The Long Wave Band covers frequencies from 144 kHz to 281 kHz and was once a popular band in Europe for broadcasting. Over the last decade or so, these transmitters have been switched off leaving listeners to find an alternative service on the FM band, DAB or online.
One of the big signals on the band is BBC4 Radio 4 from Droitwich in the east of England on 198 kHz. In May of 2023, it was announced that the BBC would stop scheduling separate content for Radio 4 on long wave and this is expected to happen at the end of March 2024.
There is a group lobbying for the continuation of the BBC Radio 4 long wave service and they have a website here... https://keeplongwave.co.uk/. As of mid-March 2024, they had a petition from 3000 people over a period of 8-months.
In September of 2024, the BBC News website had an article about the decline of the long wave band... https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66644709
In that article, a BBC spokeswoman told BBC News that ..."Long wave is coming to the end of its life as a technology," and that "Radio 4 long wave is currently set to continue broadcasting beyond March 2024."
Receivers... One of the key problems with listening to Long Wave transmissions now is the declining number of radios available.
Curry's is a large electrical retailer in the UK and would be an obvious source if say a member of the public was going to buy a radio. Out of the 67 or so radios that they currently have on offer, just one (Roberts Play) has the Long Wave option for listening. As fewer people listen to Long Wave then there is no reason for manufacturers to include it in their newer models which in turn means a declining audience.
Radio Teleswitch Service (RTS)... One of the primary reasons for continuing BBC Radio 4 transmissions at present (March 2024) is that the signal is used for timing on electrical meters in many domestic households.
This technology was rolled out back in the 1980's & 1990's and allowed simple basic meters to determine what the time was so that customers could make use of cheaper night-rate electricity.
The inside of one of these control boxes shows a ferrite rod antenna for receiving the 198 kHz signal on the Long Wave band.
At present, these old meters are being replaced with modern Smart Meters.
Date of Radio 4 Switch Off???... The Citizen Advice service in the UK offers the following... "You might have been told by your electricity supplier you need to have your radio teleswitch (RTS) or dynamically teleswitched (DTS) electricity meter replaced. This is because the radio frequency it uses to switch between peak and off-peak rates is being switched off.
The radio frequency is expected to be switched off in summer 2025. Ofgem, the energy regulator, currently expects all RTS and DTS meters to be replaced by March 2025."
Octopus Energy is a UK electricity supplier and offer the following more specific information... " The current planned end date for the transmission is the 30th June 2025."
Assuming the current programme of meter replacement stays on schedule then it looks as if the last BBC Long Wave transmission will be at the end of June 2025.
Video... Lewis, M3HHY has a very good video about the Droitwich long wave transmitter site.
Very sad to see the plans to axe the Longwave Broadcast Station. After thus cutdown, only Polish Radio 225kHz will be active in Europe. 73s, DL2GAN
ReplyDeleteAll very well till WIII or something similar kicks in, EMP's would follow, seabed fiber cables, likely chopped up in multiple areas, possibly in radius of 30 miles. Now i haven't forgotten musks starlink! but some how, i think, that also could be put beyond use.
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ReplyDeleteIf BBC 4 on LW shuts down, then I know next time not to tune in regularly online. Why waste time and energy tuning into a radio station that used to cover the Atlantic Ocean and the rest of the world? It seems that BBC 4 does not want International low frequency listeners anymore they want to fall apart in the ratings. Because of RTE 1 shutting down their long wave transmitter, I stopped listening to their station online. Same went with France Inter, DLF, and RTL. It just does not seem right listening to a former low frequency world band radio station online while others are left out in the cold because they cannot afford a decent Internet connection to tune in online.
I'm not interestedin wasting cel phone battery / cell phone data plans or power hungry
ReplyDeleteDAB receivers that die after a measly 4 hours.
Longwave is great.
Simple rx last for years on a few AA cells, no floppy and broken telescopic whips.
In times of disaster, MW and LW radio will be missed. It only takes one transmitter and lots of low cost portable receivers for people to be fed important information. Is no one considering that? It's a bad idea closing these transmitters.
ReplyDeleteCould not agree more! aa variation to this theme: in the early '90ties the yanks discovered tube-based radio systems inside a Russian MIG Foxbat jet. The were laughing how old fashion those rusky's were, still using 'silly outdated technology'.
DeleteLater on they discovered that these radio systems would survive and function after an EMP blast from nuclear bombs...
MW will continue for the foreseeable future. Longwave, even though I will miss it as it can be received such a long distance away, is obsolete technology, and limited as a lot of areas in the world are banned under intermational law from even using longwave. Longwave is inefficient from a transmission point of view, needing large amounts of power to get the signal out. Although the shutdown will be purely commercial, a low number of listeners compared to cost of replacing the transmitter ( and I do mean replace when I say that as I believe parts have become unavailable for the current transmitter ), there would also be climate change and energy usage reasons to switch off Longwave in preference for FM translaters. Some countries are even pushing for MW broadcasts and SW broadcasts to be killed. Look at Australia, Radio Australia shortwave broadcasts were killed several years ago.
DeleteNo, these transmitters would not survive a EMP blast. Even if the tubes did survive (they likely wouldn't if operating at the time), none of the electronics feeding the transmitter, the studios or anything would survive an EMP, so that argument wont wash.
Lets hope the Lobbying https://keeplongwave.co.uk/ continues and BBC Radio 4 LW hopefully may survive where other LW stations fell quiet..
ReplyDeleteWhen I am at sea I rely on the shipping forecast for safe navigation and the best way to get it is on Radio 4 long wave. It has always been there and you can recieve it over huge distances with simple equipment. I don't want to be without it !!
ReplyDeleteI get why it's being done. my Pocket LW reciever doesn't work when next to my computer, TV, In my car or my friend's EV car. if it's not possible to broadcast without being affected by modern tech, then I understand the reasoning. Plus if there's only a few 1000 LW users, dropping a few million on just them is hard to justify compared to spending the same on new programming that can be seen by millions of people
ReplyDeleteUnfortuantely the issue you have will become more and more common as switchmode power supplies from cheap areas continue to be made with less and less shielding and protection (RF I am referrign to) Manufacturers just don't care about AM (LW, MW, SW) listeners as this is all deemed as obsolete technology.
DeleteI see a few comments about how great long wave is and how simple it is. Maybe it appears that way from the Rx side, but the Tx side is different. Transmitting longwave is very power intensive. It's an older technology from the golden days of radio. Shortwave similar. Back to Longwave though. The transmitter is very expensive to run, and the current long wave transmitter, well parts have become virtually unobtainable for it so even if you wanted it to continue, the BBC would have to invest in a new transmitter in the very near future to keep it running. That's a pretty big investment for what essentially is a small audience that can be overed by MW and FM. I understand the sentimental value of the Longwave and even Shortwave, but from energy usage, climate change, and of course commercial point of view it is just not viable when the internet can get the signal into a good many more homes.
ReplyDeleteThe argument from the BBC that they can no longer get parts for the LW transmission equipment is rubbish. The transmission valves are still available and the manufacturers of these parts have said they would make more if anyone wanted them.
ReplyDelete1) 2 brand new GEC Marconi B6042 transmitters replaced the previous long-wave transmitters around 1985. For the time they were absolutely up-to-date and used the latest techniques. They were about 75% efficient (electrical power in, to RF power out) -nearly twice as efficient as the previous transmitters.
ReplyDelete2) As one of the team working for GEC Marconi I designed the high-power output circuits that provided 250KW RF carrier power.
3) On the previous transmitter the valves probably were glass. The current valves are ceramic and metal – no glass at all. The transmitters have one low power valve (1-2KW output) and one high power valve (290 KW continuous, 1.06MW peak output).
4) The main high-power power supply and modulator were replaced (at the BBC’s request) by an even more efficient solid-state series modulator and power supply around 1990-1991. I was part of that; sorry I can’t remember the exact year.
5) As the video points out, it was a particularly demanding part of the specification that the system could transmit (inaudible) low-bit-rate phase modulation – obviously for the Electricity Meter switching system. But anyone who knows their physics will realise that low electromagnetic frequencies (such as 198 KHz) would penetrate a short distance through sea water. A submarine would not need to surface or put any sort of aerial above the surface to receive “Droitwich”. I have neither military nor maritime knowledge but form your own conclusions.
6) The valves were single source and special to this transmitter. I have no knowledge of valve manufacturer, but I suspect that manufacturing replacement valves on a one-off basis - (needed at about 1 every year or 18 months) would be cheaper than a totally new solid state equipment able to deliver 540 KW continuous, 2 Megawatts peak RF power. The rest of the current equipment would probably run for decades more, with only occasional cleaning and with routine maintenance of the water-cooling system.
7) The system probably was EMP proof (in event such were needed). It’s a bit difficult to arrange a demonstration test of this! Highly likely the valves would survive; the routine protection circuits would help. The replacement solid state modulator might not, alas. Nor (in all likelihood) would any solid-state replacement transmitter.
8) Ending the 198KHz transmission will end the crystal set era. A crystal set can easily pick up Radio 4 LW- just as mine picked up the (then) BBC Light Program. I got into electronics building my first crystal set then my first valve radio then my first 1-transistor radio. This hobbyist entry route for young would-be electronic engineers would be closed for ever.