Aspidistra (transmitter)
Aspidistra was a British medium-wave radio transmitter used for black propaganda and military deception purposes against Nazi Germany during World War II.
Its name – after the popular foliage houseplant – was inspired by the 1938 comic song "The Biggest Aspidistra in the World", best known as sung by Gracie Fields.
But at the prompting of the United States Congress, spurred on by competition,[1] the Federal Communications Commission later imposed a 50-kW power limit on all US stations.
The 1940s Art Deco style transmitter building was in an underground shelter which had been excavated by a Canadian army construction unit.
Power for the transmitter was supplied from two flat eight diesels with blown superchargers made by Crossley-Premier heavy oil engine.
The facility was located in an elevated part of Ashdown Forest, about 195 metres (640 ft) above sea level, at King's Standing near Crowborough, East Sussex.
This fed the main mast, the other two being parasitic and providing the directional element necessary as the purpose was to get the maximum signal eastwards into Europe.
In particular, Aspidistra aired the broadcasts of Atlantiksender and Soldatensender Calais, which posed as official German military radio stations in France.
[8] During Allied air raids, German radio transmitters in target areas were switched off to prevent their use as navigational aids by the enemy.
When a targeted transmitter switched off, Aspidistra began transmitting on its frequency, initially retransmitting the German network broadcast as received from an active station.
[10][11][12] After the November 1978 reorganisation, the other medium wave frequency (1296 kHz) used by the BBC to broadcast to Europe was carried by the Doherty transmitters which had been moved to a new Foreign Office transmitting station at Orfordness on the Suffolk coast, as it was better placed than Crowborough, which is inland.
[citation needed] Despite its almost exclusive post-war use by the BBC, the Crowborough station remained formally in the hands of the Foreign Office (from 1968, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, FCO), and its staff were members of the Diplomatic Wireless Service (later known as the FCO's Communications Department and then the Communications Engineering Department) rather than the BBC.
Aspidistra made its final transmission (on 648 kHz) on 28 September 1982, the honour of pressing the "off" key for the last time going to Harold Robin, the Foreign Office engineer who had been responsible 40 years earlier for purchasing the transmitter in the US and setting up the station at Crowborough.
Two years later, following extensive modifications, the bunker that housed the Aspidistra transmitter was commissioned by the Home Office as one of the 17 sites in England and Wales to be used as seats of regional government in the event of a nuclear attack.
A number of valves (tubes) and a large tuning coil were saved by FCO engineers and are now on display in the foyer of the Orfordness station.
ASP1 was a 600 kW medium wave transmitter which was installed and commissioned with great urgency by Harold Robin during the spring and summer of 1942 and which commenced broadcasting on 8 November 1942.
