I disagree. Given the right amount of money and the fact that to
decomission the site would likely cost a few Million in moving costs etc I
think that an offer would be seriously considered. Don't forget, they do
open-source monitoring (or at least that's what they tell us) and so none
of the hardware there is anything secret. I would hazard that much of their
hardware is old and whilst it was bleeding edge in its day and could still
hold its own against more modern equipment it is large and thirsty. Maybe
we can get someone to pick up one of the HF antenna sharing gizmos and ship
it over to the fest?
A move to a new site allows for a significant modernising at a lower cost.
Retrofitting has a roughly 50% premium as anyone who's tried to upgrade a
corporate IT infrastructure will tell you. This could be quite a boon for
the service in terms of technology.
That said, I don't much like how the Government transferred the cost of
spying onto the tax payer directly.
On Tue, Dec 20, 2016 at 11:03 AM, Mike Terry <miketerr...@btinternet.com>
wrote:
> Dream on Ed!! :-)
>
>
>
> --
> *From:* Ed Cummings <bern...@panix.com>
> *To:* SWLfest mailing list <swlfest@hard-core-dx.com>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, 20 December 2016, 5:14
> *Subject:* [Swlfest] BBC Monitoring: MPs raise fears over service's future
>
> BBC World is reporting that the BBC Monitoring
> Service country estate of Caversham Park may be
> up for sale if these proposed UK service cuts go
> through. I wonder if they'd sell it
> "as-is"--complete with monitoring post equipment
> and antenna farm? It could be rented out to DX'ers and to honeymooning
> SWL's.
>
> -Ed Cummings
>
>
> http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-38372067
>
> BBC Monitoring: MPs raise fears over service's future
>
> BBC Monitoring, the UK service that translates
> and analyses global media, is in danger of
> becoming a "hollow shell", MPs have warned.
>
> The government has moved responsibility for its
> funding to the BBC, which the Defence Committee
> said had "entirely predictably" led to cuts.
>
> It added that BBC Monitoring was "vital" to diplomacy and business.
>
> The BBC said it was "confident" the service would
> continue to meet the UK government's needs.
>
> The government directly funded BBC Monitoring
> until 2013, when responsibility passed to the BBC
> under an agreement announced by Chancellor George Osborne in 2010.
>
> The cross-party committee said this had left the
> service exposed, with around 100 jobs set to go
> under a re-structuring programme.
>
> It expressed concern at plans to move Monitoring
> out of its current Caversham Park headquarters in
> Berkshire, where it operates alongside US
> counterpart Open Source Enterprise, because of
> potential disruption to information-sharing.
>
> 'Catastrophic decisions'
>
> Currently, Monitoring covers 25% of the globe,
> while Open Source Enterprise covers the remaining 75%.
>
> The committee's report said: "The government uses
> open-source information for indicators and
> warnings of areas of instability and potential threats to UK security.
>
> "The decisions made concerning the funding and
> governance of BBC Monitoring over the past decade
> or so have been woefully short-sighted and catastrophically
> ill-thought-out.
>
> "A service that has the potential to be a vital
> tool in opening the world to UK diplomacy and
> business is in grave danger of becoming a hollow
> shell of its former existence."
>
> A BBC spokeswoman said: "The media landscape has
> changed vastly since the creation of BBC
> Monitoring in the 1930s and we believe our
> planned restructure is vital to equip us for a
> world in which digital skills are far more important than physical
> location.
>
> "We are confident that we will continue to meet
> the UK government's needs for open-source
> monitoring and they have told us they are happy with our changes."
>
> What is BBC Monitoring?
>
> BBC Monitoring was set up in 1939 to tap into
> foreign broadcasts and propaganda during World War Two
> The service was independent from the BBC, and
> paid for by the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign
> Office and the BBC World Service
> Since its inception, it has provided coverage of
> the Cold War, the Yugoslav War and most recently, the Arab Spring
> The service translates communications in 100
> languages from 150 countries, with offices across the globe
> In 2013 the service began being paid for by the licence fee
> Since 1943, Caversham Park in Berkshire has been
> the home of BBC Monitoring but after a £4m
> funding cut, t
