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Weather and technology permitting, our programmes on 648 kHz will commence originating from the Ross Revenge at 7.00 AM on Friday 22nd December.
The changed schedule for the day will be :
7am Johnny Lewis
9am Top Fifteen
10am Ray Clark – with the official launch at midday.
2pm Kevin Turner
5pm Resume normal programmes
No doubt Bob Lawrence, Martin Fisher and Jerry Wright will personalise their evening shows to mark the day.
Of course we are delighted to have found and secured what must be the best possible AM transmission site for our service. We thank Cobra Mist Ltd for this facility whilst noting that this is a private site which cannot at this time be visited.
So, another date for the Radio Caroline calendar of events and the inevitable question. Where do we go from here?
On the British DX Club (BDXC) Yahoo Group Nick Buxton reports that BBC AM stations in Lincolnshire and Nottingham are to close
In his post Nick says:
In an e-mail reply today (29/11) from Andy Roche, BBC R. Lincolnshire’s Acting Programme Editor, he says 1368 kHz will cease broadcasting their programmes on 6 January 2018. It will continue until 28 January 2018 running a continuous loop advising re-tune to FM/DAB. They will shortly be running a campaign to let people know.
In a very brief e-mail reply from BBC Radio Nottingham, enquiring about closure of their 1584 kHz service, they advise “No transmission from late December. Re-tune now”
No reply received from BBC R. Humberside concerning their 1485 kHz transmitter….
A test signal with continuous music and announcements reported today.
Reception reports on Facebook from the UK, Holland, Belgium, France and Austria.
Some reports from mainland Europe refer to a co-channel Romanian or Slovenian station.
I think this is at a lower power than the permitted 1 KW.
Much excitement in anorak circles!
Note that if you’re interesting in monitoring 648 kHz but live outside the broadcast footprint, you can easily listen and record via the U Twente WebSDR.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Andy (G0FTD), who writes:
Back in the 1970’s, there was a rather strange medium wave transmitter on
1296Khz. Originally I think it was in Sussex, and then changed to Orfordness
in Suffolk UK.
It was a weird thing.
I think it was “owned” by the UK’s Diplomatic Wireless Service, not the BBC.
It seemed to be fairly random in its transmissions, and often sent the letter
V in a strange bong-bong-bong-BONG! loops for hours.
Programmes were English by Radio, and a seemingly random mix the BBC World
Service, and BBC Radio 1 (I think).
It slso had a creepy signature tune for the English by Radio programme,
and the modulation had an odd tinge to to it, like it was slightly over modulated.
At some time (the 80’s), I think it’s QTH changed, and the pause between the
letter V being sent was shortened from about 3 seconds to 1 second.
I understand that it had a sharp antenna beam, towards easter Europe, and
was not widely heard in the UK. Those of us that lived in the south east
of the UK could of course hear it off the back of it’s beam.
I’ve never ever seen it mentioned on any radio forums, no archive recordings
seem to exist of these creepy English by Radio them tunes or programmes,
or any off air recordings.
Saying that, I did come across a studio copy of the interval signal, but no
details about it. (But I knew what it was).
Sometime about 1995 I think it might have been mothballed, and lays ready
for possible future use should there be a need to by the DWS.
If you can help Andy identify, or at least provide more information about this station, please comment! I would love to know about this broadcast service myself.
A new transmitter will be launched in Lithuania this week for broadcasting the Russian and Belarusian-language services of the US Congress-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) aimed at countering Russian propaganda, reports LETA/BNS.
It will replace a 52-year-old transmitter in Sitkunai, close to Kaunas, that has been transmitting programs for listeners in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova at a lower quality.
The medium wave (AM) transmitter was manufactured some five years ago and was used by the US Defense Department in Western Germany to broadcast a radio program for American troops stationed abroad.
The transmitting power of the new device is set at 75 kilowatts, the same as that of the old one, but it can be increased up to 300 kilowatts if needed, Rimantas Pleikys, the owner of Radio Baltic Waves International, said.[…]
Many thanks to Rocus de Joode who shares the following announcement and request for listener reports:
(Este mensaje seguirá en español.)
Dear radio friends,
I received your Email addresses from Jeff White, from WRMI in Florida.
[W]e would like to inform you about a possible new initiative for radio transmissions via mediumwave to Venezuela on 800 kHz.
We will perform test transmissions starting on Wednesday August 30th for seven days long at 1600 hours local time (2000 UTC). As you can understand we would like to receive test reports in order to verify the quality of reception.
The transmissions will be 30 minutes long and we will use two different antenna systems.
Therefore we ask you your kind cooperation to monitor as much as possible and report this back to us via this special Email address: test800am@gmail.com
This is our test schedule:
Dates of transmission: 30 August – 06 September 2017 (7 days)
Frequency: 800 kHz
Time of test broadcast: 1600-1630 LT / 2000-2030 UTC
Antenna 1: 1600-1615 LT / 2000-2015 UTC
Antenna 2: 1615-1630 LT / 2015-2030 UTC
Program content: General announcements and Music
We would like to receive your reception reports in the following order:
Dates of listening
Time of listening
Your location or city name
Reception quality in SIO or SINPO for both Antenna 1 and Antenna 2.
If possible also an S-meter reading
Audio quality
Type of radio used
Type of antenna used
We would appreciate if you also could inform other DX colleagues and radio enthusiasts you know.
We are also curious how the signal will perform while driving in a car.
On behalf of the initiators of this project I thank you already in advance for your cooperation!
73 from Rocus de Joode
Estimado amigo de la radioescucha,
Por medio de este mensaje me complace informarle acerca de una posible nueva iniciativa para transmisiones a través de la onda media para Venezuela en los 800 kHz.
Iniciaremos nuestras emisiones de prueba a partir del miércoles 30 de agosto durante 7 días a partir de las 16:00 hora local (20:00 UTC). Como bien comprenderá nos gustaría recibir sus informes de recepción de estas emisiones de prueba para así verificar la calidad de la recepción.
Las transmisiones tendrán una duración de 30 minutos y utilizaremos dos sistemas distintos de antena.
Le pedimos su amable cooperación en monitorear lo más posible y enviarnos sus informes de recepción
Fechas de transmisión: del 30 de agosto al 6 de septiembre de 2017 (7 días)
Frecuencia: 800 kHz
Hora de la trasmisión de prueba: 1600-1630 HL / 2000-2030 UTC
Antena 1: 1600-1615 HL / 2000-2015 UTC
Antena 2: 1615-1630 HL / 2015-2030 UTC
Contenido del programa: Información de interés general y música
Nos gustaría recibir sus informes de recepción en el siguiente orden:
Fecha de la recepción
Hora de la escucha
Su localidad o ciudad
Calidad de la recepción en los códigos SIO o SINPO tanto para la Antena 1 como la Antena 2.
de ser posible, también la indicación del nivel relativo de la señal recibida – medidor S
Calidad del Audio
Tipo del receptor utilizado
Tipo de antena utilizada
También apreciaríamos mucho si usted pudiera informar sobre estas transmisiones a otros Dxistas y entusiastas de la escucha de la onda media que usted conozca. También estamos muy interesados en saber sobre la calidad de la señal cuando se escucha a bordo de un automóvil en marcha.
En nombre de los participantes en este proyecto quisiera agradecerles de antemano su amable cooperación!
My schedule last week made it impossible to carve out the dedicated time I needed to begin an S-8800 evaluation.
Yesterday, however, I spent the afternoon with my family at Richland Balsam, the highest point on the Blue Ridge Parkway (6,000′ ASL) and a completely RFI-free zone. I brought the Tecsun S-8800 and a few other portables along for the ride–namely the Digitech AR-1780, the C.Crane CC Skywave and the Panasonic RF-2200.
I had just enough available space on my smart phone to record this one short video:
Let’s be clear: comparing any modern radio with the RF-2200 on mediumwave is hardly fair.
For one, the RF-2200 has been out of production for a few decades.
Secondly (what I never finished saying in the video is that) the RF-2200 has a large rotatable ferrite bar antenna that provides excellent gain. The RF-2200 simply wipes the floor with all of my modern portables as their ferrite bar antennas are a fraction of the size.
In other words, the RF-2200 was engineered to rule mediumwave like a boss.
On shortwave, the RF-2200 does a fine job, but isn’t nearly as accurate and stable as modern DSP receivers.
Spoiler alert
Still, as the video indicates, my final review of the Tecsun S-8800 will indicate that it is not a receiver for the serious Mediumwave DXer. It’s been my experience that few shortwave portables are excellent on both HF and MW.
At home, tuned to local station 880 AM.
Of course you can’t tell from the video, but the S-8800 actually sounds brilliant when tuned to a relatively strong/local AM station, but either a lack of sensitivity or internal noise makes MW DXing a challenge.
I spent the better part of two hours yesterday evaluating its daytime MW performance–the video is pretty indicative of my findings. The S-8800 struggles with weak stations, but does a fine job with strong ones. It’s overall audio fidelity almost matches that of the RF-2200 when tuned to a strong broadcast. I’ve yet to test evening MW
The S-8800 still has some birdies on MW, but they’re not the loud warbling kind found on the previous model. Tecsun did properly address this, though in full disclosure, I haven’t fully explored the shortwave bands yet.
Shortwave?
I suspect the S-8800’s performance on shortwave will be much better than mediumwave because the previous S-8800 showed excellent results. As long as sensitivity wasn’t harmed while addressing the DSP birdies, I expect it’ll give the PL-880, PL-680 and Sony ICF-SW7600GR a run for their money.
Still…the lesson learned yesterday?
The Panasonic RF-2200 is the indisputable champion of mediumwave!
