Mediumwave (AM) stations going dark across Europe

"Medium-wave transmitters for Deutschlandradio have been turned off in Germany, along with services in France and Luxembourg."
[...]

http://radiotoday.co.uk/2016/01/a-number-of-am-services-turned-off-in-europe/

Sad, especially considering the history behind MW stations like Radio Luxembourg.

Here in the US the historical stations are mostly still on the air, even if they are often running different formats than the formats which they were famous for....

I suppose you have to count your blessings.

162 longwave in France is following its Medium kin on New years Eve. The commercial longwave broadcasters in France continue for now.

Ireland's longwave service on 252 goes dark in April. Long and medium wave broadcasting in the UK continues, again for now.

The world is slowly and gradually going back to the concept of 'locals only'. By that I mean that FM is largely local in nature, and the internet is a great place for broadcasting until someone decides to geo-fence it.

Very hard to geo-fence over the air broadcasting, especially MW and HF. Arguably more expensive, also.

boombox4 said:

Very hard to geo-fence over the air broadcasting, especially MW and HF. Arguably more expensive, also.

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The equivalent of geo-fencing in the Cold War era was jamming. The commie countries were quite good at it, although some US and Western European shortwave signals managed to get through.

French and Irish ex pats in the UK are certainly concerned about losing the contact with home, although there aren't any geo blocks in the UK on either RTE Radio or France Inter. The former is also carried on most UK cable TV systems and on Sky TV and Free sat.

There is also a campaign to get RTE onto DAB in the UK to help older ex pats , although who pays will be an issue as Ireland is still stony broke.

KeithE4 said:

The equivalent of geo-fencing in the Cold War era was jamming.
The commie countries were quite good at it,
although some US and Western European shortwave signals managed to get through.

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The Britts jammed off-shore rock and roll broadcasters, back in the day.
France has jammed undocumented stations in and around Paris.
The USIA operated a longwave station from Federal Germany on 173 KHz, asigned by the ITU to the USSR.
Our allies in apartheid South Africa jammed several incoming broadcasters including much of the Warsaw Alliance.
South Korea continues to jam radio and television broadcasts from the north to this very day,
and it is illegal for southerners to promote northern broadcasts under penalty of fines and imprisonment.

DavidEduardo said:

I read a report that they would continue only as long as the transmitters and the power tubes last. There will be no replacement transmitter, and the existing ones are obsolete and have no replacement parts.

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That is right, and depending on who you believe, they are either down to their last 2, or there are 2 left after the current ones burn out.

KeithE4 said:

The equivalent of geo-fencing in the Cold War era was jamming. The commie countries were quite good at it, although some US and Western European shortwave signals managed to get through.

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True, but here in the US we didn't have internal jamming. Once MW disappears it will be locals only inside the US, for the most part.

Even TuneIn has some geo-blocking. Pay to play will become more predominant. It was that style of "locals only" I was referring to. Inside countries as well as external broadcasts.

DavidEduardo said:

I read a report that they would continue only as long as the transmitters and the power tubes last. There will be no replacement transmitter, and the existing ones are obsolete and have no replacement parts.

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Now this is specifically talking about 198 Mhz longwave, the big BBC radio 4 transmitter at Droitwich which has been there almost since the dawn of radio.

Other AM transmitters in the UK are on medium wave and are slightly more modern.

I think 198 will go soon in the UK . It costs a fortune to run. Even the medium wave channels must be on borrowed time.