Radio Caroline – Orford Site Update
Transmitter engineer Alan Beech reports:
It was a busy and hot week at our 648 transmitter site at Orfordness including a solar eclipse.
We’ve purchased an extra 30 solar panels, potentially giving around 18kW f extra generation capacity. We don’t have any direct need for that capacity, but all capacity on grey or cloudy days adds to our ability to remain self powered for as much time as possible without having to draw on forever increasing electricity costs. At the moment we have 14 of the new panels fitted and we hope to have the remainder fitted before the winter nights set in. The new panels have all been orientated vertically and to the south west to maximise generation from the afternoon sun.
Keen eyed web watchers will have noticed that our time of peak solar shown on the web meter has now moved from around 12 noon to sometime after 1pm each day and that generation in the afternoon is much higher than previous. Indeed, as of mid August the new panels are contributing enough power that on a good sunny day we are self sufficient for as many hours and minutes as we were in late June – the time of maximum daylight hours. That equates to around 90 minutes of free electricity each day.
Keen eyed viewers may also have noticed in some pictures that there appears to be a row of panels missing from the top of the wall. This is deliberate and enough space has been measured and left to accommodate more panels. On the first day of installation there were 3 of us involved, and it was determined to be a bit too risky to try and hold a heavy panel (about 40kg) in the air, whilst lifting it into place on ladders and bolting to the the wall. We tried again the following day with five persons, but it was still a difficult operation. You will see from the pictures that each panel is about the size of an 8 by 4 foot sheet of wood, and a slight breeze will easily catch one from behind. From the top of the ladder it is about 25 feet to ground level, whilst working on a narrow walkway. And just to add a final bit of fun, there is a barbed wire fence to avoid on the way down. None of us are foolish 20-somethings any more, so for the next visit we will arrange suitable scaffolding towers and hoist systems.
Whilst we were busy installing new panels our specialist contractors, Radio Structures were busy inspecting and maintaining our main transmitting antenna mast. When the site was run by the foreign office and operated by the BBC these towers would have had a regular set of inspections and maintenance. As the site was mothballed by the BBC in 2012, it could be well over 15 years since any significant maintenance was done on the masts, although we did arrange for visual climbing inspections when we first started to use the site. Thus we asked Radio Structures to undertaken a top to bottom inspection and maintenance plan. Many rusty bolts were cut out and replaced and all signs of surface rust were scraped down and repainted with heavy galvanised zinc paint to give years more protection. Part of the mast which showed some corrosion was strengthened with additional plating. The ground anchor points for all the stay wires were inspected, and as a couple were showing signs of rust under the greased tape they were all replaced with new turnbuckles, shackles and thimbles.
In order to allow the mast to be climbed it was necessary for the tower to be grounded and we thus ran on the reserve antenna and transmitter during the working days. This gave an opportunity to run the main DX25 transmitter into a test (dummy) load for the duration, which allowed us to undertake a full check of its performance for factors such as audio distortion. It passed with flying colours and keen eared listeners have subsequently made comment that it sounds louder due to a few tweaks of the audio processing that we could make while into test load.
A big thanks to Martin of Audessence for bringing his audio analysers and test equipment along for a couple of days, and to our own Rob, Dave and Paul for making themselves available to assist with everything including the panels. Standing in front of a wall of solar panels in the hot afternoon sun is not to be recommended! But a special thanks to Gary and Graham of Radio Structures, who, in their full PPE climbing kit were up and down the mast many times over four days, all in the direct glare
of hot sunshine and no chance of shade.
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Mike Terry to nordx iog (2026-09-06)