BBC Annual Mid-Winter Broadcast to Antartica 2130 utc 21 Jun 2019

[Ct Yankee]

I have not seen an official announcement on this yearly transmission but the BBC did do a test broadcast (I received) on 14 Jun at 2130 utc on 5875(WOF), 5990(DHA), 7360(ASC), and 9455(WOF).  I received the last two frequencies with excellent reception.

This annual broadcast is from friends and family at BBC studios to British researchers in Antartica.  It is a mix of homespun messages, children singing happy birthday, latest family news, and pertinent commercial music.  The broadcast celebrates the days getting longer at the bottom of the world, first day of winter there, so "Here Comes the Sun" and like songs are generally featured.  It's worth listening to least once if you have not done so, I try to catch it yearly.

Here's a reception report about it three years ago:
https://www.hfunderground.com/board/index.php/topic,28758.msg107061.html#msg107061

[Pigmeat]

Fansome usually announces this one, but he's been slipping since the county came to get Belinda for the annual critter dinner at Mar-A-Lago. It must be depression? The BBC Antarctic tx's and the annual search for Amelia Earhart are the highlights of his summers.

On the other hand, Shady Acres is smelling much better with Belinda gone. The pool will soon be fit to swim in after a few more flushings. There's always a silver lining behind every pod of manatees.

[Josh]

Aren't there a number of penguins down there?

[Rizla]

Keeping with the BBC theme, one really needs to read "The Worst Journey in the World", about the guys who "man-sledded" across Antarctica in the middle of winter, eating blubber and popping coke pills, falling into crevices, and bottomless pits, guided by nothing but the moon (no radios), all for the glory of presenting the Royal Whatever Society with the greatest scientific prize of mankind, an Emperor Penguin egg.

[i_hear_you]

popping coke pills

I'm morbidly curious about how often amphetamines are officially sanctioned for g-man business, be it military pilots, specops or otherwise.

[Ct Yankee]

A posting about it on Shortwave Central blog's today but does not mention 9455 frequency:

http://mt-shortwave.blogspot.com/2019/06/bbc-world-service-annual-mid-winter.html

[R4002]

popping coke pills

I'm morbidly curious about how often amphetamines are officially sanctioned for g-man business, be it military pilots, specops or otherwise.

Sir Shackleton used Forced March brand (no literally, that was the brand name - see https://eshackleton.com/2014/03/16/forced-march-tablets/) cocaine/caffeine tablets on his Antarctic mission.  It has often been said that "Methedrine won the battle of Britain".  Methedrine, being, of course, the old trade name for methamphetamine tablets (they're now sold under the brand name Desoxyn, cf.  Benzedrine now being called Adderall - good old Dexedrine, however, is still called Dexedrine). 

Go-pills have been used for military operations for as long as amps have been around.  The Germans in WWII used them extensively, especially on the Eastern Front (see: brand name Pervitin, Hitler himself was a big fan).  They were in the process of developing a "super-pill" containing methamphetamine, cocaine and oxycodone at the end of the war (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-IX) .  Reports indicate that the Japanese also heavily used methamphetamine in military operations, and factory workers were often "encouraged" (forced) to take amphetamines to improve productivity, both during and after World War II. 

https://allthatsinteresting.com/pervitin-nazi-drugs

There's a move within many military forces away from amphetamine and towards the "wakefulness promoting agent" modafinil (aka Provigil) because of the negative effects of long-term amphetamine usage. 

[i_hear_you]

A friend told me Modafinil works wonders.