Tag Archives: Longwave

RTE to keep 252 longwave radio service (for now)

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(Source: Independent.ie via London Shortwave)

RTE is set to scrap controversial plans to axe its longwave radio service, aimed at saving the cash-strapped broadcaster €250,000 a year, the Sunday Independent has learned.

As the station grapples with an unprecedented financial crisis, it was announced two years ago that it planned to wind down longwave 252 broadcasts before full shutdown in May 2017.

But the plan caused widespread anger, particularly among the Irish community in Britain, where the service is seen as a crucial lifeline for thousands of older emigrants who cannot access digital broadcasts.

RTE sources say the service was targeted for shutdown because it is considered outdated, and is an ongoing and unnecessary cost, during a time of increasing financial pressures.
However, as a result of a public backlash, the broadcaster was forced to temporarily postpone the closure until 2017, giving listeners more time to move over to digital platforms.

But the station has confirmed it is now carrying out a “review” of its previous announcement.
A spokesperson added that there is now no specific date for the termination of the service. However, it is understood there remains an ongoing risk as regards its long-term viability.

[…]Many of the older emigrants left Ireland in the 1950s – with only basic education – as Ireland grappled with widespread unemployment.

They are now elderly and a significant number are in difficult financial circumstances, according to social services.

This radio service is still a crucial ‘link with home’ for many thousands of older Irish in Britain, according to various immigrant groups working with social services.

Continue reading the full article via Independent.ie…

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Radio connection: English city named after Maine relay station

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Richard Cuff, who writes:

“Thought the blog might enjoy this…it’s actually longwave related more than SW, but I know you often include historical items in blog posts.”

Indeed I do, Richard! Thanks for sharing. Here’s an excerpt from the Bangor Daily News:

Former radio relay station in Houlton may lead to new connection to England

HOULTON, Maine — Rugby Radio Station, a radio transmission site in the United Kingdom that once had ties to this Aroostook County community as part of a transoceanic communications network in the 1930s, is being re-imagined as a new city in England that will be aptly named: Houlton.

Rugby Radio Station was a radio transmission facility near the town of Rugby, Warwickshire in England. From 1927 to 1957, Houlton served as a relay station for long-wave transoceanic transmissions between New York and London.

Located on the County Road, the Houlton site was decommissioned on Oct. 1, 1957. That property is home to Roger and Carol Hand.

James Scott, who is the director of planning and communication for Urban and Civic, a property development and investment company based in London, was in Houlton on April 29 to meet with town officials and local historians to get a better feel for the American community that will bear the namesake of the new development.

[…]The Rugby site, which will be renamed Houlton, is 1,100 acres and over the next 20 years it will be developed into 6,000 homes, three primary schools, one secondary school and 1 million square feet of commercial floor space.

“The radio station [in England] was in operation from 1926 until 2005,” Scott said. “The site is really interesting in that it is mainly open fields, with some very large buildings and 12 800-foot masts. It was a very emotive site for a lot of people, but it was not very well developed.”

The masts have all been torn down, but some of the buildings were preserved for historical purposes.

[…]In the early days of transoceanic transmissions, a crew of five individuals worked at the Houlton station from 5 a.m. to 8 p.m., according to a November 1957 article in Long Lines, a company magazine produced by employees of American Telephone and Telegraph. As demand for service increased, coverage was extended from 4 a.m. to midnight.

Houlton was chosen as the relay station because the signal could not reach all the way from England to New York directly. The local site did not have massive antennae reaching upward such as the location in England. Instead, the transmission lines here were placed horizontally and stretched for many miles.

By the mid-1930s, long-wave transmissions declined because of technological improvements in short-wave radios. The Houlton site was also used in the 1940s as a ship-to-shore service.

Read the full article, at the Bangor Daily News site.

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Fessenden Christmas Eve Commemorative Transmissions

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This  was reported in the ARRL Newsletter:

Brian Justin, WA1ZMS, will again put his 600 meter Experimental Station WG2XFQ on the air on for a Christmas Eve commemorative transmission. WG2XFQ will transmit on 486 kHz from Forest, Virginia, to mark the 109th anniversary of Reginald Fessenden’s first audio transmission. Historic accounts say Fessenden played the violin — or a recording — and read a brief Bible verse. It’s been reported that other radio experimenters and shipboard operators who heard Fessenden’s broadcast were astounded.

Justin will conduct a run-up to this year’s event starting at around mid-day Eastern Time on December 23. The “official” Christmas event will begin on December 24 at 0001 UTC (the evening of December 23 in US time zones) and will continue for at least 24 hours. Justin said he plans to repeat the commemorative transmissions on New Year’s Eve and on New Year’s Day.

Fessenden’s transmitter was an ac alternator, modulated by placing carbon microphones in series with the antenna feed line. Justin’s homebuilt station is slightly more modern, based on a 1921 vacuum tube master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) design. Listener reports are appreciated and may be sent directly to Brian Justin, WA1ZMS, at his QRZ.com address. (Brian Justin, WA1ZMS, built this replica circa-1920 transmitter, capable of CW and Heising modulated AM.      Photo by Brian Justin)

While I have not heard Brian’s transmission before, I have actually heard a transmission on the experimental frequencies between 465 – 515 kHz. I never expected to be able to hear anything due to extremely high local noise, but one night the propagation gods smiled upon me and the evening was exceptionally quiet. I listened on my Elad SDR receiver over and over to the Morse Code signal which was extremely weak, but mostly readable. I confirmed with Multipsk software, verifying I was indeed hearing one of the experimental stations out of Connecticut.

For information regarding the 500 KC experimental project you can follow this link.

Why not give a listen? You just might be surprised like I was to hear something on this band, and you could add a little Christmas Eve radio memory to your collection!!             73, Robert

Robert Gulley, AK3Q, is the author of this post and a regular contributor to the SWLing Post. Robert also blogs at All Things Radio.

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Help identifying longwave transmitters

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As many of you know, I’ve been catching up on correspondence recently as the past few weeks have been quite hectic. 

SWLing Post reader, Andy (G0FTD), sent the following message several weeks ago, but is still seeking help:

I came across your website recently, so good to read something dealing with proper SWLing!

Last night I set up an experiment on 279Khz.

This is because of my interest in something called QRSS beacons in  amateur radio. I use the HF bands, but recently became interested in the LF  bands, 136 / 475Khz amateur bands and propagation.

I thought it would be interesting to test for the times that the day / nightime occurs at LF.

To do this I decided to use 279Khz, which by rights only has 2 transmitters on them, and at a convenient distance.

The only list I have says that Belarus and Turkey operate transmitters, so in theory I should only see 2 traces on my Argo software.

UNID 279KHZ

But I was surprised to see 3 traces.

Two of them have about a 1Hz offset to the main one, exactly on 279Khz.

I wonder if your readers can confirm the transmitters ?

Maybe Belarus is operating two TX sites with the offset, and the other is Turkey ?

You can see that the two offset ones go QRT at the same time.

If you can help Andy, please comment. Again, Andy, apologies for the delay in posting your inquiry!

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The demise of longwave could lead to the end of the Shipping Forecast

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Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Erica, who writes:

“I saw this article about the demise of the Shipping Forecast on Radio 4 Longwave and thought readers might be interested:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/11892805/End-of-Shipping-Forecast-on-long-wave-radio-could-leave-sailors-high-and-dry.html

I’m not a fan of DAB radio and my bedroom radio aerial has to be positioned just so to get radio 4 FM with cclarity, so I will be disappointed if Longwave eventually gets switched off. That’s not to mention all the people–however many there may be–who don’t have easy ways to get weather info out at sea.”

Here’s an excerpt from The Telegraph:

It has kept sailors safe on the ocean waves for 90 years, becoming just as much a part of national consciousness as cricket, cups of tea and The Archers.

But the days of hearing the Shipping Forecast out on a boat may be numbered thanks to the demise of long wave technology, a veteran announcer has said.

Peter Jefferson, who read the Shipping Forecast to Radio 4 listeners for 40 years, said the “very old” transmitters which worked on long wave could soon be retired.

If that was to happen, he said, anyone more than 12 miles from the coastline would be unable to hear the shipping forecast on long wave, ending a Radio 4 tradition dating back to 1924.

Speaking at the Radio Times Festival, in Hampton Court, Mr Jefferson said the soothing tones of the Shipping Forecast would then be left to its many fans who choose to listen to it from their homes in lieu of a “sleeping pill”.

“Long wave reaches much further than FM, it’s as simple as that,” he said.
“So FM would be totally useless for shipping beyond 12 miles from land.

[…]A spokesman for the BBC said they were no firm plans to end long wave broadcasting, and no date set for when the technology could run out.

The service currently reaches as far as south-east Iceland, and is occasionally picked up as far as 3,000 miles away.

Read this full article at The Telegraph online.

Of course, I haven’t heard the Shipping Forecast on longwave since moving back to the States from the UK. Still, I would be very sad to hear the program and the longwave medium fall silent.

I would like to start adding some Shipping Forecast programs on the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive where we also curate select mediumwave and longwave recordings.  If you have the means to record episodes on longwave, please consider helping us!

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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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The campaign to save RTE longwave

rte-logo-web1Bill Shepherd writes:

Hello Tom

I am one of the twosome who originated the campaign
against the closure of RTE1 Longwave.

We had been working on it for 4 years and more. We harnessed the press and the opinion of the Irish overseas who depended on this service.

Our website tells you the factors and motivation behind the move to close longwave originating in the EBU decision to go digital. We do not object to digital BUT NOT by reducing the choices offered to the listener especially by a service part funded by the public.

I include our website where the whole case is explored and recorded. we hope you may find it possible to display our link to your readers so that they can be made aware of this tendency.

http://savertelongwaveradio.com/

Thanks for the opportunity to bring this to your attention and good luck with your great website.

Happy to oblige, Bill, and many thanks for making us aware of your campaign to save RTE longwave. I’m sure there are a number of longwave listeners amongst our readership!

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