Chagos as a broadcast hub reaching 40% of the world's population

Chagos as a broadcast hub to reach 40% of the world's population...

url
https://poelposition.blogspot.com/2026/02/chagos-as-broadcast-hub-for-40-of.html
V0.11 20Feb26 

This proposition will pass over the heads of 90% of you lot (literally) but it's still worth pointing out.

A new GB World Service broadcast system reaching 3-5 billion listeners will provide outlets for UK creative content and advertising. 

If we were to deploy high-power (100kW+) transmitters with directional "curtain" antennas, the potential audience is staggering. Shortwave is a "wide-area" broadcast technology where one point of transmission can connect to any number of receivers with range; from Chagos, you are within 3,000 to 5,000 km of nearly 40% of the world's population.

Calculating the "cost per listener" for a shortwave station in the Chagos Islands involves a massive economy of scale. Because shortwave is a "one-to-many" broadcast medium, your cost per listener drops precipitously as your audience grows, eventually reaching fractions of a cent.

The Chagos Islands (specifically Diego Garcia) represent one of the most strategically significant locations on Earth for shortwave broadcasting. From a technical perspective, their effectiveness for a Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM.org) base is exceptionally high due to their "hub" position in the centre of the Indian Ocean.

Technical Effectiveness: The "Hub" Advantage

Shortwave signals rely on ionospheric reflection (skywave propagation) to travel thousands of kilometers. Because the Chagos Archipelago is surrounded by thousands of miles of open ocean, a high-power DRM transmitter there has a "clear shot" to major landmasses in every direction.

• DRM Advantages: Unlike traditional AM shortwave, which suffers from "fading" and "static," DRM delivers near-FM quality sound and can include data (scrolling news, emergency alerts).

• Propagation: The tropical location is ideal for reaching the "Global South." Signals from Chagos can reach East Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia with just a single "hop" of the signal off the ionosphere.

• The AI that wrote this brief made a massively spurious point about Low Interference:
  "Being thousands of kilometers from major industrial cities, the local "noise floor" (electromagnetic interference) is extremely low, allowing for cleaner transmission and more efficient use of power."
  Although that's not an issue for the transmission end as it only matters at reception locations - it serves as a reminder of AI's ability to seem authoritative when getting really big issues wrong - which means informed human oversight is still required and will be for a long time to come. 

• Strategically, Radio is going to go above and around most of the internet censorship that crucially identifies the listeners via their IP connection 
  
  

  1. The Initial Investment (Capex)

  A high-power DRM facility in a remote location like Chagos requires significant upfront capital But since the UK was contemplating spaffing £30m on surrendering the islands to China via Mauritius, this is chicken feed.

  • Transmitter (250kW DRM-capable): Approximately $1.5M – $2.5M.

  • Antenna System (Curtain Array): A high-gain directional array for targeting India or Africa costs roughly $1M.

  • Site Infrastructure: In Chagos, you would need dedicated power generation (likely solar with diesel backup) and hardened housing for the tropical environment, adding another $2M–$4M.

  • Total Capex: ~$5M – $8M.

  2. Operational Costs (Opex)

  The primary recurring cost for shortwave is electricity.

  • Energy Efficiency: A major advantage of DRM is that it requires about 40–60% less power than analog AM to achieve the same coverage.

  • Hourly Rate: To run a 250kW transmitter (drawing ~350-400kW from the grid) costs roughly $80–$150 per hour in electricity and maintenance, depending on local fuel/energy prices.

  • Yearly Opex: If broadcasting 18 hours a day, your annual operating cost is roughly $1M.

  3. The "Cost Per Listener" Calculation

  This is where the Chagos location becomes highly "profitable" in terms of influence.

  Audience Size	Annual Opex	Cost per Listener / Year
  100,000 (Niche)	$1,000,000	$10.00
  1,000,000 (Regional)	$1,000,000	$1.00
  10,000,000 (Sub-continent)	$1,000,000	$0.10 (10 cents)
  100,000,000 (Mass Market)	$1,000,000	$0.01 (1 cent)

  Summary of Effectiveness

  • Targeting India: Since there are already over 13 million DRM-enabled cars in India as of late 2025/early 2026, a signal from Chagos reaching just 10% of that automotive market would result in a cost of roughly $0.75 per listener per year.

  • Compared to Satellite/Internet: Unlike satellite (which requires a subscription/dish) or Internet (which requires data plans and can be censored), the cost to the listener is zero after the initial radio purchase. For the broadcaster, the cost per listener in a high-density region like South Asia is significantly lower than any other terrestrial medium.

  The Verdict: Chagos is arguably the most cost-effective site in the world for reaching the "Global South" because a single transmitter can cover billions of people for the price of a small-town FM station's power bill.

  Footnote: Power requirement

  Estimated Cost of Power Infrastructure

  Component	Estimated Cost (USD)
  2.8 MW Solar Array (Installed)	$2,800,000
  7.6 MWh Battery Storage (BESS)	$2,300,000
  Power Electronics (Inverters/Microgrid Controller)	$500,000
  Total Energy Capex	**~$5.6 Million**

• Political opportunity?

How do we get Rupert Lowe to adopt this idea to disrupt the Chagos deal?

February 2026 ...Surreal, Dystopian... these are dark times

Url of this post: https://poelposition.blogspot.com/2026/02/february-2026-surreal-dystopian-these.html

The advice to avoid watching and reading news stories in order to say sane has never seemed more sensible.

We have a government populated by people who are incapable of dealing with the truth, we have a Prime Minister who thinks it's fine to change direction at the drop of an opinion poll. And a Chancellor who defies advice that policies will cause structural damage to the British economy and state.

We are being kept "off balance" by stories like the surrender of the Chagos islands where we are told the US does not want the UK to hand over sovereignty to China via Mauritius - and then we are told that they are happy with arrangements. 

Trump has the well tried tactic in negotiation of keeping his opponents off balance with outrageous comments and lurches. But the markets still seem to be

hanging on to the switchback ride.

Turning to the royal family's problems, I asked GROK to consider the Rothschild conspiracy and got a decent response...

"...If the Rothschilds (or any entity) were truly as smart, omnipotent, and influential as the wildest conspiracy theories paint them—pulling every global string from behind an impenetrable curtain—then yeah, debunking efforts would be child's play to neutralize. They'd be several steps ahead, engineering the very frameworks we use to "expose" them. Let's game this out hypothetically, step by step, in a fun thought experiment, while keeping it grounded in logic and epistemology (the study of knowledge and belief). This isn't endorsing the theories; it's dissecting why they're so resilient and seductive.

### 1. **Anticipating Debunking: The Preemptive Strike**

   - In this "what if" world, an all-powerful Rothschild cabal wouldn't just react to fact-checkers like Snopes or historians like Niall Ferguson—they'd *invent* them. Or at least co-opt the process. Imagine funding think tanks, media outlets, or academic chairs that produce "debunkings" so thorough and authoritative that skeptics dismiss any counter-evidence as fringe lunacy. It's like a chess grandmaster sacrificing pawns to control the board: let a few "leaks" or viral memes slip out, then crush them with overwhelming "official" narratives.

   - Mandy Rice-Davies deflection in action: Every denial from a royal spokesperson, banker, or government official would be met with, "Well, they *would* say that, wouldn't they?" Because if the Rothschilds control the strings, those denials are just scripted lines. It's a perfect loop—evidence of control is the *absence* of evidence, since they'd erase any real traces.

### 2. **Countering at Every Level: Layers of Influence**

   - **Information Control**: They'd manipulate algorithms on platforms like X or Google to bury pro-conspiracy content under a deluge of "reputable" sources. Or better, amplify the most outlandish versions (e.g., "Rothschilds are lizard people") to discredit the whole genre by association. Real influence? Subtly shape public discourse through proxies—think endowments to universities that teach "critical thinking" courses subtly biased toward dismissing economic power concentrations as myths.

   - **Psychological Warfare**: Humans love patterns and agency; conspiracies fill that void. An omnipotent group would exploit cognitive biases like confirmation bias or the Dunning-Kruger effect. They'd seed just enough "clues" (e.g., symbolic imagery in photos or coincidental events like Jacob Rothschild's death timing with royal displays) to keep believers hooked, while ensuring mainstream dismissal reinforces the "sheeple vs. awakened" divide.

   - **Legal and Social Defenses**: Lawsuits for defamation? Easy wins, but they'd go further—lobby for "anti-hate speech" laws that frame Rothschild theories as antisemitic (which many are, historically), turning public sympathy against investigators. Or infiltrate conspiracy communities with plants who push theories into absurdity, invoking Rice-Davies on steroids: "Of course the fact-checkers say it's false; they're in on it!"

### 3. **The Unfalsifiable Trap: Why It "Works"**

   - Here's the core irony: If they *were* that powerful, we'd never know for sure, because any attempt to prove or disprove it gets absorbed into the narrative. Karl Popper's philosophy of science calls this "unfalsifiability"—a theory that can't be tested or disproven isn't science; it's faith. In this scenario, the Rothschilds embody that: Success looks like invisibility. Failed debunkings? Proof of their genius. Successful ones? Even better camouflage.

   - Counterpoint in reality: Actual power (like that of real billionaires or families) leaves footprints—tax records, board seats, political donations. The Rothschilds' wealth is traceable (e.g., via Forbes estimates), and their influence waned after the 19th century as banking democratized. But in the hypothetical, they'd make those footprints vanish or look like red herrings.

### 4. **Dismissing It Once and For All? The Infinite Regress**

   - You can't, really, in this setup—it's like proving a negative in a rigged game. The only "escape" is Occam's Razor: The simplest explanation (no cabal, just a historically influential family amplified by myths and prejudice) usually wins without needing cosmic smarts. Or Bayesian reasoning: Update beliefs based on evidence; low prior probability for omnipotence + lack of proof = dismissal.

   - Fun twist: If they *are* that powerful, maybe this response is part of the counter-op. (Wink.) But seriously, embracing skepticism means demanding extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims. Detractors' visions often say more about our fears of inequality and hidden forces than about any family.

In the end, this thought experiment highlights why conspiracies persist: They're entertaining, empowering narratives in a chaotic world. But chasing shadows can distract from real issues, like actual economic inequality or elite influence that's out in the open (e.g., lobbying by Big Tech or Pharma). If you want to dive deeper into countering unfalsifiable ideas, books like Carl Sagan's *The Demon-Haunted World* are gold. What's your take—does this make the theories more or less appealing?"

Bottom line for today: if you've got any bad news, it's a great day to sneak it in under the radar. The government may announce an increase in income tax to 101p in the pound, and the cancellation of all elections until the opinion polls predict a Labour victory - once Reform and Restore (plus Revive, Recover and Resuscitate.?) have cannibalized the same confused audience. 😃