There is currently much ongoing debate, and some might suggest ensuing debacle, taking place to ensure that there is sufficient radio spectrum available for the London Olympic Games to be held in 2012. However, Wireless Waffle has uncovered the official Government plans for the use of the radio spectrum for the last Olympic Games held in London in 1948. Interestingly, these were before the main legislation relating to the use of the spectrum, the Wireless Telegraphy Act of 1949 were brought into power and thus predate any previous attempt to specifically control radio use in the UK.

Let us step back to 1948... Much of London was still in ruins and rubble strewn streets were not uncommon. The budget for the games was £600,000, a figure which today would just about pay the salary of the organising committee for about a month. Food was still being rationed (indeed rationing did not end until 1954), King George VI was on the throne and Frankie Laine, Perry Como, Al Jolson and the Andrews Sisters topped the charts.

The Olympic games were televised using the EMI 405-line black and white system selected by the BBC before World War II as its preferred technology (having beaten the Baird 240 line system in trials). Only one transmitter in London was operative but an estimated 80,000 people had television receivers and were able to view the 64 hours of coverage that was broadcast. Radio coverage was also provided by the BBC and broadcast around the world using short wave.

So, with that in mind, here is the previously unpublished Government document which details usage of the spectrum. The original is not that easy to read (click on the image on the right to see it in full size) in pictorial format so here is the actual text.

Be it hereby enacted by the King's Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the commandment of the same aforementioned, as follows:-

(1) No sporting personage, radio announcer or visual televiser shall establish or use any station for wireless replication of Olympic events or install or use any apparatus for wireless tomfoolery except under the authority of a licence in that behalf granted by the Postmaster General hereinunder purported to, and any person who establishes or uses any station for wirelessness of any nature or installs or uses any apparatus for wireless purposes except under and in accordance with such a licence shall be guilty of an offence of the most serious nature which shall be punishable by flogging, booting or in any such manner as is seen fit by His Most Excellent Majesty or his appointed Government torturer or executioner.

(2) A licence granted under this section (hereafter in this Decree referred to as an olympic wireless licence or 'owl') may be issued subject to such terms, provisions and commandments as the Postmaster General may think befitting, including in particular and in peculiar in the case of a licence to establish an olympic wireless station, limitations as to the positionality and nature of the station, the purposes for which, the circumstances in which, and the persons by whom the station may be used, and the manufactory of the apparatus which may be installed or used therein therefor, and, in the case of any other licence, limitations and hampering as to the apparatus which may be installed, operated or used, and the places or locations where, the purposes for which, the circumstances in which and the person or persons by whom the apparatus may be used for such purposes thereafter.

(3) Nothing or no item in this section shall authorise or approve the inclusion, in any olympic wireless licence relating solely to apparatus not designed or adapted for emission or transmission (as opposed to reception), of any term, item or provision requiring any person to concede any form of right of entry into any private dwellinghouse, manufactory, residence or abode.

(4) Through jurisdiction of this Decree, the commandment of the use of those radio wavelengths perporting to emissions authorised herinunderafter by an olympic wireless licence shall be designated for usage and utility as per the identification and categorisation indicated in the ensuing remainder of this document.

(5) Notwithstanding these categorisations and registrations of wireless lengths subscribed to by His Majesty's Government at the International Telecommunications Union 1947 Atlantic City Plenipotentiary Conference howsoever agreed, and in cognisance of the need to control and restrict miscreant emissions of wireless stations to other wireless stations, all emissive equipment of a nature requiring a licence under this Decree should be designed, manufactured, construed and operated in ways in which other wireless stations shall be safe from explosion and other maleficent discreation.

Wavelengths of below 1 metre (over 300 Mega Cycles per second) are reserved exclusively for secret Government use. The use of these wavelenghts shall remain secret and the fact that such wavelengths exist and the fact that the use of them is secret is also a secret and should be treated accordingly.

Wavelengths of between 3 metres and 1 metre (between 100 and 300 Mega Cycles per second) may be used for televisual distribution of motion or stationary pictorial information between private wireless stations which are fixed in location and fortitude.

Wavelengths of between 10 metres and 3 metres (between 30 and 100 Mega Cycles per second) may be used for televisual distribution of motion or stationary pictorial information between a public wireless station and domestic or official wireless receptors.

Wavelengths of between 100 metres and 10 metres (between 3 and 30 Mega Cycles per second) may be used for audible distribution of broadcast material to His Majesty's Overseas Territories and other fuzzy wuzzy lands to whom the English language is comprehensible. The use of some wavelengths within this range are reserved for secret Government use, the provisions of which are secret as described above therein.

Wavelengths larger than 100 metres (below 3 Mega Cycles) may be used for audible distribution of broadcast material to the United Kingdom of this marvellousness nation hereover. Some wavelengths within this range may also be used for the exchange of message between shipping and shipping or between shipping and port establishments for the perfunction of safety and maritime information exchange and for other safety matters as may be permitted in the olympic wireless licence therein permittivised. The use of some wavelengths within this range are reserved for secret Government use, the provisions of which are secret as described above therein.

What stands out from this is:

* There is a clear division between different bands and their uses - this no doubt stems from the work ongoing at the ITU at the time in establishing the international frequency registration board.
* The highest frequencies were reserved for Government use. At the time, this was largely for radar and navigation tools that had proven invaluable in the success of the war effort.
* Some bands are shared between users (though the wording of the document would imply that within any given band, frequencies were only assigned to one use or another and that no true 'sharing' as we recognise it today was authorised).
* The operation of a wireless transmitting device permitted the authorities to access your property.
* There was nothing much on television tonight and so this drivel got written.

Note: one or more of the above may be substantially or materially inaccurate.

This document (erstwhile the 'Olympic Wireless Station Commandment of Licence Neccessity and Specifity Decree, 1948') clearly sets the framework for what became the WT Act of 1949 the following year and established the groundwork for spectrum regulation in the UK that still exists today and which will continue to apply until the London Olympics of 2012 and even after that. Perhaps.