We contemplated cutting a chunk out of the steel doorframe, but then decided
it would be easier to cut the bottom of the transmitters mounting base off,
to make it fit. We had a 5mm gap! The mast had been erected in May, but without
the centre mounted spreaders. It was the one confiscated by the DTI from the
King David in Portsmouth before being given to Caroline and then sitting in
Albert Hoods and Barry James yards for a number of years until everyone was
sick of it. Belgian technicians had fitted a spider support for the feeder wires
half way up the mast, which in turn needed an antenna matching unit and then
a coaxial feeder cable to connect to the transmitter. Fine tuning of the feeder
attachment point on the mast, and the Capacity Hat, was then necessary to present
a good match to the transmitter. Tuning the mast was complicated by the fact
the stations land based transmitter on the same frequency was less than 4 miles
away, it gave nearly as much signal into our test gear as the signal generator
we were using! We could only switch the main transmitter off after 7pm so as
not to upset the stations sponsors. To keep us out of mischief during gaps in
the schedule, some painting had been arranged as well! We only just made the
deadline, as it was at the 11th hour after 5 days of effort that we finally
got on air. Had we hit any hurdles that night, we would not have made it. The
land based site shut down and we took over 1602Khz with full power, broadcasting
for about two hours, with good reception reports from Felixstowe and other UK
places, indicating a respectable increase in signal strength until shut down
at 10pm, when we re-instated the normal programming from the land based site
at Petersbirum. Both the Waddenzee and Seagull stations use shows normally made
up beforehand by the DJ's in their own homes/studios, then downloaded and stored
on servers at the transmitter site, then it is a simple job to schedule them
for transmission, again, done remotely. A UHF link from the ship to an onshore
site allows programs made in the studio on the ship to be either broadcast direct
or recorded and stored for later transmission. It's a very low budget operation,
uses practically no manpower to transmit the signal from an unattended site
between a ditch and a transport company depot in the middle of nowhere. Just
occasionally maintenance is required to keep the station on-air, and Sietse
has had to arrange transmission from elsewhere, and it takes some doing!. Now
he can use his lightship that was recently renamed the 'Jenni Baynton'. The
ship could be described as the Worlds only offshore radio ship capable of broadcasting
- although the lack of a generator means it has to be plugged into a shore supply,
so it can't go very far offshore at present!
