predetermined time for listening to communications via radio was not met for a number of attempts. Meaning the most likely scenario is that there's no one left to transmit the message. And no other method of communication has been met either. Pretty sure they also verify by other means, such as surfacing to sense what the air is like... If the air is very much full of vaporized Brits... Or signature radiation from enemy nukes. They know it's time to retaliate...! b) They receive their radio or SONAR transmission telling them that all hell has broken loose. Which is still quite likely because even if every inch of Britain was hit with nukes, there are still antennas that are made to withstand these conditions and are still able to transmit.

@RealCadde

9 ай бұрын

Yep, the video covers my assumptions and more. This folks is why you ALWAYS remain a sceptic of everything you hear. For me it was easy enough because i know what subs are supposed to do, i know that radio signals don't work well in water unless very low frequency and i know that submarines would not use any public and poorly defended infrastructure to base their decisions on. Though i missed the fact that you can hear nukes going off in water. That is also pretty obvious once you think about it, sound in water can travel extreme distances and you can hear certain whales singing from 1000 miles away. Which is slightly farther than the distance from London to Rome! A nuclear blast will send distinctive shockwaves through land and sea that can be heard extreme distances under water.

My dad was on the Vulcans, he didn’t mention how they would know that nuclear war had started but he did say that they regularly took off not knowing if it was live or just a training exercise and would get the all clear after about 5 minutes of flying towards the USSR… the advice they were given was that if it is real, don’t bother coming home after your mission as there won’t be one, they were told that everyone they knew would already be dead - (he believes that was how the chiefs would pretty much guarantee they’d retaliate and drop the Blue Steel missile), they were also told to keep flying east after dropping the bomb until they ran out of fuel as all Western Europe wouldn’t be habitable.

@wolfyoogames

8 ай бұрын

*Edit - sorry just realised you said Vulcans as in the bomber lol, 8am and just woke up…. Didn’t they have reactor cores? If that’s the case wouldn’t going east until you run out of fuel mean just circumnavigating the world for 20 years? I guess go East until you run out of food might be better.

@felsinferguson1125

8 ай бұрын

@@wolfyoogames To the best of my knowledge, absolutely NOBODY has built, never mind flown, a nuke-powered aircraft. Some plans were drawn up for such a beast (in the mid 60s) but the project never got any further than being an idea and some preliminary sketches before the idea was shot down in flames. (The plans were based on the NERVA rocket concept, as I recall, which basically means spraying a constant stream of highly radioactive exhaust along the entire flight-path)

Hi Lewis, I think your conclusion about this being an urban legend is probably correct. I remember hearing it in the 1990s (before the internet came along in the way we know it today). The version I heard didn't mention the Today programme specifically. It was just that submarines could check if 198kHz was still on air as part of their checks to see if the UK still existed with a functioning society or not. When we had the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001, 198kHz was on reduced power for what felt like months... engineers were physically not allowed to access the site, as I remember. If the transmission was being used for the purpose you described, I'm damn sure that the transmitter would have been back up to full power long before it was!

@fireiceuk9221

9 ай бұрын

Let's face it; for all the "hooo haa they listened to the radio", listening to LF public radio is a very good check that can easily be done with 70s tech. And it can be done while submerged - all they need to do is send up a buoy. Assuming military-grade antenna I wouldn't be surprised if they could pick it up from anywhere in the northern hemisphere. As a bonus it is extremely hard to fake (fake orders was the paranoia of the day).

@bornach

9 ай бұрын

I first heard of the urban legend shortly after Radio 4 really did go off the air on 29 Nov 2021 when a fire alarm had been triggered in the studio building where the Today program was being broadcast. The Daily Express had sensational headlines about the so called "doomsday protocol" which Radio 4 Today programme itself debunked later that same week.

This Radio 4 story is one of the more hilarious things I've heard today. Fun story but I need a few more brews under my belt.

@english_electric7125

9 ай бұрын

It's quite funny to think that there might be a conversation like this at the BBC: "Dave, did the Today programme go out at 6:00 this morning?" "I don't think so, Steve. There was a fault with the transmission." "Shit, shit, shit!"

@bsadewitz

9 ай бұрын

I suspect that many would render me unconscious.

I was a ICBM Launh officer on a USAF Titan II launch crew in Kansas. We didn't have the codes to launch the Titan II on site, so if we lost communication with SAC HQ or Numbered AF, we couldn't launch. One time, I bought a copy of Popular Communication that had a listing of the SW radio stations that broadcast in English and made a copy of the listing and brought it on complex as a backup just in case "the ballon went up". I knew that HF communication would be nearly impossible if there was a nuclear strike, but it was a backup.

It was reported that this check was started when the Polaris deterrent became operational. I believe this method was used if all other technical means and military communications ceased to function as expected. It would be confirmative method in the absence of other means. During wartime, Radio 4 (the old Home Service) would be a vital means for the government to communicate with the population. So if it was not on the air by its various methods then the country would have been in serious trouble. Probably then the safe would have been opened. I wouldn't suggest for one moment that UK SSBN captains would only use this method exclusively as an indicator of the security state of the country.

As a youngster joining government service in 1979 I was told by an old hand how the police had arrived at his door on Christmas Eve because one of the network of emergency microwave transmitters had gone unserviceable. As he was ‘on call’, he was immediately escorted to the transmitting station and had to climb the mast in freezing and windy conditions to repair this vital link in the UK’s Civil Defence. It was only some time later that he discovered that the entire network had been superseded by new technology in a move kept so secret that no one in the maintenance organisation had been notified and the transmitter he repaired had been redundant for months.

There's a podcast called "cold War conversations" they had a Polaris nuclear missile submarine commander on. They asked about this rumour and the commander confirmed it was rubbish. The signal men aboard listened to Radio4 as it was one of few stations they could listen to at periscope depth for entertainment only

@liamrobbins4470

9 ай бұрын

He also said during his service there were no letters of last resort aboard. This was the 70s so they figured the letters weren't a thing yet

I can tell you for a fact that this story isn’t true. I used to work at HMS Forest Moor as a radio operator and without saying anything I shouldn’t, we maintained the LF broadcast to the submarines on 10 channels and if the submarines lost this broadcast for more than 30 minutes they were instructed to open the “safe” and carry out their orders.

@Scotian280

9 ай бұрын

To add to this, we broadcast gibberish on these 10 channels in secure data 24 hours a day and whenever there was something to actually tell the subs, that message was inserted into the gibberish so the Russians wouldn’t be able to spot a sudden uptick in radio traffic that could be an indicator that we are positioning for a strike. It was called the 10 channel CARB and although it was operated from HMS Forest Moor, the actual transmitters were in different parts of the north and south of the UK connected via phone lines to our consoles. If the CARB ever went down for some reason we had a klaxon and flashing red light in the ops room that went off for us to do what we can to re-establish the link within that 30 min time frame we were working within. We also had a literal red phone secure hotline with Whitehall (called it the bat phone of course) where we would receive calls from the war office in an emergency. Hope I’ve not given too much info away and get bloody arrested, it might have changed since the mid 2000s when I was an operator there.

@crf80fdarkdays

9 ай бұрын

Cheers for this interesting info

There's an important lesson here, that a counter strike might not be executed for a considerable length of time. They can do analysis, plan, and stalk their targets as necessary before releasing nuclear weapons.

Fantastic production!! One of your best.

@RingwayManchester

9 ай бұрын

Much appreciated!

Not sure if I saw it here, but apparently ELF was/is used to communicate with submarines at about 77Hz. An absense of signal just indicates a good time to come closer to the surface to pick up the VLF signal which can carry bandwidth. ELF can pentetrate down to 200m below sea level and part the antenna is actually the Earth itself in an area where the ground has high impedance (particular type of rocks etc). Sidenote: Some time ago I was staying in Bristol and I was lying awake in the middle of the night and I just remembered what I had heard years ago about the "Bristol Hum" that some people could hear. Sure enough, if I listened carefully I could hear a constant hum. I just never noticed it before but it is still audible to me in London, Netherlands but not in Norfolk. Now I noticed it I could hear it in the day also and I played a signal generator against it to find the freqency. I was surprised to find it was somewhere between 70Hz and 80Hz, not the 50 or 100Hz I was expecting if it was mains related. A few years later, I find out about the ELF transmissions. Based also on my recent experience with incredibly small E-field antennas that can pick up VLF to VHF, I am wondering if it is possible for any part of the human ear to pick up ELF radio. If the brain was stimulated, not the ear, then it probably woudn't be perceived as sound.

@ianwalker1182

9 ай бұрын

That was the Sanguie in the US, which used propagation through geographic layers. When they transmitted, landlines phones would ring

@crf80fdarkdays

9 ай бұрын

​@@ianwalker1182crazy

@ianwalker1182

9 ай бұрын

You would need a big loop or a very long antenna to receive 70 Hz to 80 Hz, submarines trail a long wire, also the propagation is in the ground and sea, rather than air.

@SimonBlandford

9 ай бұрын

@@ianwalker1182 An E-field antenna is certainly good down to a few KHz although I don’t know yet if it can go down even further. It would also need to be a long way from any mains to not get swamped by 50/60Hz. It is certainly possible to make antennas receive at a much smaller space than the wavelength e.g. ferrite rod antennas in radio-controlled clocks receiving 60KHz. Although 77Hz can penetrate the ground and 200m below the waterline doesn’t necessarily mean that that is all it can do.

@ianwalker1182

9 ай бұрын

@@SimonBlandford When you have a low field strength, ie in sea water, a large antenna helps. When MSF moved, several of my clocks stopped working. I recall a NATO VLF tx antenna being a long wire in a gravel filed trench to withstand an attack. Presumably it would not be connected until after any EMP.

Love these vids. This stuff has fascinated me since childhood.

11:17 the melodic inversion to the harmonic minor scale is very nice

My grandad was sent to Anthorn during WWII and it may of saved his life. When the aircraft carrier Eagle made its last port of call before setting sail for it last voyage into the Med and thus sunk, he was given orders to join another ship nobody had ever heard of. By this method it was how the then new station of Anthorn and its early purpose was kept secret. His speciality was to lead the team that was responsible for the fitting and testing of all the newest radio equipment to aircraft making his knowledge and expertise vital to its early advancement into what it has now become.

Great video, Lewis, and I heartily agree. Cheers!

@RingwayManchester

9 ай бұрын

Thanks for watching!

Brilliant as always Lewis 👍

The version I heard in the early 90s involved a tethered weather balloon, and an pretty bog standard LW radio using the tether as antenna, in the event of the sub's radio (and redundant backups) going down. I think the idea got traction due to the idea that the British Navy relied on improvisation and 'gumption' as much as it did high technology (some of it dating back to the rep the SOE had during WW2)

@xiamaramu1538

9 ай бұрын

Would a antenna wire with a balloon break? I mean with a rougher sea it might strain the wire to breaking point. I think the MV Communicator used that system for radio broadcasts without a good result.

Great research and very informative. Keep up the hard work Lewis

@RingwayManchester

9 ай бұрын

Much appreciated!

Thank you for another outstanding post. I love all things spycraft and this video makes me think.

Thanks again Lewis. Spot on as usual. I've been round Droitwitch while studying at Wood Norton and had a friend who worked at Skelton that AFAIK at the time (about 1990) was only a BBCWS tx site; you live and learn. A trip around Inskip while studying at Northern Counties Radio School in Preston was the first time I saw an RF spectrum analyser in about 1977! Your content is always accurate and fascinating. It must take days to pull all this together! It's very much appreciated. Thank you.

QI the TV panel show stated the Prime Ministers driver had to always carry 4d (4 old pennies) to make a phone call, if the 4 minute warning of a nuclear strike had been heard on the radio so he could give the command to retaliate if he was on the road, If Macmillan was killed, two other senior ministers were given the power to authorise the deployment of the RAF's V-bombers - named as 'First Gravedigger' and 'Second Gravedigger'.

Excellent topic, I pass Anthorn and Skelton quite regularly when vising family. By the way, I LOVE your Lincolnshire Poacher outro music. Haunting or what???!

The whole idea of cold war safeguards is an interesting one. What I do know, because I work with the engineers, (system-x telephone exchanges) is that the speaking clock has a role to play in alerting of nuclear war. The idea being it was (is) a circuit constantly under test so wanting to use it and find it had failed wasn't a probability. I'm aware from a visit to Hack Green some years ago that there is or was active system-x equipment installed in the bunker as I witnessed a BT engineer working on the frame. While not radio related, the cold war was a serious business.

Really interesting video, thanks 👍🏻

I worked down the road from these towers, it was at a NHS warehouse that dealt with special equipment, someone had mention this but never worked out if it was true

I love your content! Greetings from Pennsylvania USA

thanks Lewis, love thi content!

Not sure about the submarines, but there is low speed data modulation encoded at 25Hz 50 symbols per second, onto the 198kHz carrier. As well as the time signals and instructions for Economy 7 (/10) meters, streetlights etc. there is a technical capability for many other channels of information. When I worked there in the late 70s, there was a nuclear shelter with a small studio within and there was also a beautiful 1930s radio studio on the northwest first-floor corner, complete with "apple and biscuit" 4021 microphones and cupboards full of acetate records. As for security, as the third man on night shift, I used to watch the CCTV and control gate access. The BBC Club in the back compound allowed for 24hr refreshment, so I was initially freaked out that we were being raided when a convoy of cop cars turned up in the early hours, but it turned out that they had come for a "refreshing" meal break. In the event of nuclear attack, the LF TX was to be the mainstay of the Wartime Broadcasting Service, being 13 miles from PAWN and 11 from Drakelow.

There is a grain of truth, on a visit as a Civilian Instructor with my local ATC Squadron, we were at BBC radio Sheffield. One item of interest was a master transmission relay cabinet, in the event of a nuclear warning being issued all BBC stations would automatically switch to the output of radio four.

@markoprskalo6127

2 ай бұрын

So the radio switches off when being attacked by nuke This is best video

There also used to be a VLF submarine signalling site at Forest Moor literally over the road from RAF (US) Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire.

@MJS-vx3oj

9 ай бұрын

I was deployed at HMS Forest Moor. There was a massive 'antenna farm' which has gone now, but it still plays a key role in the command and control of radio signals including VLF and ULF.

Such a fascinating video, Lewis! Was completely unaware of this urban legend (though, living in Australia might've played a part in that), but it's such a compelling idea to consider. Really well explained, and a totally engrossing presentation. Regarding underwater communications, particularly with submarines and submersibles, etc., have you ever encountered the deployment or proposal of communication using time reversal acoustics? It's such an elegant physical concept; I reckon you'd get a kick out of it, even though it's not radio. (Must declare my bias, as I'm working on my MPhil in the field. Haha 😜) Keep up the brilliant work!

Very good video thanks. 👍

Great production

I heard that too. With a tx station close by at Inskip being the mainstay of comms for submarines along with a relay at Barrow. There was a lot of odd goings on during the cold war, Having being active during those times a lot of comms info was passed around.

@MJS-vx3oj

9 ай бұрын

There used to be quite a few complaints to the Navy about Inskip interfering with their TVs!

Urban myth. The timeline of the countdown to the BBC WTBS (Wartime Broadcasting Service) in the four versions I have of the BBC War Book - the manual for the setup and running of the WTBS, it specifically states that at A Hour (Announcement Hour) BBC radio, and from the 1970s, IBA (ILR) radio would broadcast a single service originated from the continuity studio of The Home Service/later Radio 4, WTBS tuning information for 30 minutes. This would be followed by 30 minutes of silence for transmitter switching and retuning (known as S - Switching hour - but it was only 30 minutes long). Then N (National) hour would start with the launch of the WTBS as a single service across the UK. WWTBS 2 was also planned from Wood Norton which was a single service on SW to outside the UK. TV would be a single service on both BBC and IBA showing the "Advising the Homeowner" Civil Defence films (1960s - 70s) and later, Protect and Survive (1980s/90s) then shut down at N Hour. LW radio would broadcast audio versions on the TV CD films until N Hour or, as the War Book states " as long as practical" then shut down at N Hour. The idea was 1. To avoid confusion for the listener as to what service to tune to 2. Ease BBC resources. 3 Prolong the life of the listeners radio batteries by only broadcasting a single service as announcements at set times. 4. Droitwich would, most likely, at best, be a heap of metal on the ground, so why waste resources on it?

Back in the early 1960s my Dad, a GPO employee, was Clerk of Works for the building of a high-power VLF telegraphy transmitter on 16kHz at Anthorn in Cumbria. This site is now the home of the standard time transmission on 60 kHz. Although it was never stated as such, at least in my hearing, I understood that the 16kHz station was for communication with nuclear submarines.

@karhukivi

9 ай бұрын

The 16 kHz signal was from Rugby and operated by the GPO for many years. Built in 1926, it was for communication with the colonies but when shortwave enabled long distance communications for a lot less power, the transmitter was changed to naval use, mainly for submarines. During the Falklands war it was found to be "very good" for the South Atlantic. It was demolished in 2004 and replaced by Anthorn and Skelton. Parts of it are in the spy museum near Nantwich.

@psprog

9 ай бұрын

I'm from Carlisle and was always fascinated by the 13 antennas nearby at Anthon growling up. Heard they were for submarine comms and I know the "pips" moved there after Rugby. Still an impressive array of masts whenever I return home

As a 20 year U.S Navy submariner I think you have successfully debunked the rumor. A good video as always

With more precisely synchronized atomic clocks and digital spread-spectrum coded transmissions and more selective receivers, VLF can work deeper than before, because the signals can be much further below the noise floor and still be detected by a statistically-significant presence/absence of RF energy at very specific frequencies and time slots. Also the newest VLF antenna technology uses acoustic resonance of piezoelectric materials at VLF frequencies to keep the antenna size down and efficiency higher. This might soon be a big game changer.

Prior to 1988 Droitwich was on 200kHz, when it then moved to the EBU 9kHz spacing to 198kHz. But the transmiiter was always controlled by a rubidium atomic frequency standard (its sister is at NPL Teddington), and they PLL check each others accuracy (Foot Rule checking a Foot Rule). Droitwich was therefore a good Frequency Standard at long range, especially at night, and was used to Lock TV Stations Subcarrier/Line/Frame Rates for National Locking - fNatLock, but I haven't told you that. In recent years, after so-say shutdown Droitwich has always carried "digital signals", and I'll leave it to you to imagine the Intended Recipients. Incidentally, submarines can raise a long wire aerial on a ballon whilst submerged.......

Thanks for answering my question

As a former Royal Navy submariner on Polaris boats, I can confirm that if comms failed or no communication was received, the captain would ask the radio shack to tune in yo Radio 4. if no broadcast was received from radio 4 the captain would follow his orders on the letter of final resort and attack in kind.

Great video mate👍👍👍 when you name the transmission sites and say they broadcast on a frequency, what would they sound like? Is it like morse code?

@RingwayManchester

9 ай бұрын

Morse and digital modes

Great video. Let's hope and pray that nuclear was never happens.

Interesting BUT the last 2 videos you made from Devon BOTH was at sights that had a ROC Post (I only commented on one but have checked they both did have) An ROC Post is an underground nuclear look out post, now as far as I know they did not use radio just a telephone line to phone in on the event of an explosion that they detected. They are about 20 miles apart often near ordnance survey triangulation points and near a phone line in fact the cut off telegraph pole often makes them easy to find. Great video and Im sure when you reach the 100k subscribers your be giving a long wave radio away just incase ! lol

@chriswalford4161

9 ай бұрын

ROCs were organised in clusters of 3 or 4 of which one was a master which had radio links through a deployable antenna up the chain.

Excellent story-telling Lewis - and nice to see the nuclear 'angle' on BBC R4 LW, debunked! 73 Clint

@RingwayManchester

9 ай бұрын

Thanks as always mate

This was really interesting

Being a retired Submariner on RN ballistic missle submarines, the captains generally liked the BBC World Service. Maybe he liked the quality of the news reports.

Loved the Lincolnshire poacher at the end * wink *

It’s interesting reading these comments having been a comms engineer on a bomber

@alanbrown5593

9 ай бұрын

Reso.

@RingwayManchester

9 ай бұрын

What are your thoughts on the Vulcan r4 theory?

Nice use of Lincolnshire Poacher for the end theme!

0:34 - lol, great editting! someone has been watching Oppenheimer.

Very interesting Lewis. Love this series about radio and transmitting sites.

I knew about Rugby way back in the 60's as I had an uncle who worked there and liked to tell us boys a few top secret things.

But, maybe Droitwich appears insecure to deflect interest in the site 😂

Can you do more on VLF / ULF? I find it highly interesting!

Epic videos.

Worthwhile pointing out that other elements of Peter Hennessy's book, based on "private information" have subsequently been confirmed - including the four pennies anecdote. This seems to have been one, and only one, of a suite of measures, and was only to be observed if there was no other possibility of communication. I suspect there is something in it, but its use was probably quite brief and relatively informal.

Used to get CW breakthrough on my little microlight aircrafts VHF radio when flying over RNS Inskip at around 2000ft...this would have been around 2006-7 I used to use Inskip as a Nav waypoint.....there where no restriction on doing so.

0:34 Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean, that really got out of hand fast.

Thanks for an interesting video. I read Hennessy's book a while ago, and wasn't too sure about that story. Love the Lincolnshire Poacher at the end, nice touch!

I think the BBC World Service signal could be used as a check.

It could work the other way around. I.e. you can't detect communication from any of the standard military sources, but before you blow everything up you can check if Radio 4 is still broadcasting live material?

another myth that you might investigate...the bbc R4 opening music montage, played on the opening of r4 each morning was NOT a saved recording but each day a new file would be played....apparently identical! .... but actually different, with encoded codes.

@RingwayManchester

9 ай бұрын

I’d love to talk via email on this Simon ringwaymanchester@mail.com

@halfbakedproductions7887

9 ай бұрын

Part of me really does want that to be true. That sounds absolutely amazing.

Very interesting

Thanks for your insight and information once again Lewis, lets just hope no one ever has to find out if the rumors were, or weren't true, EVER...

As a radio ham, I would love to get into experiments with VLF. I understand you can obtain an NOV for this? I shall have to look into it. I own a few acres of rural land, so could possibly rig up a (temporary) antenna!

@StalinTheMan0fSteel

9 ай бұрын

If you're an American, there's an experimental band at 1750 meters which you don't need a license.

@daleallen7634

9 ай бұрын

@StalinTheMan0fSteel?si=ib9Lh9-deEXhdR8J : And if you look at the FCC regulations for that band, there are some restrictions on power level, antenna height, and antenna gain. Have fun with it though. 🙂

@StalinTheMan0fSteel

9 ай бұрын

@@daleallen7634 True.

@laurensvisser7623

9 ай бұрын

Afaik there are no VLF amateur allocations anywhere. Either you can do 137kHz (LF, already a serious challene antenna-wise) or sub-9kHz (where all spectrum is un-allocated and per definition free for everyone to use). On 8,9kHz people have already used very narrow bandwitdth digimodes and have their signal heard like 25km away. Kinda similar to what subs use, speed measured in single characters per minute. It would be very nice if we actually could get an allocation on 17,1-17,3kHz, 100hz under and above SAQ Grimeton's frequency. I reckon that sooner or later some very motivated scandinavian operator will actually manage to put a few milliwatts out at that frequency and make a QSO with SAQ.

@StalinTheMan0fSteel

9 ай бұрын

@@laurensvisser7623 I don't know why hams in the U.S. don't have a dedicated amateur band in the vlf range, we have 160 meters all the way up to the ghz range. In Europe I understand, high power broadcast stations operate in vlf, but in the U.S. there's nothing, I've never even heard marine radio traffic.

You could hear GBZ at Rugby keying as the it was a CW transmission of 16KHz and the transmitter vibrated in the audio range.

I'd love for you to a more in-depth video on inskip.

A valve failure could have caused an interesting panic. I love the end part of the second letter. I know that it was used for coded transmissions during WW2.

Can you do a video on Jim Creek VLF Naval radio station?

Some surface ships in the US Navy carry VLF radios, I would assume that your ships in the UK, would carry them as well thus enabling more reliable relays, for communicating, orders.

Thanks Lewis, really enjoyed this one, always fascinated by cold war stuff.

I've long thought there is something very suspicious about 'Sailing By'. Sailing By is the music played every night at 12.46am on BBC Radio 4 to herald the reading of the late-night Shipping Forecast, It is a short piece of light music composed by Ronald Binge in 1963. A slow waltz, the piece uses a repetitive ABCAB structure and a distinctive rising and falling woodwind arpeggio. Is it operating as a subtle form of numbers station?

@confuseatronica

9 ай бұрын

never attribute to enemy action what can be explained by.... anoraks I think sailing by is just BBC leaning into the nostalgia for 50 years :P

About 15 years ago, i had a satellite radio for a few years, I used to listen to Sarah Cox all the time on Radio 1. I love all that "Britishness" stuff! 😊

I don’t know which transmitter was used, but I was watching a documentary that followed a UK submarine and the captain mentioned if he didn’t get orders during a crucial time, aka tense period, if he never got orders for a period of time, then they would tune in the radio, no radio = open the box that has a paper with 4 different options to choose from, attack, return to a nato base, and 2 other things.

Have to wonder if a solar flare or other jamming/ blocking situation could naturally or accidentally simulate condition of the signal not being detected.

There used to be Criggion VLF Station in Wales. That was on 19.2kHz. A went there a few times years ago when I worked at British Telecom.

@RingwayManchester

9 ай бұрын

Nice one, I did mention criggion in the vid

As well as the Radio 4 documentary there's a Radio 4 comedy /drama on the Letters of Last Resort available on KZread. It's a radio play featuring an incoming female PM. This fictional PM seems so determined to avoid the issue I almost wanted to shake her. I mean, if you suddenly became Prime Minister wouldn't your first priority be to explore the secret passages and find out as much top secret stuff as possible? I mean James Bond type stuff, not classified Excel documents!! I would have thought, by the way, that if the British Government did get destroyed in a nuclear holocaust, the King would automatically become leader (assuming the King somehow survived)...

I wonder if allied command would include Canada. I know where I live in Nova Scotia we have several naval transmission stations very similar looking to the ones you have shown here. I could post locations and get your opinion on them if you like.

@mikesmith-po8nd

9 ай бұрын

I'm sure that there's contingency plans in place for all foreseeable variations. Comms/command would switch to any of the allied countries as necessary.

Then you've got the handel system, the speaking clock circuit and how the wrong frequency played down this audio line could set off automated air raid sirens

Interesting 👍

@RingwayManchester

9 ай бұрын

Thanks for the visit

amazing outro song

I agree if The Archers did not indeed come on then clearly civilisation as we know would be at an end and the earth would be forever a cold and barren wasteland with only Gardeners World left to keep the foul beasts of the night at bay and provide us with comfort and hope that tomorrow will be a better day. Thoughts and prayers.

Radio 4 has always been in charge of the UK's nuclear fleet, its the only radio allowed and it helps to keep the crew braindead and calm. It's well known in some parts.

In wartime, normal broadcasting would have been suspended and the Wartime Broadcasting Service would have taken over. It would have been run by the BBC from Wood Norton. Additionally, regional government bunkers were also equipped with BBC studios. Therefore, the Today programme and BBC Radio Four would have been suspended for the duration of the war.

It's amazing what some people will believe....

My grandad use to work on the transmitters in Cumbria

good video. would be interesting if we later found out that Radio 4 was the untilmate numbers station. i.e. the Archers on air indicated that all was good but if this schedulled program wasnt shown....... nuke time baby

Let us hope all this is never happen. The best from LB1NH 🙂

I think all sub commanders would be notified of 'Missiles in flight' before impact and before BBC Radio 4 ever stopped transmitting. Also since it was a strain for Rugby to reach HMS Conqueror during the the Falklands War (Conflict) would they even have been able to receive BBC Radio 4? What is the World Service transmitted it and relayed from Ascension Island. On the island and on the beach it almost is the World Service on your teeth fillings (from memory a cassette record switched off would pick up some of it).

Used to be the shipping for ast for MI6 I know that for sure .

hey have you done one covering whatever the hell it is they got on top butser hill hampshire?

@RichieReportsUK

9 ай бұрын

That communication tower has been on Butser Hill for decades, Iremeember we used to go up there for picnics, back in the 1970s & you could get really close to it, its used for a whole variety of comms, from relaying TV transmissions via microwave links, emergency services radio, & more recently mobile phone signal among many other uses.

It would be interesting to flip this idea. If the sub wasn't receiving any signal other than Radio 4

I like hearing about the number station

i havent watched the video yet but that title is crazy 😂

How long is LW due to continue for? At least for radio 4. 5 live and talksport I can take or leave tbh