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The British Far Eastern Service

1937— the BBC began planning a shortwave transmitting station to relay BBC Empire signals from the United Kingdom to the Far East

1946 —The British Far Eastern Broadcasting Service began broadcasting at Jurong transmitting live programmes in English, Burmese, Indonesian and Thai from studios at Singapore's Cathay Building on Thomson Rd.

1949 —These studios moved to Caldecott Hill. B.F.E.B.S. shared the site with Radio Malaya (Singapore). Operations consisted of live broadcasting in English, Indonesian and Siamese, news editing and monitoring.

Christmas Day, 1949 —The station was again moved to Tebrau on the mainland of Malaya, and control of B.F.E.B. S. was handed over by the Foreign Office to the BBC.

August 1965 — BBC Far Eastern Service closed down its studio operations in Singapore. It became the BBC Far Eastern Relay Station in 1974, and it is still on the air.

In an early article about the plans of the BBC to reach the Far East ( London Calling No. 224, January 1944, p. 2 cont on p. 18 ) one gets an idea of the general scope and purpose of transmisisons to the Far Eastern region - a term that would, through time, become more and more synonymous with the nation states that would later be called South East Asia from WW II and onwards.

London Calling text in full:

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BBC PATHS TO INDIA AND THE FAR EAST

There are two main audiences in India and the Far East for BBC programmes. They might well be classified as the "residents" and the "visitors": the "residents" denoting, of course, the inhabitants of the areas; the "visitors" comprising the Forces and civilians to whom Britain is literally "the Home Country." For both areas, therefore, there are twin programme services - the Eastern Service for the residents, the General Overseas Service for the visitors.

India - here used to connote Ceylon, Burma, and Malaya as well as India herself - is a target of the General Overseas Service for ten and three quarters hours a day : from 04.00 to 07.15 (GMT), and from 10.00 to 17.30. From the engineer’s point of view, the maintenance of the early-morning (GMT) service is a considerable problem during the winter months in the Northern hemisphere. Those who read our article last week on the technical implications of the Pacific Service will remember that the short path to Australia leading there over India is not available during the early morning, and that therefore the service to Australia is obliged to use the long path over Central America. Hence the warning note that, at present, accompanies our Eastern Service Schedules on p.22 : "during the winter months in the Northern Hemisphere. Maximum signal strength in this area will not be reached until about 6.00 GMT" - that is, until about 12.30 p.m. I.S.T.

Until about that time these adverse conditions make it difficult to give listeners in India a strong signal, irrespective of the wavelength used. The early-morning service opens according to the Indian clock at 10.30 a.m. - some hours after sunrise there, but several hours before sunrise in Britain, so that propagation conditions governing the path vary from one extreme to the other : the transmitting end is in darkness, the receiving end in daylight, and waves of different lengths are demanded by the respective conditions of darkness and daylight. The only solution is to use at the transmitting end the longest available wave (the lowest frequency) in order to ensure that the signal is adequately reflected from the ionosphere at the outset of its journey. Were a shorter wave to be used - that is, a wave more suitable to the conditions at the receiving end - it would escape through the ionosphere into outer space and no signal would reach India at all.

The compromise adopted is the one that at least gives the signal a good send - off. Making its journey, as it does, in a series of gigantic hops, it must inevitably suffer losses of strength on the way, but; unless conditions are abnormally adverse, it should still be capable of providing serviceable listening when it arrives at Indian aerials.

As dawn moves westwards the disparity in the density - or ionisation - of the electrified layers at the two ends of the circuit decreases, with a consequent and welcome levelling of the propagation conditions over the route. Shorter wavelengths can then be brought into use. Under the current frequency schedule, then, India, Ceylon, Burma, and Malaya are served by GRB (6.01 Mc/s 49.92 m.) - the longest available wave - until 05.30 ; half an hour before it is withdrawn GSB (9.51 Mc/s, 31.55 m.) comes on duty and is joined at 05.45 by the still shorter wave, GWC (15.07 Mc/s, 19.91 m.), this pair continuing together until the end of the transmission at 07.15.

In directing this early-morning transmission to the Far East the problems of ensuring a reasonably good signal are intensified - so much so that it is technically impossible to provide a service much before 05.45 GMT, and no attempt is made to do so. By that hour conditions have improved sufficiently to permit transmission on the 31- and 35-metre bands, and listeners in the Far East - and the territories on their Eastern borders - should Service until 07.15 GMT on GSB and GSD (11.75 Mc/s, 25.43 m.).

General Overseas Service

The main transmission of the General Overseas Service begins at 10.00 and by this time conditions over the paths to both India and the Far East present no difficulty. The Service is available in each area from that hour and continues until the late afternoon, GMT. But as the day wears on the conditions that applied in the early morning begin to return. Through from 10.00 to about 12.15 a wave as short as 16 metres can be used satisfactorily, from that time a steady increase in wavelength becomes necessary : the 19-metre band is used until 13.45, the 25-metre band until 14.00, the 31-metre band until 15.45. Then it again becomes a matter of using the longest available wave, and to continue service until the end of the scheduled period of transmission to this area a 49-metre wave is brought to use.

For the Far East a 25-metre wave is used until 12.00, a 31-metre wave until about 12.00, and for the last hour of the service to the Far East - that is, until late in the local evening a 41-metre wave is used.

In the technical planning of the Eastern Service, the main considerations are the incidence of sunset at the listening end and the fact that during the course of transmission sunset spreads westwards over that route. The Eastern Service for India now begins at 11.30 GMT and continues, with two short intervals of less than an hour, until 15.45. At 11.30 wavelengths in the 16-metre and 19-metre band are used for India, Burma, Malaya, and for Indonesia (a comprehensive term for the Netherlands East Indies, Indo-China, and the neighbouring islands). At 13.00 a change to the 31-metre band becomes necessary, and an hour or so later the 49-metre band is brought into use, both continuing in service until the end of transmission at 15.45.

The listener should…

It will be seen that these arrangements parallel those for the General Overseas Service. It is therefore highly important that the listener should discriminate between the two services when they are being carried in the same waveband.

Because the Eastern Service must cater for the local audience in the Far East, special periods are allocated to transmissions in the Far Eastern tongues. Apart, however, from the difference in the direction of transmission, the technical bases upon which the Indian frequency schedule is planned apply to the Far East, and the Eastern Service, like the General Overseas Service, cannot be maintained for Far Easter listeners after mid-afternoon in Britain during mid-winter. Because dawn in Britain means that the short-path route to Australia and New Zealand has become available, listeners in India and the Far East should be able to receive tha Pacific Service in the 19-metre band from 08.00 in India and 08.45 in the Far East until the close of the Service.

So far we have dealt with the two main Services to the Eastern part of the world. But in the Indonesian area there is a considerable audience for the BBC Services in Dutch, French, and German. So, from 10.30 to 11.15 GMT and again from 11.30 to 12.15 GMT, additional transmitters are attached to the European Service to carry to the Netherlands East Indies and Indo-China broadcasts in those tongues.

This article has described the situation at the time of going to press. On January 23 certain adjustments and expansions will be introduced in the Eastern Service and it is probable that corresponding modifications in the frequency schedule will be necessary. General Overseas Service listeners in India, however, are not likely to experience any radical alteration in their wavelength schedule until the Spring Equinox brings about the usual seasonal changes in wavelength. As much advance notice as possible of these changes will be given in our pages and at the microphone.

An Evolution of the Far Eastern Service through the PasBs

Programmes as Broadcast (PasBs) are the official records of what was broadcast on any given day by the BBC. The Written Archives at Caversham, holds pre-1955 PasBs in typescript as hard copy only and PasBs for 1955 onwards are held on microfilm only.

A scan of the these PAsBs gives an outline of the evolution of Overseas BBC programming first from the Empire Service, and later on to the more specific transmissions to South East Asia under the British Far Eastern Broadcasting Service.

There are PasBs for the Empire Service from 19 December 1932-1 September 1939, and up to April - July 1940, there are no specific transmissions to what would later be designated as the Far East. Sometimes the programming included a Hindustani program, and some news features dealt with British Malaya or India. The Programmes were categorized as A B C D E — and Transmission I II and III , IV V — and the languages it broadcasted in were in European languages, with no Asian languages except Arabic.

Starting 22 September 1940 , the PasBs list a Programme A for Pacific Transmission, with News in Arabic and Turkish . The programmes begin to have “London Calling” as part of the time slots at various times.

By December 1940, Programme C Central Transmission Part I now has occasional Hindustani Program news reviews, and an Indian Programme- including one that interviews an "Indian writer" in the witness box - with Sir Hugh Walpole and Desmond Hawkins.

By 1 March 1941 , the PasBs have an EASTERN Transmission (p. 3) doing a regular programme for “Calling British Forces in the Far East.” There is also a relayed broadcast of Jack Payne and his orchestra and an Hindustani Transmisison Program in English for Indian Listeners.

In 14 April 1941, one begins to see that the Supplementary Hindustani services have a Burmese Newsletter, translated form English and read in Burmese by Nyat Tun Be. The 29th of April begins to show the "Colour" networks of the Empire Service. The Green Network has the Hindustani Programme Supplement.

2 May 1941 , the Suppplementary Program Hindustani Transmission begins to have a South East Asia slot. ( Burma, Malaya and S.E. Asia) There is a Newsletter read in Malay by O.T. Dussek. On May 4 and 5, a Thai Newsletter and a Burmese Newsletter are read through the Empire Service.

6 May 1941 PasBs have a Near East slot (which incorporates a Burma, Malaya and S E Asia programmes).

Through 1941-1942, a few topical features would pop in and out of the Programmes that were related to South East Asia. “The Burma Road” was broadcasted in August 1942, “Through Eastern Eyes” was produced by Mr Akbari, a radio officer in the British merchant navy and broadcasted on 17 December 1941 (Grafton 8m45s), and "India's ties w Indonesia (written by Reginald le May) .

On August 1944, The Far Eastern service is catalogued separately in the PAsBs. This is now called the PURPLE NETWORK, and is segmented as Middle East and Iraq, then later Central Med. Area and Japan, China and Indonesia.

The Philippines was alternately included in the Pacific Network, and also in the Far Eastern Service transmission coverage. Greater focus on the nation came about with the coming of WW II with for example, a Message to the citizens of Manila by the lord mayor ( August 1941) and a talk “on the island of Luzon and General Macarthur” translated and broadcast by Bakaya. ( May 1945).

The British Far Eastern Broadcasting Service

By 1945, the transmission coverage of BBC Overseas was broken down into the following categories:

o   General Overseas Service (now World Service in English)
o   Colonial Service: South Africa & Rhodesia, West Africa, West Indies
o   Eastern Service: Eastern Service (India & Ceylon); Far Eastern Service (Burma,
China, Japan, Malaya, Netherland East Indies, South-East Asia);
Near Eastern Service (Arabic, Persian, Turkish)
o   Latin American Service: Brazil and Spanish
o   Pacific Service (including, until end 1948, North American and Africa)
o   North American Service (1949-1950 only, as separate sequence)

The British Far Eastern Broadcasting Service, Singapore, started out as the SEAC (South East Asia Command) headquarters station. It began identifying as the Voice of Britain in 1946, and soon became BFEBS. It was run by the Foreign Office, and was the first BBC broadcasting facility outside the U.K. It served non-British areas throughout the Far East and relayed the Eastern, Far Eastern and Overseas services of the BBC.

The first few years of operations of the Tebrau station coincided with the Malayan Emergency situation when a guerrilla war was being fought in the countryside. The complex was protected by armed security guards, and armed guards accompanied technical assistants whenever they had to go out into the aerial field to carry out array switching operations. It was a requirement that staff be resident on the site, and so there existed a self contained community within the perimeter fence, with housing and recreational facilities.

A consolidated materials regarding the British Far Eastern Broadcasting Service , ( Folder 1948- 02-19) a brief description is given of the Service as it stood in 1948.

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Mr. Sharp asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will give details of the British Far Eastern Broadcasting Service, including the centres of operation, the countries served, and the approximate number of British staff employed.

Mr. McNeil: The British Far Eastern Broadcasting Service comprises a studio centre and short-wave transmitting station, broadcasting for seven and a halt hours a day, operated by the Foreign Office, in the Colony of Singapore. Its purpose is to give objective news and to explain the British standpoint to foreign countries in South East Asia. In consequence, its programmes (consisting largely of relays from the B.B.C.) are designed for reception by Asiatic audiences in Burma, Siam, French Indo-China and the Netherlands East Indies. There are thirteen United Kingdom British subjects and two Australians; in addition, there are some fifty-five British subjects normally resident in one of the Asiatic Dominions, Singapore or the Federation of Malaya.

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The British Far Eastern Service

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