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Coast Station Index

latest updates 29 April 1998

The history of coast radio services in Sweden dates back to 1902 when the Royal Swedish Navy built an experimental coast radio station at their Waxholm fortress, at Stockholm's entrance from the Baltic Sea.

In 1914 this first station became a public correspondence station, operated as a joint venture between the Navy and the Royal Swedish Telecommunications Board - the birth of Stockholm Radio - at which time the transmitter was upgraded to an 8 kW spark transmitter.

In 1947 the roles of the civilian coast radio stations in the Swedish Search and Rescue system were formalized, each station being designated to watch a particular sea area. In 1973, a major reorganization of the network was started, closing the smaller stations and concentrating service on the remaining three stations, which were also the Marine Rescue Coordination Centres (MRCC), Gothenburg Radio in the west, Stockholm Radio in the east and Harnosand Radio in the north.

In 1992 a study paper from the Swedish Maritime Administration (responsible for MRCC funding) indicated that the MRCC structure was to be scrutinized, and that there would be no place for Harnosand Radio in the new structure.. The coast station management reacted quickly, launched a crash project to remote control the Harnosand equipment from Stockholm Radio and re-assigned the Harnosand staff to other job positions - the new arrangement coming into being from 31st March 1993.

A plan to redesign and upgrade the two remaining stations into a more flexibble structure was set in motion in 1993 but, only few months into this project, the Maritime Administratio declared that they had decided to operate the Gothenburg MRCC under their own staffing and operational control. Commercial services from Gothenburg were therefore closed and transferred to Stockholm Radio as soon as the new switching infrastructure was delivered and installed. This was completed in the autumn of 1994 at which time the Gothenburg Radio coast radio services became history.

Karlskrona Radio (SAA) and Tingstade Radio (SAE) have not been mentioned so far. These are stations operated and funded by the Swedish military and which handle some commercial traffic as as means of providing operator training.