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Life without AM (MW)---Italy

Radio Netherlands's Jonathan Marks files this report from the British countryside.

Your station on 171 could be the Arabic language, Radio Mediterranee International, from Nador, Morocco.
They are listed as using two megawatts but also reported to fluctuate in power and audio quality.
 
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1008 is "Good Niews Radio" with mostly CCM, some in English. I don't what their previous formats would have been.


cyberdad said:
I'm getting a fairly weak night signal on 1008. Isn't that where the oldies station from the Netherlands used to be? I'll see if I can make out if it's Christian programming. As for 693, I definitely haven't heard English there, but I'll try again. Since 1089 was weaker than I expected and since 1548 was MUCH weaker than I expected, it could be that the path from the UK from here hasn't been very good.

Now....the plot thickens for LW. This afternoon, I've been hearing a station on 171. Fair signal. It definitely hasn't been there (at least daytime) previously during my stay. Perhaps they had been operating on reduced power, were off, or experiencing some other issue.
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mimo said:
Radio 4 is still on 198. I've heard it has a hard time crossing the alps.
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Thanks, Mimo....and thanks also ai4a. I checked 198 this morning at a location a little away from our building. I heard a very weak carrier and something unintelligible. It sounded like it was music, but I wasn't sure. Music isn't what I associate with R, 4, but really what was on the carrier was impossible to make out.

As for 171. It was back this morning with a fair signal, but I didn't recognize the language.

Conditions last night were a world away from what they were previously. I'll try to post in more detail later, but 1578 Classic Gold from London was blasting in like I would have expected originally. I was paying particular attention to 692. At first it was a couple of very weak signals mixing that I couldn't make out. But on my third pass I heard English. Female announcer with a British accent. Very weak signal, but I assumed it was BBC, although it hardly sounded like a flamethrower!
 
cyberdad said:
...although it hardly sounded like a flamethrower!
Click to expand...
Remember that the terms, "flamethrower" and "blowtorch" are relative, so a hundred kilowatt station in some areas could almost be called a "lightbulb".
Physics is still physics, though, and a station received by more than one or two hops or where groundwave and skywave overlap will always fade unacceptably.
 
I was at another remote location a little after 11:00 local time with a good car radio in the rental car (Toyota), and one of the first things I checked was 693. Nothing. I did however, pick up about a half dozen MW signals that were inaudible on the ATS 505. These were all very weak, but listenable at my location which had zero ambient noise sources. Most notable were 630 (which also has a good night signal), 900 and 981.

I also discovered yesterday that I had a loose connection on my whip antenna that was blocking shortwave signals. It didn't make much difference for daytime reception, although it did bring in a few more stations. At night, however, it made a world of difference. Something audible on just about every channel in the 49 and 31 meter bands, as well as the majority of channels in 25. I didn't recognize most of the languages, but I think it's a safe guess that most of them were from eastern Europe and the Arabic speaking countries. What I think may have been Iraq was blasting on 9445 in English. There was other English from VOA on 6080 (assume European transmitter), BBC on 31 meter(I forget what the channel was, but it was slightly higher than where I found what seemingly was Iraq). There were also a few political rants in English sprinkled around the bands. Most unusual was North Korea. Also 31 meters, and very possibly with a transmitter somewhere in or close to Europe. Unusual world view to say the least!
 
mimo said:
I've heard in Italy that stations are not only on odds and even frequencies, they're also at .125,.150, and .175...so you could have a station at 92.2 and a few miles away, one at 92.215 Some have reported that the fm dial is an absolute mess and is unlistenable in many cities. AM has pretty much been abandoned in Italy.
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I thought I'd pop in and not only confirm this, but also, as I discovered towards the end of our trip last week, the .125, .150, etc was actually reflected in the scan button of my rental car radio! As for the FM dial being "an absolute mess and is unlistenable in many cities", that's very true. I've never heard anything like it. You could land on a given channel, walk from one end of the patio to the other, and hear two or three stations taking turns being on top! I'd describe the whole thing as "survival of the fittest!"

(BTW, mimo, "Happy Canada Day". Enjoy!)
 
cyberdad said:
...but 1578 Classic Gold from London was blasting in...
I was paying particular attention to 692.
Click to expand...
Remember, the digits must always add up to nine or a multiple thereof, such as 693 or 1575.

Italian stations used to be spaced every 50 KHz apart, now I guess it is every 25 KHz, DAB seems very appealing.
 
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Thanks for the Canada Day wishes.

I had read about the FM dial being that way in Italy (when I was there in the 70's I was too young to really know what a radio was and FM probably wasn't in use then) so I really had no first hand knowledge. I appreciate that the info I had is actually true. I don't see how Italians put up with that.
 
9445 in English during the European evening is All India Radio, 250kw.
Yep, 693 is Radio 5 Live BBC. There's many transmitters. 909 also has several.
 
mimo said:
...FM probably wasn't in use then...
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Just this afterthunk,
Deutchland lost the use of their best AM frequencies after world war two,
and for that reason became the first country to promote and popularize FM.
 
ai4i said:
Remember, the digits must always add up to nine or a multiple thereof, such as 693 or 1575.

Italian stations used to be spaced every 50 KHz apart, now I guess it is every 25 KHz, DAB seems very appealing.
Click to expand...

Typos, sorry. There was a distraction going on at the time of that post....aka "4-year old granddaughter". :)
 
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