| MARITIME RADIO STATIONS OF THE WORLD
Sweden |
From it's commercial beginnings in 1914 STOCKHOLM
RADIO grew and grew. In the 1920's, the station's spark facilities were supplemented by radiotelephony and CW telegraphy. At the same time the Navy's connection with the station ended following disputes about funding and management, although the station remained in it's military fortress until 1937, when a new station was built in the small village of Stavsnas, about 40 km east of Stockholm. This new station had a purpose-built separate transmitter site at the shore and an operational/receiving site on the top floor of a small villa in the heart of the village. Wartime at Stockholm Radio could be busy with a sometimes high workload due to the wartime dangers for shipping and refugee traffic in the Baltic. In 1947 a new purpose-built operational and receiving building was built at the outskirt of the village, on a site with a breathtaking view of the archipelago. In the same year the roles of the civilian coast radio stations in the Swedish Search and Rescue system were formalized and Stockholm Radio became the appointed Maritime Rescue Coordination Center (MRCC) for the Swedish part of the Baltic Sea. In 1979 Stockholm Radio's scenic operational site moved to the top floor of a Telecom Administration building in a southern Stockholm urban industrial district. Incorporated with this move was a merger with Enkoping Radio which provided HF Air-to-Ground. The 1980's were a decade of changes. The once profitable VHF services were challenged by the emerging mass-market mobile telephony systems and were reduced to a small fraction by the end of the decade. This reduction in this work was offset by an increase in the MRCC and Air/Ground activities. The first years of the 1990's were also brought completely unexpected changes. A 1992 Maritime Administration study paper indicated that the MRCC structure was to be scrutinized, and that the new structure had no place for Harnosand Radio. The management reacted quickly and launched a crash project to remote control Harnosand from Stockholm. This was completed by 31st March 1993 and a few months later a programme was set in motion to redesign and upgrade the Stockholm and Gothenburg systems to give a more fexible system. Only a few months into this project, the Maritime Administration (responsible for the MRCC funding) made the decision to operate the Gothenburg MRCC under their own control and staffing. Again, the coast station management reacted without delay and in the Autumn of 1994, as soon as the new switching infrastructure was delivered and installed, closed the operator-controlled services of Gothenburg Radio and transferred them Stockholm Radio. As part of this project the Stockholm Radio operational center moved again, this time to brand new premises about 10 km due east from the city center, occupying a top office floor overlooking the entrance to the Stockholm harbour. Stockholm Radio is now the sole commercial coast radio station in Sweden. The system is now quite broad-based with a sophisticated remotely-controlled chain of radio facilities providing MRCC, commercial maritime communications and aeronautical communications. Unlike many other coast stations around the world, Stockholm Radio's future looks reasonably well assured for a number of years - as part of this Stockholm is one of the few maritime communications systems to be forward-looking enough to have it's own website |
