Akrotiri 01-2017 img01 BBC transmitter masts

The British East Mediterranean Relay Station (also known as BEMRS) was one of the most powerful broadcasting stations in

Cyprus Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...

. The

medium wave Medium wave (MW) is a part of the medium frequency (MF) radio band used mainly for AM radio broadcasting. The spectrum provides about 120 channels with more limited sound quality than FM stations on the FM broadcast band. During the daytim ...

transmitters were situated south of

Limassol Limassol, also known as Lemesos, is a city on the southern coast of Cyprus and capital of the Limassol district. Limassol is the second-largest urban area in Cyprus after Nicosia, with an urban population of 195,139 and a district population o ...

west of Lady's Mile Beach on the area of Western Sovereign Base Area at and used for relaying radio programmes to the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

area on 639 kHz and 720 kHz with 500 kW. The short-wave transmitters were located at Zygi . The station was used for broadcasting

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

programmes from 1957 until April 2015 when transmissions ended. Previously an Arabic station ( Near East Broadcasting Station), it was taken over by the

Diplomatic Wireless Service The Diplomatic Wireless Service (DWS) was the name of the communications system set up for the British Foreign Office by Brigadier Richard Gambier-Parry, the first Foreign Office Director of Communications, in the latter part of 1945. It grew ou ...

as a result of the

Suez Crisis The Suez Crisis, also known as the Second Arab–Israeli War, the Tripartite Aggression in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel, was a British–French–Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956. Israel invaded on 29 October, having done so w ...

. On November 1, 2023, the station was reactivated on 639 kHz by the BBC to provide coverage to the

Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. I ...

Antenna systems

The medium-wave station had two

directional antenna A directional antenna or beam antenna is an antenna that radiates or receives greater radio wave power in specific directions. Directional antennas can radiate radio waves in beams, when greater concentration of radiation in a certain directio ...

systems each consisting of four free-standing lattice towers with triangular cross section. All the towers were insulated from ground. The antenna system for 720 kHz, which was situated north of the transmitter building, pointed to an

azimuth An azimuth (; from ) is the horizontal angle from a cardinal direction, most commonly north, in a local or observer-centric spherical coordinate system. Mathematically, the relative position vector from an observer ( origin) to a point ...

of 110 degrees. Its towers were 102 metres tall. The antenna system for 639 kHz, which was situated south of the transmitter building, pointed in a southerly direction (azimuth 180 degrees). Its towers were 120 metres tall.

References

External links

* http://wikimapia.org/#lat=34.618941&lon=33.003273&z=13&l=5&m=b&show=/5227753/BBC-World-Service-Limassol * http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travel-and-living-abroad/find-an-embassy/europe/east-mediterranean-relay-station * https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/statements/mw-eastern-med * https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2023/bbc-world-service-announces-emergency-radio-service-for-gaza Towers in Cyprus BBC Defunct mass media in Cyprus {{Cyprus-media-stub