ations provision. Its effectiveness is yet to be established. Terrestrial Broadcast/Cellular Network Integration 15.1 Broadcasting in Historical Context 1923, Captain PP Eckersley, 1 the BBCs first chief engineer launched a new era in broadcast- ing at Daventry in the Midlands. The first years of radio had individual stations transmitting programmes to individual cities across the country, from London to Glasgow. The BBC transmissions in London for example were initially from Marconi House in the Strand, using a transmitter located in an attic room with aerials strung between towers on the roof adjacent to Bush House, home of the BBCs World Service. The transmission call sign was 2LO named after the transmitter illustrated in Figure 15.1. Eckersley decided to have total coverage of the UK from one powerful transmitter located in the centre of the country. The site chosen had an ancient anglo saxon oak supposed to mark the exact centre of England, the Daven Tree, hence Daventry. The site was bought in 1924 and in July 1925 the world's first high-power low-frequency broadcasting transmitter was installed, known as Daventry 5XX and nicknamed the 'old gentleman" by its team of engineers. The 26-kW transmitter was the size of a tennis court and powered by two diesel generators each as big as a double-decker bus. The transmitter achieved 85% population coverage, better than Eckersley expected. Within a few years smaller transmitters were built across the country but most radio receivers continued to have a mark on the dial saying 'Daventry'. Foreign short-wave transmissions began at the site in the 1930s and the engineers received Christmas presents from listeners, including tea from India and coffee from east Africa. If locals had an earth fault on their telephone system, they would hear the BBC Far Eastern Service in Malay or Thai when they picked up the 1 Before being appointed as the BBC's first engineer, the multitalented Peter Pendleton Eckersley had been the producer, writer, and presenter of the first experimen