2LO was the second

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based rad ...

to regularly broadcast in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

(the first was

2MT 2MT was the first British radio station to make regular entertainment broadcasts, and the "world's first regular wireless broadcast" for entertainment. Transmissions began on 14 February 1922 from an ex-Army hut next to the Marconi laboratories ...

). It began

broadcasting Broadcasting is the data distribution, distribution of sound, audio audiovisual content to dispersed audiences via a electronic medium (communication), mass communications medium, typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), ...

on 11 May 1922, for one hour a day from the seventh floor of

Marconi House Marconi House is a Grade II listed building at 335 Strand, London, Strand (at its junction with Aldwych) in London. It was originally built as a hotel and restaurant in 1904, designed by Norman Shaw, to serve the Gaiety Theatre, London, Gaiety T ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

Strand Strand or The Strand may refer to: Topography *The flat area of land bordering a body of water, a: ** Beach ** Shoreline * Strand swamp, a type of swamp habitat in Florida Places Africa * Strand, Western Cape, a seaside town in South Africa * ...

, opposite

Somerset House Somerset House is a large neoclassical architecture, neoclassical building complex situated on the south side of the Strand, London, Strand in central London, overlooking the River Thames, just east of Waterloo Bridge. The Georgian era quadran ...

History

Initially the power was 100 watts on 360 metres (832

kHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base uni ...

). 2LO was allowed to transmit for seven minutes, after which the "operator" had to listen on the wavelength for three minutes for possible instructions to close down. On 14 November 1922 the station was transferred to the new

British Broadcasting Company The British Broadcasting Company Limited (BBC) was a short-lived British commercial broadcasting company formed on 18 October 1922 by British and American electrical companies doing business in the United Kingdom. Licensed by the British Gener ...

which in 1923 took up the nearby

Savoy Hill Savoy (; )  is a cultural-historical region in the Western Alps. Situated on the cultural boundary between Occitania and Piedmont, the area extends from Lake Geneva in the north to the Dauphiné in the south and west and to the Aosta Valley i ...

for its broadcasting studios. At midnight on New Year's Eve 1923, the twelve chimes of

Big Ben Big Ben is the nickname for the Great Bell of the Great Clock of Westminster, and, by extension, for the clock tower itself, which stands at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London, England. Originally named the Clock Tower, it ...

were broadcast for the first time to mark the new year. In 1927 the company became the

British Broadcasting Corporation The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public broadcasting, public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved in ...

. On 9 March 1930 2LO was replaced by the

BBC Regional Programme The BBC Regional Programme was a radio service which was on the air from 9 March 1930 – replacing a number of earlier BBC local stations between 1922 and 1924 – until 1 September 1939 when it was subsumed into the BBC Home Service, two day ...

and the

BBC National Programme The BBC National Programme was a radio service which was on the air from 9 March 1930 – replacing the earlier BBC's experimental station 5XX – until 1 September 1939 when it was subsumed into the BBC Home Service, two days before the outb ...

Preservation and legacy

The 2LO transmitter now belongs to the

Science Museum A science museum is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, Industry (manufacturing), industry and Outline of industrial ...

, having been donated by Crown Castle International on 7 November 2002. It is displayed in the Information Age gallery on the second floor of the museum. Marconi House was demolished in 2006, apart from the listed façade, which was incorporated into a new hotel complex. A first-hand account of a broadcast from 2LO is given in '' The Spell of London'' by H. V. Morton. The 'LO' part of 2LO's callsign was adopted in 1924 by the metropolitan radio station in

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

which, since 1932, has been a part of the

Australian Broadcasting Corporation The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is Australia’s principal public service broadcaster. It is funded primarily by grants from the federal government and is administered by a government-appointed board of directors. The ABC is ...

. The station, 3LO, still has this callsign allocated to it, but since 2000 it has used different on-air names: as from 2017, it was 774 ABC Melbourne; and it is now

ABC Radio Melbourne ABC Radio Melbourne (official List of radio station callsigns in Victoria, callsign: 3LO) is an ABC Local Radio station in Melbourne, Australia. It began transmission on 13 October 1924 and was Melbourne's second licensed radio station after Radi ...

. The amateur radio callsign G2LO is currently held by the staff association at

Arqiva Arqiva () is a British telecommunications company which provides infrastructure, broadcast transmission and smart meter facilities in the United Kingdom. The company is headquartered at the former Independent Broadcasting Authority headquart ...

, formerly Crown Castle International, formerly the domestic part of BBC Transmitter Department.

In fiction

2LO is briefly mentioned in the 1928,

Lord Peter Wimsey Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey (later 17th Duke of Denver) is the fictional protagonist in a series of detective novels and short stories by Dorothy L. Sayers (and their continuation by Jill Paton Walsh). A amateur, dilettante who solves myst ...

, detective short-story ''The Entertaining Episode of the Article in Question'' by

Dorothy L. Sayers Dorothy Leigh Sayers ( ; 13 June 1893 – 17 December 1957) was an English crime novelist, playwright, translator and critic. Born in Oxford, Sayers was brought up in rural East Anglia and educated at Godolphin School in Salisbury and Somerv ...

. 2LO is mentioned in Chapter 32 of Anthony Burgess’s 1980 novel '' Earthly Powers'', as part of a fictional episode involving the narrator’s brother. A 2LO broadcast with a weather forecast and news bulletin is mentioned in Chapter V of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's '' The Maracot Deep'', first published as a serial in 1927.

References

Sources

*H.V. Morton. 1926, 18th Edition 1948, ''The spell of London'', Methuen & Co Ltd, London.

External links

The Science Museum: London Calling

Audio of 2LO station identification
{{BBC Radio Radio stations in London Radio stations established in 1922 Radio stations disestablished in 1930 Defunct radio stations in the United Kingdom