Transmitter Power
The station's American-manufactured RCA Ampliphase transmitter was rated at 50,000 watts (50 kW) – An on-air slogan ran 'Your 50,000 watt Tower of Power', although initially it operated at 17,000 watts. In contrast, Radio Caroline, its main rival, operated with a Continental Electronics 10 kW transmitter. In 1966, Caroline South upgraded to a 50 kW Continental transmitter and, for a time, Radio London pretended to retaliate by increasing its transmitter power to 75 kW.
The station's antenna was a vertical guyed tubular steel mast positioned aft of the bridge house. Radio London's official publicity always claimed that the mast had a height of 212 feet (64.6 metres), but this was another exaggeration. A recent estimate based on photographs of the ship puts the actual height at around 170 feet (about 52 metres).
While the wavelength was always announced as "266 metres" The station experimented with various frequencies between 1133 and 1137.5 kHz and tended to suffer nighttime heterodyne interference from stations in Zagreb and elsewhere.
Read more about this topic: Wonderful Radio London
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