7 ms·
Long Wave radio era set to end with switch-off
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c74yn7v7k4qo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c74yn7v7k4qo
- ChrisArchitect 3mo agohttps://archive.ph/pNwm9 https://archive.ph/pNwm9
- _whiteCaps_ 3mo agoSeems like everyone's shutting down radio services. CHU and Weather radio in Canada too :(
- mschuster91 3mo agoThese transmitters consume insane amounts of power. Per Wikipedia, that's 500 kW of rated transmission power for this one [1], so probably a solid megawatt of grid power input. At 30 ct/kWh, that's 300€ per hour, 7200€ per day and about 2.6 million € a year - for a customer base that is only decreasing. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droitwich_Transmitting_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droitwich_Transmitting_Station
- reaperducer 3mo agoIs that emitted power, consumed power, or effective radiated power? Without knowing that, your power calculations have no meaning. Radio stations are usually measured by the last of those: Effective radiated power. You can have a radio station with a 50,000 watt ERP, but running only a 2,500 watt transmitter. For FM radio stations, it's all about the height of the transmitter above average terrain. For AM, it's about the ground conductivity and frequency. I once worked at a 1,000-watt AM station that had a signal much larger and clearer signal than the 5,000-watt AM station a few miles away. I'm not a radio engineer, but I'm sure there are plenty on HN who can correct and clarify what I've written.
- BuildTheRobots 3mo agoAlso bear in mind that Droitwitch is radiating 3 different services. Talk Sport (1053 kHz), Radio 4 (198 kHz) and Radio Five Live (693 kHz). My suspicion is that this means an exciter and a stack of amps per service, which then go through a two stage combiner and out to the antenna. There might even be a pair of exciters and amps per service depending on redundancy. The combiners (certainly for FM/DAB/TV services) also cause cumulative attenuation as the signal gets combined each time, so even if all 3 are radiating at the same power, the first in the chain might need twice as much amplification to make up for losses. edit: MB21 (of course) has some fantastic technical info about Droitwitch: https://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/gallerypage.php?txid=1454&pageid=2072 https://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/gallerypage.php?txid=1454&page... and there's some great pics here, too: https://www.radiorewind.co.uk/radio1/droitwich.htm https://www.radiorewind.co.uk/radio1/droitwich.htm I believe they're still using a pair of Marconi B6042 transmitters (250kW each, in parallel) to provide at least one of the services.
- fredoralive 3mo agoAs far as I know the medium wave services aren’t transmitted from the same antenna as Radio 4 LW, they have separate antenna, albeit with one of them (5 Live) doubling up as one of the support towers for the large long wave T antenna slung between the two large towers on site. Although I suspect the plan would be to move 5 Live to the currently unused Absolute / Virgin antenna eventually so they can demolish the long wave setup.
- BuildTheRobots 3mo agoYou're absolutely right and I was flagrantly wrong - Droitwich does use different antennas for the different LW and MF services (though still has to combine the output of two transmitters for the same service to increase the power and offer redundancy). I was very much getting myself confused with some of their other transmission sites where they take multiple DAB or DTV services, modulate, amplify and combine them and then broadcast through the same antenna.
- mschuster91 3mo ago
- yakkers 3mo agoDoesn't excuse CHU: two 3kW, one 5kW ERP. And by the virtue of shortwave propagation, it could be heard across the world. For the past month and a half (from when the news of its impending shutdown was revealed) I was regularly picking it up in Australia right up until the bitter end.
- ggm 3mo agoWave skip? (Naieve question)
- intrasight 3mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skywave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skywave Bounce off ionosphere
- yakkers 3mo agoHF propagates through skywave (most reliably from 5-30MHz), which is where the signal bounces off the ionosphere. In the MF (AM broadcast) band, you can observe this at night - in Australia I can pick up the 50kW Melbourne ABC station (public broadcaster) at 774kHz with a good radio, just about across the entire country. In the LF (longwave) band, the earth’s surface and the ionosphere start to behave more like a waveguide than skywave. This is actually more reliable/consistent than even HF, but you need massive transmitting antennas due to the large wavelengths involved. HF also generally wins for distance covered per watt - despite the massive power of Radio 4 longwave, I’d have no chance of hearing it reach Australia.
- jhoechtl 3mo agoEveryone is talking about the massive power of Radio 4 - it wasn't. Radio poland or algeria have much stronger LW broadcast.
- yakkers 3mo agoIt’s still quite a lot of power for AM (amplitude modulation) broadcast on any band. If Radio 4 was on shortwave with 500kW transmitters, I probably would have been able to listen in on my radio at home in Australia, no UK-located KiwiSDR required. Japan used to have a 500kW transmitter on 774kHz (mediumwave/AM broadcast band) for NHK Radio 2, and when the local broadcaster on 774 kHz went off air at midnight for scheduled maintenance, I could pick it up on my car’s stereo quite easily.
- PunchyHamster 3mo agoYou'd have to calculate it by watt per area covered; FM ones are of lower power but you just need more of them coz they have lower range.
- Marsymars 3mo agoThe parent comment was partially about Canada's VHF Weatheradio service - that was comparatively much lower power - the average station power was somewhere around 200 watts ERP.
- jmclnx 3mo agoThat is too bad, you would think these could be kept active for historical purposes. But seems these services are all being turned off even though I heard a few were very useful in this day and age.
- cjs_ac 3mo agoIIRC, their operation relies on enormous vacuum tubes that the BBC can’t get replacements for any more.
- RachelF 3mo agoIn some way it is short-sited, as radio is a good backup medium for global communications in case the entire Internet ever goes down. Vacuum tubes also aren't vulnerable to nuclear weapon electro-magnetic pulses. However, other than ham radio enthusiasts I guess no one listens to analogue radio anymore.
- jasonjayr 3mo agoI got my RTL-SDR to see what I could listen to, and by the time I tuned in, nearly all the short wave stations I could tune to were just broadcasting evangelical religious stuff, or other crazy conspiracy stuff. It's remarkable that these powerful stations spend most of their broadcast day transmitting that content.
- a57721 3mo agoMost international broadcasters have left the shortwave band quite some time ago, unfortunately. I think it is still easy to find BBC, China Radio International, Romanian radio, Radio Havana Cuba, but the list is relatively short (compared to 20 years ago). In the US, WRMI sells its air time to anyone at low prices. It's mostly religious stuff but there are some regular music shows too, I think.
- pessimizer 3mo agoThey still broadcast on FM.
- nickcw 3mo agoThe Droitwich transmitter used to transmit on exactly 200 kHz which I always thought was very cool, but it moved to 198 kHz in 1988 to better harmonize with European stations. The program was mostly the same as BBC Radio 4 but it used to diverge at certain times of day. I used to be woken up at 5am every day by my parents clock radio with the farming news which was very dull, but easy to sleep through.
- mark-r 3mo agoThanks for mentioning the actual frequency. The article says "long wave" many times without specifying what it actually means.
- LeoPanthera 3mo ago"Longwave", usually written without a space, is an informal and not well-defined term for radio frequencies lower than the AM broadcast band, which in Europe is known as "medium wave". In the USA there have never been commercial longwave stations, though various WWV time signals are broadcast in that band.
- reaperducer 3mo agoIt was my father's morning alarm, too. But he was a couple of thousand miles away in New York state. That, and Atlantic 252 (I believe now long gone) were what he woke up to every morning.
- gavinward 3mo agoDespite the name I would not have guessed you could pick up Atlantic 252 in the US. The quality of it wasn't great for listening to music. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_252 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_252 "Although the transmitter was in Ireland, the signal's reach meant that it was often looked upon as a "UK national station". Reception reports were received from such locations as Berlin, Finland, Ibiza and Moscow."
- davidferguson 3mo agoOnline stream for those without a LW AM receiver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugd8G5w-Sfo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugd8G5w-Sfo
- binaryturtle 3mo agoAs long we still have DCF77…
- goodthenandnow 3mo agoThat station is said to be one of the signals used by the UK’s nuclear subs to assess the state of the country in a war scenario. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort#:~:text=with%20the%20ability%20or%20inability%20to%20receive%20a%20bbc%20radio%204%20broadcast%20having%20particular%20significance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort#:~:text...
- 2b3a51 3mo agoSuspect it is the Anthorn station these days.
- jon-wood 3mo agoImagine if the end of humanity is caused by everybody assuming somebody else told the captains about this.
- MonkZ 3mo agoI hope they update their protocols
- dotwaffle 3mo agoI hope you mean updated... Otherwise we're about to find out what's in the letter of last resort they have onboard! ;)
- leoc 3mo agoRadio Society of Great Britain reaction: https://rsgb.org/main/radio-sport/rsgb-contest-club/bbc-long-wave-shutdown/ https://rsgb.org/main/radio-sport/rsgb-contest-club/bbc-long... Rather defensive press release thing from the BBC: https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/articles/2026/radio-4-broadcasts-on-long-wave-to-end https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/articles/2026/radio-4-broadc...
- downrightmike 3mo agoI wonder how many of the Van Allen radiation belts is held up by this
- UncleOxidant 3mo agoList of longwave radio broadcasters - including those that have shut down. The shutdown list is much longer than those remaining (only 7 remaining). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longwave_radio_broadcasters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longwave_radio_broadca...
- bilegeek 3mo agoIMO, when the last LW transmitter shuts down, the whole band needs to be reallocated to hams. Realistic small-ish antennas are shockingly doable with a capacitance hat, loading coil, and counterpoise.
- yakkers 3mo agoThere’s still a lot of utility stations in the LF/longwave band. Particularly time signals (WWVB in the US, ALS162 in France, DCF77 in Germany, JJY in Japan, etc.) and NDB beacons. At least in VK/Australia, there’s the 2200 meter band, but it’s quite limited (1W power limit, CW/digital only, 135.7–137.8 kHz). At the same time, as much as I don’t want the AM broadcast band to die, I’d love an amateur band in the lower/middle part of MF/MW.
- bilegeek 3mo ago> There’s still a lot of utility stations in the LF/longwave band. Particularly time signals (WWVB in the US, ALS162 in France, DCF77 in Germany, JJY in Japan, etc.) I meant just the broadcast band 148.5-283.5 kHz. (Though I'd love if 2200m and 630m were just a bit wider.) > and NDB beacons. Good point[1]. So 148.5-200 kHz in ITU Region 2 (and keep LowFER allowances on 160-190kHz as a consolation prize.) [1]https://www.dxinfocentre.com/ndb.htm https://www.dxinfocentre.com/ndb.htm
- ErroneousBosh 3mo agoIn the UK we have 2200m but it's 1W *ERP*, so you're probably running a good couple of kW to get there with any practicable aerial. We've also got a chunk just off the bottom of MW around 475kHz, which ought to be good for long-range night-time communications. It's licenced for CW, QRSS, and narrow-band digital modes.
- pfdietz 3mo ago> Particularly time signals Doesn't GPS utterly replace this?
- rafski123 3mo ago
- jimnotgym 3mo agoI'm very sad to see this go. I was listening to DAB in the car, not so far from here last weekend, and it kept cutting out. Whereas you could get LW everywhere! I developed a love of cricket on Test Match Special from a very young age. A tiny inexpensive radio could get it anywhere. I actually never minded the interruptions from the Shipping Forecast, the real reason they kept this service up for so long. I know there are many ways to get a forecast now, none of which is as reliable as radio 4.
- Scoundreller 3mo agoA/The real reason was that electricity meters were built around a part of the signal being used to switch between price tiers but recently phased out.
- Peanuts99 3mo agoDigital radio was always going to be crap, it doesn't degrade gradually as signal gets worse They should have just put all the money into a better 4G network and ran radio through that.
- fredoralive 3mo agoBit of hindsight bias there, DAB was first developed in the mid 1990s, ubiquitous fast wireless IP in everyone’s pockets is at least a decade, perhaps nearer to 20 years in the future. There are quite a few transitionary technologies that we needn’t have developed had we just waited for something better to come along (but without the R&D into some of them…). (Also doesn’t analogue FM also kinda cut off fairly abruptly?)
- expedition32 3mo agoI have a DAB radio and it gets constant interference. Meanwhile FM is stable. In the same set up. Really soured me on this digital radio technology.
- mybrowsercache 3mo agoFM stays listenable even with heavy distortions when you drive out of range and you can decide for yourself when you no longer tolerate the signal. Digital doesn’t give you warnings and just goes silent
- asdefghyk 3mo agoSide Note - VLF ( Very Low Frequency ) signals (3-30 kHz) propagate via surface wave or skywave, offering stable communication for submarines through saltwater.
- alentred 3mo agoThat's such a pity. Building a simple AM radio receiver was a simplest and coolest electronics project to do with kids. You need two transistors, a ferrite coil and a small set of simpler elements. And it is so simple you can actually explain what every part of the circuit does. And then the reward... Once built you could listen to BBC regardless of where you are in Europe. My kids just LOVED IT, no Netflix K-Drama replaces this experience. My daughter was listening to BBC on her radio every night going to sleep.
- raverbashing 3mo agoLook at this fancy pants needing a transistor for that /s (but yes I do miss those simpler days - but I guess the basics now is making an Arduino flash an LED)
- mpweiher 3mo agoWe did that in my physics high school class. Then we took away components until we had virtually nothing left, a diode I think(?), and still we had some signal. Turns out there was a transmitter on the top of the hill the school was also on. Fun times.
- HPsquared 3mo agoWith enough power anything is possible... If you put random vegetation directly on the radio mast (NOT recommended!), it makes sound directly- https://youtu.be/b9UO9tn4MpI https://youtu.be/b9UO9tn4MpI
- 8bitsrule 3mo agoHmmm, fancy indeed. With 150kW feeding a dipole at 700 feet, I imagine that a cat's-whisker [0] would have done well-enough in London... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_detector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_detector
- Symbiote 3mo agoYes, I did exactly this in England 30 or so years ago. It was one of the suggestions in an electronics kit for children, the one with springs to connect the components together.
- Symbiote 3mo agoBBC Radio 4 can be streamed here, including internationally: https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/live/bbc_radio_fourfm https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/live/bbc_radio_fourfm Or mplayer 'https://a.files.bbci.co.uk/ms6/live/3441A116-B12E-4D2F-ACA8-C1984642FA4B/audio/simulcast/dash/nonuk/pc_hd_abr_v2/aks/bbc_radio_fourfm.mpd' vlc 'https://lsn.lv/bbcradio.m3u8?station=bbc_radio_fourfm%22&bitrate=320000%22' (Links from https://garfnet.org.uk/cms/tables/radio-frequencies/internet-radio-player/bbc-national-and-local-radio-dash-streams/ https://garfnet.org.uk/cms/tables/radio-frequencies/internet... )
- karambahh 3mo agoFor other readers, please be aware that only BBC World & BBC Radio 4 can be streamed outside of the UK. For about a year now, BBC has been aggressively geoblocking other radios.
- danielabinav160 3mo agoLW is still a fallback when internet and mobile go down simultaneously. Quietly important.
- mybrowsercache 3mo agoListened to this in Denmark in the car just yesterday. It usually sounded awful but was the only English language news source in the car, so I’m going to miss it. Since the BBC sold the transmitters and rented them back, let’s hope we don’t get US-style right wing talk radio as a replacement. At the moment they are running a goodbye loop, so you can still hear something. At least there’s Radio Caroline still on 648kHz AM, so there will be a British voice still on the air.
- ransom1538 3mo agoWhy would humans need to communicate on channels bots cannot control?
- microgpt 3mo agoWhy do you think bots don't control the mass media, of which longwave is just one outlet? Go to the website of any outlet that has longwave, read the AI nonsense there, realize they're transmitting the same on longwave.
- plantain 3mo agoNo more foxhole radios for the PoW https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxhole_radio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxhole_radio
- nenadg 3mo agoThey can pry long wave radio from my cold dead hands
- sidderl 3mo agohttp://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901 http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901 One can listen to the live closure broadcast via this WebSDR website, by tuning it to AM 198 kHz. "You are listening to 198 kHz longwave. BBC Radio 4 is no longer available on this frequency. However, you can find Radio 4 many other ways. You can find BBC Radio 4 online, via BBC Sounds. Radio 4 is available on DAB digital radio and through your digital television, including freely. Radio 4 is also available via FM radio, on 92 to 95 MHz and 103 to 105 MHz. Plus, you can listen via your smart speaker: just say 'play Radio 4'. Information on how to listen can be found on the BBC website, at bbc.co.uk/reception."
- KaiserPro 3mo agoThere is precisely one thing that keeps 198LW online: economy seven. I think the reason why its been left on so long is that it took so long to migrate to digital meters https://tradehelp.gdhv.co.uk/support/solutions/articles/79000145364-radio-teleswitch-economy-7-meters-smart-meter-migration https://tradehelp.gdhv.co.uk/support/solutions/articles/7900... I am also annoyed that I missed the last signal.
- sidderl 3mo agoNot quite the same as hearing it live, but the final programme transmission has been recorded here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlflWWZpb30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlflWWZpb30
- icosian 3mo agoI'm sad to hear the service has gone off the air. I was a constant listener to BBC Radio 4 on 198 kHz growing up in Dublin. It was a valuable window onto the world. Listening to the last transmission there, I note that the continuity announcer, (the Irish) Al Ryan, signed off with 'oíche mhaith', i.e. 'goodnight' in Irish. A nice nod, I think, to all the former LW listeners in Ireland.
- Symbiote 3mo agoThe last signal will be on 30 June. It's (apparently) broadcasting a loop listing alternative ways to listen to Radio 4 now.
- jonplackett 3mo agoIt’s funny that at just the phrase ‘Long Wave’ my mind jumps back the “long wave radio Atlantic 252”. I miss the days of jingles.
- FerretFred 3mo agoThat's a real shame given the distance LW could travel: I wonder what they're going to use the frequency band for? I've tried using DAB on so many occasions and thrown it out in disgust. > Given these factors, investing in upgrading the LW equipment is not considered a cost-effective solution for licence fee-funded services And that's another problem - maybe the Government should step in and set up a proper Civil Defence-style warning/information system - we may well need it in a few years - it's a shame our official National Broadcaster can't fulfill the role.
- petilon 3mo ago> Terrestrial television will surely follow I hope not. I am saving $80 per month by recording over-the-air TV using Tivo. I only want the major networks, and recording them over the air is free. Tivo DVR is great for OTA and their service is still active but sadly they have stopped selling their DVR.
- amiga386 3mo agoThat's the end of the world, then. The British nuclear deterrent will launch when Radio 4 on long wave stops. https://www.forcesnews.com/services/navy/nuclear-promise-letters-last-resort https://www.forcesnews.com/services/navy/nuclear-promise-let... > The process by which a Trident submarine commander would determine if the British government continues to function includes, among other checks, establishing whether BBC Radio 4 continues broadcasting [on long wave] > Submarines on patrol were reported to have briefly gone on nuclear alert in 2004 when Radio 4 went off the air for 15 minutes due to a power cut.
- WarOnPrivacy 3mo agoDroitwich uses two metre-high ceramic and metal valves, which are no longer made. said valves: https://www.radiorewind.co.uk/images/1983027.jpg https://www.radiorewind.co.uk/images/1983027.jpg https://www.radiorewind.co.uk/images/1983023.jpg https://www.radiorewind.co.uk/images/1983023.jpg from: https://www.radiorewind.co.uk/radio1/droitwich.htm https://www.radiorewind.co.uk/radio1/droitwich.htm https://i0.wp.com/www.richardmudhar.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Droitwich_valve.jpg https://i0.wp.com/www.richardmudhar.com/blog/wp-content/uplo...
- eichin 3mo ago"valves" being british for vacuum tubes (though there's an entire generation of scifi where future computers are built around miniaturized valves even among american authors for some reason, Asimov in particular)
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- WarOnPrivacy 3mo agoBBC Radio 4 is moved to the inactive chart of the Longwave Broadcaster List (153kHz-279kHz) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longwave_radio_broadcasters#List_of_stations_that_have_closed_or_are_inactive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longwave_radio_broadca... Seven stations remain; they're in Algeria, Mongolia (x3), Morocco, Poland, Romania. Apparently, public longwave radio broadcasters were never a thing in the Western Hemisphere. Too bad.
- Saydin 3mo agoThere's something beautifully democratic about Long Wave that we're losing. No subscription, no data plan, no app updates—just a piece of wire and a germanium diode, and you're connected to the world. The Droitwich transmitter has been a quiet workhorse for nearly a century. Those valves in the photos are practically artifacts now, but they've been doing their job reliably, day in and day out. There's a certain poetry in that—technology that just works without needing a firmware update. I grew up listening to the Shipping Forecast on Long Wave, and there's still something magical about that litany of sea areas—"Viking, North Utsire, South Utsire..."—broadcasting to fishermen, sailors, and insomniacs alike. It's the kind of public service broadcasting that feels almost alien in our targeted, algorithm-driven media landscape. And yes, the irony that we're shutting down the same technology that would be our last link to civilization in a nuclear scenario isn't lost on me. Progress, I suppose. But I'll miss the hum.
- librasteve 3mo agogoodbye old friend