Attila notes the passing of Deutschlandradio longwave

DL-RadioSWLing Post reader, Pázmány Attila, writes:

“I’m a SWL-MWL-LWL from Hungary, Europe. I like your blog where I can read about radio news and reviews. You report about new stations if they appear in the air and about closed stations if they disappear from the air. I did not observed any news in your blog about the closed LW stations of the “Deutschlandradio”. There were two frequencies for “Deutschlandfunk” (153 kHz and 207 kHz) and one for “Deutschlandradio-kultur” (177 kHz). Here in the center of the Carpathian Basin – many hundreds kms from the statons – I could hear them very well. But not any more. For some weeks it seems that they have disappeared.

I checked the website of the German Radio, and on the following pages LW frequencies are not mentioned any more:

http://www.deutschlandradio.de/frequenzliste-deutschlandfunk.214.de.html

http://www.deutschlandradio.de/frequenzliste-deutschlandradio-kultur.213.de.html

I also checked the http://www.shortwaveschedule.com/index.php?now=true for more information, but these LW stations are also not shown there. So DLF ended its LW broadcasts definitely.

I’m sorry for it. Beside this German radio had a great foreign service in the past (DW – also on Hungarian). But it was closed in the last 10-15 years.”

Thanks for your message, Attila. Being State side, there are few options for listening to the longwave stations I so enjoyed while living in Europe at various times over the past two decades. With that said, when propagation is in my favor, on winter nights, I occasionally hear faint European LW stations like France Inter on 162 kHz.

At some point, I need to dig up a one sheet listing of all longwave stations that are still on the air. Does such a thing exist?

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18 thoughts on “Attila notes the passing of Deutschlandradio longwave

  1. Lawrence Harris

    Tragic that these great stations have shut down. I used to love listening to a German voice while on holiday in England. It kept me sane to hear the firm, steady German language amid all the chaotic, good-time seeking mess that England has got itself into. Like a grave headstone in a cemetery, the stations will be ‘sadly missed’. Now German cannot be heard (on my little transistor radio) anymore outside Germany. What has happened to this great nation!

    Reply
    1. Tomas

      Can’t you hear Deutschlandfunk on medium wave 1422 KHz or 1269 KHz? Shound be no problem to hear them by sky wave in the evenings and nights in the UK.

      I have clear strong reception of these frequencies in Stockholm, Sweden.

      Reply
    2. DL4NO

      You need to switch to the Internet. Go to http://www.dradio.de. They even have an app, at least for Android.

      This way you get three channels: Deutschlandfunk, Deutschlandradio Kultur (some kind of successor of Rias Berlin) and Dradio Wissen.

      Reply
      1. Tomas

        But he doesn’t have to switch to the Internet if he wants to listen in the UK.

        I’m listening to Deutschlandfunk on 1269 KHz in very nice quality right now on my Grundig Concert Boy Luxus 1500.

        Reply
        1. DL4NO

          As far as I could find 1269 kHz will be switched off by the end of the year.

          I found the primary information about all that mess – for those who can understand German: http://www.kef-online.de/inhalte/presse/kef_pressemitteilung_17012012_zusatzinfo4.pdf – KEF is the commission deciding on the budget of German public broadcasting.

          The basic argument: The percentage of listeners on the AM bands is hardly measurable.

          Fact is: Deutschlandfunk suffers from a very bad VHF transmitter net. For example the Munich transmitter has 300 W and hardly reaches beyond the city limits. I live 3 km beyond the Munich city limits and have problems with in-house reception of that transmitter. The next transmitters are 50 km away. See http://www.deutschlandradio.de/frequenzheft-dradio-2014.media.49483a1b541b680bfc88909929827b49.pdf, second page.

          DAB coverage is even worse, see page 30 of that document.

          Reply
          1. Tomas

            They should inform the public that if they suffer bad reception in their area they could use MW instead, I’m sure a lot of people don’t realize they can listen to MW (or could have listened to LW) to get the AM listening numbers up. But they are probably not interested in that, better push the inferior DAB+ instead…

          2. Tomas

            Also, 300 W for a big city like Munich seems like a joke.

            In Sweden a normal transmitter site for FM has 60 kW power, even my old hometown with around 12 000 inhabitants has 60 kW transmitters on all four national FM channels. So the FM coverage is quite excellent…

          3. DL4NO

            You must have a historical perspective to understand this: After WW2 Germany got very few and quite bad AM channels. This forced German broadcasting into VHF quite early – around 1954 or so. Then by our constitution culture is mostly a matter for the (these days) 16 states (Bundesländer) of Germany. Nearly each of these states (up to re-unification every West German state) has its own public broadcasting corporation.

            Then add all those private local stations and the hilly geography especially in the southern half of Germany.

            Most of the time Deutschlandfunk used medium wave nearly exclusively. For quite some time the only VHF transmitter was near Bonn, our then capital city. Then you see that Deutschlandfunk came “a bit” late to the VHF band.

            The Munich transmitter is so weak that it does not interfer with older transmitters. They have older rights…

          4. Tomas

            So doesn’t shutting down the medium wave transmitters risk becoming a suicide for the whole channel?

          5. DL4NO

            The KEF completely ignores quite some facts:

            * German radio will only be available within Germany. This reduces our presence in the surrounding countries. Even Deutsche Welle does no German radio programs anymore. The language spoken by the largest group in Europe cannot be heard on the airwaves in most of Europe – unless you count the German transmissions of Radio Romania.

            * Germans abroad without Internet access or satellite TV lose any electronic connection to home. I remember times when WDR on 1593 kHz or so could be heard over most of Europe at night. Their “Nachrichten vom Tag” news broadcast at 23 hours local time was essential during my holidays.

            …and all this from the nation that is pushed from many sides to accept a leading role within Europe. For good reasons our politicians are quite reluctant in this respect. But considering the north-south divide we must cooperate a lot more. Easy access to foreign media (i.e. German media abroad) is essential here.

            My listening to BBC World Service was reduced greatly when they switched off all transmissions to Europe. At night 648 kHz was the most important frequency on my car radio besides the MW frequencies of Deutschlandfunk.

          6. Tomas

            You can listen to Radio China International and RTL in german on 1440 KHz all over Europe (until the end of the year at least).

            I’m listening less to BBC World Service too after they stopped most broadcasts on 9915 KHz.

  2. Bernhard

    In addition to DL4NO: Deutschlandradio ended on December 31st, but NDR also shut down it’s Medium Wave Channels. This means there are no shipping forecasts available any more.
    Officials tell skippers to use cellphone or DAB+ on high sea …. no further comment.
    Why do people with no knowledge what so ever have the competencies to decide about subjects they do not understand?

    Reply
    1. DL4NO

      Perhaps a few words about our German broadcast system will help to understand all this:

      Besides a few nationwide private stations on the DAB+ system nearly all private stations are local stations. Otherwise we have public broadcasting corporations with constructions like the BBC in GB.

      To make it more complicated culture including the public broadcasting system is primarily the sole responsibility of the 16 federal states. There are only a few exceptions like ZDF, the “Second German TV” and the radio stations Deutschlandfunk (founded as a joined German program for all of Germany in the early 1950s) and Deutschlandradio Kultur (which is in a sense the successor of RIAS, Radio in the American Sector of Berlin).

      All of these public stations are financed by a special tax that every household and comparable entity must pay. This tax is set by a committee (KEF) that decides on the financial needs of the public broadcasting system. This committee decided that we do not need three distribution systems. So they cut AM in favor of DAB+. All AM stations within this system must shut down until the end of 2015.

      BTW: Deutsche Welle is financed by the federal government. At least the shipping forecasts shound have continued, funded like Deutsche Welle.

      Ships will have to move to other media like Fax that are operated by Deutscher Wetterdienst (German meteo). This should not be that expensive these days. Even weather satellites in the 137 MHz range should not pose a great reception problem.

      Reply
  3. K.U.

    News about medium- and longwave stations can be followed here:
    http://mediumwave.info/news.html

    My favorite web site for MW and LW station listings is here:
    http://mwscan.org/index.php?r=m . At the first visit the web site asks your location to calculate estimates of signal strengths. The stations above certain signal level (35 dBµV by default) are shown. Visit the expert options page if the default settings do not show sufficiently large number of stations.

    Reply
  4. DL4NO

    You are right: Deutschlandfunk and Deutschlandradio Kultur have ended their longwave transmissions a few weeks ago and will also close down their medium wave transmitters in the near future.

    It is very sad that the respective commitees have decided to shut down about all AM broadcast transmissions from Germany. Most of the federal public stations have left medium wave already. You might still be able to hear Bavarian Radio on 801 kHz.

    After the Second Word War Germany got very few and hardly any good medium wave channels. This accellerated the move to FM radio. This is what nearly all listeners use in Germany. Nearly all private radio stations operate there.

    Until a few years ago DAB was hardly used because it was squeezed between the VHF III TV channels and the military UHF band. The military forced to use low-power transmitters which only allowed for DAB reception islands.

    Since analog TV was shut down the VHF III band has been used for DAB+, mostly with higher-power transmitters. But DAB+ has a long way to go until nation-wide reception will be possible within Germany. DAB+ wound be especially interesting for car radios but most car manufacturers offer DAB+ radios not at all or only as a costly option.

    The result is bad in many respects:

    * No broadcast reception at all during blackouts. DAB+ transmitters have a designed reception area with a 30 km radius.

    * If the US decide to prevent free GPS reception this also shuts down DAB+ as GPS time signals are used for the synchronized DAB+ networks.

    * No German broadcasts anymore outside of Germany.

    * No on the air reception of regional stations from more than 200 km away.

    BTW: Deutsche Welle TV is to be changed into another bad BBC World clone. I do not understand all that. 🙁

    Reply

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