Following welcoming refreshments the visit started with short presentations of some of the work undertaken by members of the Station team.
It was explained that on receiving complaints of interference, the station can deploy remote monitoring systems placed around the UK together with measuring vehicles if necessary, to track the interference source.
Several techniques are used to indentify the interference location, Time Delay of Arrival (TDOA) and Angle of Arrival (AOA)
Remote monitoring capabilities can also be utilised to check frequency occupancy.
We were also told of the work undertaken on testing the LTE 800MHz frequency being used for the 4G mobile phone network. For example, checking for any effect on neighbouring bandwidth users e.g. short range devices (SRD) used by the fire service low power audio, social alarms for the elderly, radio microphones and Digital Video Broadcasting TV (DVB-T) Freeview.
The station also provided for industry a SRD test house with over 30 manufactures attending.
The speaker also described how the station has been testing the use of drones to help examine radio masts.
The presentation continued with a brief history of the station, from its beginning in 1929 as a GPO receiving station for HF radio part of the Imperial Wireless Chain until its present day as part of the Office of Communications (Ofcom)
Following the presentations we were taken on a tour of the stations various facilities which included a semi anechoic chamber, physical assets and measurement labs, the amateur radio station G8GPO and the 24 hour Operations room.
The Operations Room provides Ofcom's 24-hour focal point of contact for out-of-hours interference reports to all other UK radio services and, depending on the priority, the shift engineer will pass on the safety-of-life reports to colleagues throughout the United Kingdom around the clock.
The operations room engineer told us of the time when there was a report of a maritime distress beacon signal being transmitted and following detection techniques the beacon was found in a scrap metal dump!
We also had the opportunity to view the mobile monitoring vehicles and EMC mobile
laboratories. These purpose built monitoring vehicles are available for spectrum
monitoring, specialist interference investigations and EMC measurements.
Following the thanking of the station personnel for such an interesting and fascinating visit I drove off now, at last, knowing what goes on behind the security fence.
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Lisa Miles
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