BBC World Service Annual Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast: June 21, 2026
The Shortwave Radio Audio ArchiveShow Notes
photo by derek oven on unsplash
A live, off-air, half-hour recording of the BBC World Service special Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast on 21 June 2026 beginning at 21:30 UTC. The broadcast, hosted by Cerys Matthews, featured messages and music for the members of the staff of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) overwintering in Antarctica at the Rothera (Antarctic Peninsula), King Edward Point, and Bird Island (South Georgia) research stations. In addition to personal messages from family and friends, there were interviews with Professor Dame Jane Francis, Director of BAS; and Lousiane Ferlier, an archivist at the Royal Society in London who is digitizing the photographs of the first midwinter celebration during Robert Scott's discovery expedition of 1901-04. As sometimes happens, the first few words of the introduction were not transmitted: "This is the BBC World Service calling Antarctica ...". The recording is of the transmission on 12070 kHz from the BBC's Woofferton, England, transmitting station. The sender had a registered power of 300 kW with antenna beam 182 degrees. The transmission was received on a Belka-DX receiver with a Sangean ANT-60 7-metre wire antenna outdoors in Hanwell (just outside Fredericton), New Brunswick, Canada, in pseudo-synchronous (AM2) mode with 50 Hz - 2.7 kHz bandwidth. Reception was quite good with excellent signal strength but with occasional lightning burst noise and digital utility station interference. The additional parallel frequencies of 9510 kHz from Woofferton and 9460 kHz from Ascension were heard but not as well as 12070 kHz. A studio quality, slightly longer, podcast version is available on the BBC World Service website.
BBC World Service Annual Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast: June 21, 2026
Richard Langley
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