All I knew a couple years ago was The Beeb was down to their very last sets of spare tubes for their 1930s era LW transmitter in Droitwich and they can't get anymore-They stopped making them 50 years ago, if not longer and it wasn't worth the expense and headaches for the engineers and scientists to reverse-engineer the tubes for this dinosaur, especially with modern tech so cheap and widely available. Once those last tubes are gone, that's it. 2025 or not, Radio 4 is gone from LW.
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BBC preparing to close 198 kHz longwave
- Thread starter Mediafrog+
- Start date
Nothing new about the eventual 198 closure, but the big chatter this week is about the BBC making significant further cuts to its shortwave output. As of March 31 (the new A-24 season) English to Southern Africa is being dropped, and transmissions to West and East Africa are being reduced. English to South and Southeast Asia remains the same for now. Those remaining target areas will get a “two hours morning and two hours evening” schedule. The overall demise of shortwave continues.
If only LW DX was possible here in the far west of North America. The closest I've gotten to actual longwave radio DX was a faint carrier many years ago on 162 during decent eastern conditions...which was undoubtedly France Info, but it wasn't strong enough for confirmation of the French language, so it was never logged. BBCR4 on 198 would be *awesome* to pick up here before it goes away.
BBC SW dying is not a surprise to me. 25 years ago, North American SW transmissions were a normal thing, every night, for 5-6 hours at a time on what was it...5975 khz? Nowadays, just Brother Stair, noise, Melissa Scott, Habana Cuba, Marti with its jammer, and if you're lucky, maybe Romania or China...
Internet (and FM in African/other third-world markets) killed the shortwave star.
BBC SW dying is not a surprise to me. 25 years ago, North American SW transmissions were a normal thing, every night, for 5-6 hours at a time on what was it...5975 khz? Nowadays, just Brother Stair, noise, Melissa Scott, Habana Cuba, Marti with its jammer, and if you're lucky, maybe Romania or China...
Internet (and FM in African/other third-world markets) killed the shortwave star.
The Internet is like the Borg (from Star Trek: The Next Generation). It's assimilating everything!
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Well, guess what, just as soon as I post about the 198 situation, news breaks that the BBC will close down its Radio 4 mediumwave (AM) transmitters on April 15. Listeners are being encouraged to retune to FM, DAB, or the BBC Sounds app. The 198 longwave service will continue for the immediate future, but will no longer have any separate programming.
Radio 4 mediumwave transmitters that will close are on 603, 720, 756, 774, 1449 and 1484 kHz.
www.bbc.co.uk
Radio 4 mediumwave transmitters that will close are on 603, 720, 756, 774, 1449 and 1484 kHz.
Changes to Radio 4 from 1st April 2024 | Help receiving TV and radio
Effective 1st April 2024, there will no longer be a separate schedule for Radio 4 LW and the BBC is encouraging listeners to transition to alternative platforms.
This article gives more detail on program changes (Desert Island Discs expanding to an hour, new programs, etc.):
BBC Radio 4 announces refreshed schedule this Spring and raft of new commissions
The revamped schedule has been designed to give audiences what they want most, when they want it
www.bbc.co.uk
Looks like all of the BBC Radio 4 mediumwave transmitters are 2 kW or less, except for one 10 kW transmitter on 720 kHz. Not like Radio 5 Live or Talksport, which have MW transmitters as powerful as 500 kW.
Actually, 162 kHz was France-Inter, which is more of a talk and feature service comparable to NPR. The 162 kHz transmitter is still running carrier for the time-signal service, but there is no audio on it. France-Info is a separate service and was never on longwave. These days it's on FM stations between 105-106 MHz. It also wasn't on many mediumwave stations, but it was on 630 kHz in Lyon with 300 kw. Radio France shut down all its mediumwave services in 2015; as far as I know, there are no mediumwave stations remaining in France. As of 2019, there were none in Paris.
Longwave is dying out pretty rapidly in Europe as well.
Checking the 2024 World Radio TV Handbook, the most powerful BBC mediumwave transmitter is now 200kw for Radio 5 as part of the 909 kHz synchros. I think the BBC has recently been reducing power on the bigger signals to save money, as well as to nudge listeners to FM/DAB/online ahead of a complete mediumwave shutdown.
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There are two mediumwave stations left in France according to the 2024 WRTH: 1593 Bretagne 5 in Saint-Goueno, running 10kw; and 1467 in Roumoules which runs 1000kw and is brokered out to religious broadcasters. The transmitter is in France, but run by a Monaco based operator.
The 189 kHz transmitter in Iceland is likely the next to go before the end of this year, once the expansion of the public RUV FM network is complete in the west of that country. Sibling 207 kHz shut down last year.
153 Romania and 171 Morocco are reported to be operating with reduced power.
I’ve read that the 225 outlet of Polish Radio still has a significant audience, so it might be around for a while.
A Japanese DXer visiting Mongolia last year reported that the country’s stations on 164, 209, and 227 kHz are still active.
252 Algeria is still going, new transmitter was installed a few years ago.
And WWVB in the U.S. is "All the Time, All the Time".
And all those “atomic clocks” are tuned to 60 kHz 24/7! Wonder if any have a PPM meter?😂🤣
Quite interesting. I haven't been to Provence in recent years nor to Bretagne, so these stations didn't pop up the last time I tuned around in France, which was 2022 in Lyon and the Massif Central. I'm not going this year due to the Olympics in Paris. Next time I go to Europe to see family, it may not even be worthwhile to bring a longwave radio around!
Small correction to my previous post: That last frequency should be 1485 kHz.
Sometimes I still have the old mediumwave band plan stuck in my head. Under the current plan the 9 kHz spaced frequencies are all divisible by nine (adding the digits gives you nine or a multiple of nine.) Same thing on longwave except for Mongolia, which is still on the old longwave plan.
Back in the day BBC leased an hour or so evenings on the VOA facility at Delano, CA which is just North of Bakersfield. They were in the 49 Meter band on I think 6135 kHz. That signal was unbelievably strong in my area, virtually like a local AM signal. Another very strong signal was their lease of a commercial SW operator (can't remember the calls) in Okeechobee, FL on 25M in the late afternoon, Pacific Time. The mainstay 5975 operation was from the BBC facility in the Caribbean on Antigua if memory serves.
WYFR? WRMI?
WYFR became WRMI so probably both...
And the Roumoules station is the old Radio Monte Carlo, formerly on 1466 which was a full commercial station, doing Top 40 part of the day in French and part in Italian.
The BBC Antigua relay station (which was shared with Deutsche Welle) closed in March 2005. After that there was a reduced schedule of BBC English to the Americas from a hodgepodge of transmitter sites, including Greenville, Delano, WHRI in South Carolina, Bonaire, French Guiana, and Ascension Island. Broadcasts were further reduced in 2006 only targeting the Caribbean area, and the plug was pulled completely in March, 2008.
I recall WYFR relaying an hour of the BBC in the morning in the early 00s, but that didn’t last very long. Successor WRMI has never relayed the BBC AFAIK.