Frank Henry Austen, radio relay pioneer of Thanet

Frank Henry Austen MBE

While the pioneers of wired broadcasting in the UK, and the founders of the
Rediffusion Group, J W C Robinson and J F Powell were building up their business from
Ramsgate and Hull, a young man of 24 acquired a Post Office licence and started up
his own relay service in St Peters. The young man was Frank Austen, general manager
and director of Rediffusion (South East) Ltd.

The year was 1929. Bit it was not when Mr Austen first became involved with radios
and electronics, To quote his brother's words: "It would appear that Frank was born
with radio and electronics in his blood, as right from an early age while at school
he showed an interest in radio and obtained much of his knowledge from "The Wireless
World" which he eagerly awaited each month."

After leaving school, it was a few years before Mr Austen"s main interest became
radio again. Not long after he went into business on his own making receivers which
at the time could pick up 2LO. One of his wireless sets was sold to a neighbour,
Councillor Noble, but by being a forerunner the set was constantly breaking down. As
his own equipment functioned satisfactorily, Mr Austen decided to stretch a pair of
wires from his receiver to the one in Mr Noble's home. Thus started Mr Austen's
impressive career in wired broadcasting.

When Robinson and Powell learnt of Mr Austen's "Broadstairs and St Peters Radio Relay
Service" they immediately made an offer for the Company which had 118 subscribers. At
the same time they asked Mr Austen to become engineer-in-chief of their Ramsgate
Service. In 1932, Mr Austen accepted the offers and joined Broadcast Relay Service
Ltd.

Part of Mr Austen's work for the BRS was to extend the service to other pasrts of the
Thanet area. He recalls vividly the amusing incident which took place when he
approached Broadstairs Council for permission to wire-up some houses in the town. The
Borough Engineer couls not see how we would undertake the work, so he agreed to let
us wire a row of 30 Council houses as an experiment. We went to great pains to make a
good job of it and ran all the wires carefully along the gutters of each house. When
the Borough Engineer inspected the work, the wires had been so carefully concealed
that he turned on us and angrily demanded why we had wasted his time by showing him
work that had not been started. Needless to say, after we had shown him where the
wires were, we had his permanent co-operation.

Ignorance was our biggest setback in those days. Even today, Councils do not
appreciate what it is all about."

By 1934, the service to Broadstairs, Ramsgate and Margate had grown so rapidly that
it was necessary to build a headquarters that could house the main radio equipment to
supply the whole of the district. A site was chosen at Westwood because of its
central and elevated locality and freedom from interference. The building was named
Relay House and was not only the workplace of Mr Austen but his home also, since it
was considered desirable to have the chief engineer "on the spot" at all times.

During the war, the Thanet relay service ploayed an important and vital role by not
only giving comfort to its subscribers but also by providing them with early warnings
of enemy attacks. The service was even extending into all ARP centres, Ambulance
Stations, and gun emplacements. So important was its role that, when the Thanet area
was declared a protected area and evacuation took place, the Regional Commissioner
nominated the service as "one of those which it is considered essential should remain
in the district after compulsory evacuation".

On completion of a heavy day's work, Mr Austen by that time manager and engineer of
the Thanet area, had to carry out his duties in the Home Guard as well as those of a
highly secretative nature involving the monitoring of enemy transmissions.

One of the momentous occasions for the service during the war was a microphone appeal
to the local inhabitants asking them to take any bread and clothes that they could
spare down to Ramsgate Harbour or deposit them at street corners. At the time the
Thanet staff did not know for what purpose they making the calls, but they later
learnt that they had played a major part in preparing to meet the thousands of troops
evacuated from Dunkirk.

Being little more than 30 miles from the guns and airfields of the Germans, Thanet
was subjected to many perils. Mr Austen remembered how he used to have to dodge enemy
fire on his regular trips to Maidstone to take the staff their wages.

With the commencement of the transmissions of television by Logie Baird, Mr Austen
turned his ingenious mind to constructing a receiver for the pictures. This he did
with the aid of a scanning disc made of metal with holes punched in it. A Heath
Robinson type of operation was used with the speed of the scanning disc being
adjusted by finger pressure. "And my fingers used to get jolly sore doing this", Mr
Austen added.

The pictures received were judged by Mr Baird to be the fartest received at that
time. As a prize for his efforts, Mr Austen was presented with a baird-made scanning
disc.

Today, Mr Austen has an enviable record of achievement. He is the only general
manager who has spent who has spent virtually all his working life to retirement age
in the same Region. His Region has reached more than 110 000 subscribers, 2766 of
which have colour sets. Every one of his branches is wired for colour. He introduced
the first wired television sevice to the public, and produced one of the first pre-
tuned radio receivers. To the best of knowledge, Mr Austen also built the first
receiver in the south-east of Kent, receiving morse code and then radio telegraphy
between the lightships and North Foreland radio station.

In 1960 his fine record and inestimable service in the war was rewarded when the
Queen appointed hi a Member of the Order of the British Empire. A fitting and
deserving tribute to such an outstanding career.