TYWYN

GB8MD

Marconi’s Receive station at Tywyn, Gwynedd, Wales.

 This receive-only station was constructed in 1913 to replace the abandoned stations at Clifden and Letterfrack in Ireland. Various developments were made until its demise in 1923, when its duties were taken over by the completion of the improved facilities at Brentwood (Essex).

Tywyn was built as the sister station to the Waunfawr high power transmitting station about 40 miles north, near Caernarfon. The site, which was visited by Marconi in person, is at NGR SH 594002, on the south side of Tywyn.

It had two main antenna systems, attached to five 300ft. lattice masts, aligned for east/west reception.. A ‘balancing’ aerial was also constructed on 80ft. masts at right angles to the main antenna, to provide some nulling of the powerful Waunfawr transmitter to the north. Finally it had a reserve antenna mounted on 36 wooden masts at 30ft. height.

Tywyn’s principal purpose was to receive spark transmissions from Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, and New York, but it also forwarded messages from other parts of the globe, including for the very first time, Australia on 22^nd. September 1918. It had a land-line link to the Central Telegraph Office in Fenchurch Street, London, and a direct wired link to the transmitter at Waunfawr which it could operate remotely.

During WW1, the Post Office controlled Tywyn on behalf of the Admiralty, and it introduced one of the first shift systems to make possible 24 hour operation. The majority of the eight operators were women at this time, since so many men were on active war duties. The receiving operator would sit alongside the transmitting operator who had remote control of the Waunfawr transmitter.

In March 1920, full duplex operation with Waunfawr became possible, and operational speeds of 10 letters per second became practical.

Eight bungalows were built after WW1 to accommodate the operating and technical staff, and these still exist, although they are now privately owned. The main station building also still exists, but has been divided into two semi-detached houses. Alongside this is the old generator building which has also been adapted to other purposes.

 

 

Receiving Room at Tywyn

 

Tywyn Main Station

 

 

Pioneer Operators at Tywyn

 

 

Tywyn and …the Marconi connection

Towyn – the MARCONI connection

Marconi at Towyn / Tywyn

Tywyn is a small, ageing seaside resort on the shores of the Irish Sea in the southern Merionethshire part of present day Gwynedd. There are very many varied spellings of the place name and it has the same root as the Cornish word Towan for sand dunes. In steam railway days, large numbers of excited holiday makers would each summer be disembarked from long loco-hauled trains. Although the census figures have hardly altered over the past century, today it still retains as regular visitors and semi-permanent inhabitants many times its core resident population of just over 4,000 by way of people travelling via the long-outdated, dangerously twisting roads from the Midlands and elsewhere to locally owned caravan, camping and chalet parks dotted around the vicinity. There is also a tourist trade based mainly on the preserved Talyllyn narrow gauge railway, one of several on the train enthusiasts’ round-Wales loco outing.

In the 19th and 20th centuries slate was quarried from inland and transported to the coast by the narrow gauge railway to the main line, but after the industry failed much of the workforce and all those dependent upon them moved away from the region to work elsewhere, either in coal mines further south or other trades.

Without the weekly summertime rail influx to fall back on, which had grown substantially by the mid-20th century, and which had contributed to the area’s social vitality, housing developments, healthcare amenities and economic prospects, plus various military encampments which had fallen into disuse, Towyn became a quiet, semi-remote, and predominantly English speaking anomaly bounded by the rural Snowdonia National Park. Together with its adjacent smaller but picturesque harbour village of Aberdovey (Aderdyfi) the locality is now a destination for weekends or short breaks and offers its immediate hinterland the convenience of its small local shops.

Close to the sea front and previously duned locality of Bryn y Mor (grid ref: SH581004) there is a BBC medium wave transmitter site dominating the skyline, currently run by Crown Castle, with sheep grazing around the two giant steel guyed mast bases. It contains a 5kW sender for the 882kHz (340.5 metres) BBC Wales (previously Radio 4/Home Service) repeater, infilling the Cambrian Coast area for the main transmitter which cannot properly service this distance from the principle site at Washford in Somerset on the same frequency. This had originally been announced in 1951 by the Postmaster-General as one of 12 low power stations planned to improve Home Service coverage and was to have been sited at Pwllheli.

Additionally a 1kW sender on 990kHz acts as local repeater for Radio 5 (previously this was used for Radio 2 before its national migration to vhf). There were also mediumwave transmitters for Radio 1 (1214kHz until 1978 when it was moved to 1089kHz) and Radio 3 (.5kW) which were decommissioned in 1994 when Blaenplwyf near Aberystwyth took over service for Ceredigion and SW Gwynedd as transfer of these networks was moved to vhf. The Radio 3 transmitter was not, unusually, recommissioned at this site for Virgin Radio.
Early radio holds a strong historical Marconi connection with Towyn – as it continues to be known and spelt by many, although it is recorded on recent maps as Tywyn.

The war for Irish national liberation had resulted in the transatlantic telegraph service which had operated from Clifden in County Galway, on the west coast of Ireland, being eliminated. For 15 years, Clifden’s 20 kV generators’ spark-induced blue flashes had sent tens of thousands of wireless messages across the Atlantic to its North American counterpart station at Table Head in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. The service was transferred to just 60 miles north of Tywyn, at Waunfawr near Caernarfon, where in early 1914, the Marconi Company built a large, high power long wave wireless telegraph transmitting station (callsign MUU) on the lower slopes of Cefndu. *

Its associated receiving station was installed by the Marconi Wireless Company on the southern edge of Tywyn on property obtained from Roger Corbett, just inside what is now the Snowdonia National Park. The two stations formed the British telegraph link between London and New York, with landlines running from Tywyn to the Central Telegraph Office in Fenchurch Street, London, and later on to the larger Radio House in Wilson Street, where typists read off the messages from tape and transferred them to telegrams for delivery.

Marconi’s primary antenna was a horizontal directional type supported by five 300 foot lattice steel masts running west to east for 3km aligned with New Brunswick, with the final mast 1,400 feet above sea level. There was also a parallel reserve antenna system supported by 36 wooden 30 foot high masts. To enable duplex working, Towyn used a system of balancing antennas 80 feet high, at 90 degrees to null out unwanted emissions from the Waunfawr transmitter picked up on the first antenna.

Tests were conducted between Tywyn and Caltano in Italy, and transmissions followed to and from Glace Bay, New Brunswick and New Jersey on 27kHz. During World War I, the Marconi Company transatlantic stations at Towyn and Caernarvon (more recently Tywyn and Caernarfon) were operated through the British Post Office for the Admiralty, with Tywyn receiving station being guarded by soldiers from Newtown. Wartime activities at Tywyn included regular transmissions for Egypt and Russia. The Admiralty requisitioned for war production or service all company sites and Marconi’s Head of Training was seconded to the War Office to organise the army wireless school. The Company was expected to provide operators and instructors from its reserve of human resources built from encouraging radio amateurs to learn Morse code. Due to Italy’s neutrality during the early part of the imperialist war Marconi was declared an ‘alien’ and the subject of shortlived suspicion.

C.S. Franklin developed an improved anti-interference antenna design in 1920 utilising two Bellini-Tosi loops held aloft by four 100 foot wooden masts installed in a field behind the Gwalia which replaced the five masts then at the station.

Guglielmo Marconi visited Towyn receiving station in 1918, sailing into Aberdovey (Aberdyfi) Harbour in his luxury steam yacht Elettra, the name he gave to his daughter. The yacht was a floating radio and electronics laboratory equipped with short and longwave equipment installed to conduct tests across the sea. Transmissions were monitored from the Isle of Wight and Poldhu in Cornwall, where transatlantic experiments had been successful for the first time ever in 1901 with St. John, Newfoundland at a distance of 3,862km using the historic Morse code signal “S”.

In 1916 a school was opened for female telegraphists to go on a six month training course. Eight were appointed to Towyn, where they pioneered the concept of a 24-hour shift system in Tywyn station wireless operating room. The receiving operator on shift would sit next to the transmitting operator who had remote control of the transmitter at Waunfawr.

Eight postwar bungalows were built for station staff and families. They are still there, privately owned, and known as the Marconi Bungalows. Further up the hill and behind is the original station building, now converted into two houses, at Hafod y Bryn. The remains of the base of the 300 foot radio mast are also visible at the top of Escuan Hill, which used to be a popular walk in tourist times but is now closed, awaiting legislation to make it accessible once more.

Full duplex commercial service commenced on March 22, 1920. A message destined for the United States would be handed in at a Marconi London office and, using Morse code, punched on to paper tape. On receipt via landline at Towyn it was automatically reproduced on punched tape, and passed on, still via landline, through the Wheatstone transmitter which controlled the signal keying switches at Waunfawr, sending the message at a speed of up to ten letters per second across the North Atlantic. The first transmissions to Australia passed via this route. Service was discontinued on 26 March, 1923 and transferred to Brentwood in Essex, using the huge Post Office station at Rugby for incoming reception, although the transmitter at Waunfawr continued in use until 1939 when the Marconi Company shortwave service replaced it. During World War 2 Marconi, now back in Italy, publicly supported the fascist war effort. British radio amateurs annually reactivate a commemmoration at Waunfawr on International Marconi Day.

The BBC operated Towyn station for many years after closure and this is possibly one of the reasons giving rise to the locating of the existing BBC Tywyn transmitters. If you can catch Tywyn tourist office open (planned for closure) you may view a display of historic pictures of the Marconi radio station.

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* There is a story that an operator at the Towyn Marconi Radio Station came to work there as a result of tossing a coin, his friend going on to become one of the two Marconi Telegraph Company-employed Wireless Operators onboard the fated maiden voyage from Southampton of RMS Titanic, callsign MGY, which struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sank. We are seeking confirmation of this.

The Morse spark gap signal they transmitted from Titanic’s Marconi Room late on April 14, 1912 was CQD. “CQ” derives from French, the official international postal language, sécurité (safety or pay attention) and not, as many believe, “seek you”, to which Marconi added a “D” for Distress. Sécurité is still an official international maritime call for attention.

Callsigns beginning with the letter M for Marconi were originally allocated by the Marconi Company to their own ships and land stations. After the 1912 London Radio Conference countries were assigned their own international callsign prefix letters, M (and also G) thenceforth established British identification. It is believed that the Towyn station was assigned the call letters MUV.

Of the two radio operators on Titanic, Jack Phillips, aged 25, died of hypothermia before any rescue boats arrived. Harold Bride continued for some years as a Marconi operator, and lived until 1956.

A radio amateur living at Gelligroes, Monmouthshire reported hearing the Titanic distress message to the local police who were sceptical. Marconi subsequently visited Mr. Moore at Gelligroes in person to see the equipment he had built and decided to employ him.

William James Cotter was the Marconi operator on the Virginian when the Titanic sunk and received the final message from the Titanic. In 1913 he transferred to the Clifden station in Ireland and during WW1 to Towyn.

Telford & District Amateur Radio Society celebrated International Marconi Day on April 25th, 2009 by operating a radio station using callsign GB8MD from a field next to the original and surviving buildings of Towyn Marconi Receiving station. TDARS repeated the “Towyn Expedition” on April 24th, 2010 and April 30, 2011 with reactivations of the GB8MD radio station.

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GB8MD Antennas

GB8MD operation on 80m