Hellfire Radio Relay

Hellfire: Radio Relay Artist Magz Hall 

Ramsgate Festival of Sounds Sonic Trail, Friday11th to Sunday 13th Sept at the Mascot Gallery, 7 Chatham St, Ramsgate CT11.  12:00 PM – 4:00 PM. PV Friday 4-6pm.

Inside the gallery, invisible frequencies gain physical, sculptural gravity. The room is webbed with recycled polyethylene cables—highlighting petrochemical persistence, these synthetic vines acting to map out the ‘ Thanet Broadcasting System’.

A set of red radios relay the work as a looping meditation on transmission and human resistance from the home front.  This sonic composition features narrated teen accounts of survival during the Ramsgate bomb strikes in WW2, bridging past and present, by weaving modern jamming techniques, sustained drones and electronic textures, via electromagnetic frequencies.

The Hellfire Radio Relay – sound instalation, reflects on how modern warfare now uses drones to keep radio communications clear whilst looking back to east Kent Hellfire and early closed loop wired thanet broadcast system in Ramsgate, recounting chilling teenage accounts of surviving the bombing. A meditation on the horror of war and the military use of radio which spilled into the domestic world via the Rediffusion relay system whose abandoned wires stll join houses across Ramsgate today a hyper local system also found across the UK, part of our everyday history.

Thanet Ether

In December 1928, Ramsgate became an experimental zone for Rediffusion. In wireless broadcast’s early days, standard radio sets were expensive luxuries and the spectrum was highly volatile. Atmospheric static, fading signals, and local radio frequency clutter filled the airwaves. Along the Thanet coast, constant radio chatter from military aircraft at nearby RAF Manston obliterated over-the-air frequencies, creating a wall of unwanted noise. Rediffusion bypassed individual tuning and hardware entirely. A high-gain master aerial array captured weak waves at a central hub. Signals were cleaned, amplified, and re-diffused over a physical grid of overhead wires into rented household loudspeakers, transforming a chaotic wave into an affordable, noise-free broadcast.

During WWII, Thanet became the frontline known as Hellfire Corner. This domestic auditory network shifted from entertainment into a vital infrastructure of resistance. Kept on a 24-hour civil defence alert, it was shielded from outside radio frequency chaos, carrying air-raid warnings and emergency dispatches when the sky faced enemy radio-direction finding.

This era birthed polyethylene (polythene), bridging domestic listening with modern warfare. Declassified from top-secret radar projects, this polymer provided unprecedented high-frequency dielectric insulation for cables. Physical ghosts remain hidden in plain sight; older Thanet properties still feature original Rediffusion polyethylene cables, junction boxes, and iron brackets bolted to brickwork. However, petrochemical polyethylene carries a severe ecological toll, persisting for centuries and fragmenting into toxic microplastics. This material crisis forces the electronics industry to look toward bio-based alternatives like sugarcane bio-polyethylene or renewable bioplastics.

 Re-Diffused Warfare Today

A century later, Rediffusion’s architectural ghost dictates survival across modern electronic warfare battlegrounds. Today’s environment features intense targeted RF jamming; traditional long-range wireless links are instantly intercepted, blinded, or hit by kinetic strikes. Modern militaries have abandoned direct long-distance transmissions for an evolved tactical radio relay hierarch involving drones mesh networks and balloon relay nodes.

Voice accounts Ewart Backhouse – Hall

War accounts based on the written accounts of John Side and Thomas Solly

Produced and composed by Magz Hall with recordings from a 101 Arts, Base Frequency Residency and a  residency in the Pyrenees. Electronic music made on the Colossus at The University West London’s Townsend Studio plus Drone, Radio and WW2 bombing field recordings.

Improvised excerpts from Magz 101 Arts Base Frequency Residency  peace jam in Greenham Peace Garden, thanks to all artists listed on website.

Bio

Dr Magz Hall is an acclaimed UK-based sound and radio artist, practice-based researcher, her work treats the electromagnetic airwaves as a creative canvas. Her multi-disciplinary practice expands the boundaries of radio through site-specific sound installations and cross platform work. She is also concerned with environmental issues specifically air pollution and is producing a series of works for her Radio Air Garden Project. 

Her work has been exhibited internationally and featured on platforms like BBC Radio 3, Radio 4, and 6 Music, alongside major Uk installations at institutions such as the V&A Museum, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, and Tate Britain. Dr Hall holds a PhD in expanded radio art from the University of the Arts London, is the founder of the artist-led collective Radio Arts and helped set up Resonance FM in London.

Website MagzHall.com