Closure of Skywaves DX Forum - Oct 2026

In the middle of October 2026, the SKYWAVES DX FORUM website finally closed down after 30-years in existence.

Here are some stats...

50,252 total posts / 11,012 topics / 490 registered members

1995 — "Skywaves" begins as the monthly bulletin of the British FM & TV Circle, a hobby radio club started at the end of the year. The first month: 18 members.

Late 1990s — Editors send their columns in on floppy disc. Cutting-edge stuff at the time. Membership passes 100 within months.

2000s — The printed bulletin gives way to online logbooks and Yahoo groups, and the club drops its British-only name in favour of simply "Skywaves", with its members being welcomed from around the globe.

Today — An active forum covering Band II FM, TV DX, OIRT, low VHF utilities, DAB, long, medium and short wave, NDBs, pirate radio and ham radio.

14 Oct 2026 — After 31 years, the forum closes its doors.

The Skywaves DX Forum was mainly used by the radio listening community who were interested in unusual or long distance reception reports.

Forums like this were probably at their peak around the years 2005 to 2015 but a lot of that information has now moved to a plethora of pages and groups on platforms like Facebook.

The decision to eventually close the Skywaves DX Forum website was due to problems with the hosting company and costs which is always an issue for what it a free service to end users.

The group have now moved to the Discord Server where a new community is being established.

Long Wave service of BBC R4 to close 27th of June 2026

The BBC in the UK recently announced that their Radio 4 service on 198 kHz will finally shut down on Saturday 27th of June 2026 at 00:00 UTC. It will join a list of other radio stations in Europe that have ceased using the Long Wave broadcast band.

In a statement, the BBC said... "Radio 4’s Long Wave (LW) service will close on the 27th June 2026. We will broadcast daily on-air reminders to help everyone switch to other ways of listening.

The company that owns and operates the LW broadcast equipment has confirmed that the system is reaching the end of its life. As LW is an older broadcasting technology, recent years have seen a decline in listener numbers, with the majority now opting for FM and DAB digital platforms. Given these factors, investing in upgrading the LW equipment is not considered a cost-effective solution for licence fee-funded services. "

While most media sources focus on the Droitwich transmitter, BBC Radio 4 operates from three separate locations.

The main transmitter running 250 kilowatts operates from near Droitwick to the south of Birmingham.. This covers all of England and the signal spills over into Ireland, the north of France and Belgium and the Netherlands.

There are two other transmitters on the same frequency transmitting with 25-kilowatts from Burghead and Westerglen in Scotland.

It's very likely that this BBC signal on 198 kHz would have closed years ago if it wasn't for the fact that the signal was being used for switching electricity meters around the country. I covered this in a previous post.

The last few signals on the long wave band that can be heard in Europe are...

153 kHz - Chaîne 1 in Algeria
153 kHz - SRR Antena Satelor in Romania
171 kHz - Radio Méditerranée International in Morocco
225 kHz - Polskie Radio in Poland
252 kHz - Chaîne 3 in Algeria

Outside of Europe, one of the last countries still using long wave is Mongolia where the extra distance of long wave signals is useful for this huge country.

Links...

1) BBC statement on R4 closure on long wave.

QRPproject Shop closes down - Jan 2022

I noticed a few days ago that the QRPproject shop in Germany closed down at the end of 2022.

The QRPproject was described as follows..."QRP and Homebrew HAM Radio by DL2FI and DL7NIK QRP Made in Germany and more QRP Kits, qrp transceivers, accessories, mini keyers dealer for antennas, atu and more accessories".

It's impending closure was first announced back on the 1st of November 2022.

The website with the closure announcement is here... https://www.qrp-shop.biz/

Their information website is still active for the moment... https://www.qrpproject.de/UK/indexuk.html

RTE to cease their DAB service at the end of March 2021

The Irish state broadcaster RTÉ have announced that their DAB digital radio service will cease at the end of March 2021. The DAB service was only transmitted from five sites near major cities and only covered 54% of the Irish population.

Sites: Three Rock (Dublin - 14kW), Clermont Carn (5kW), Kippure (15 kW), Spur Hill (Cork - 10kW), Woodcock Hill (Limerick - 10kW).

A recent JNLR report, Radio in a Digital World, compiled by Ipsos/ MRBI, found just 0.5% of adults listened to DAB. 77% of adults in Ireland listen to radio on FM.

Analysis... I'm sure there will be some people outside of Ireland who will look at this story in terms of a digital DAB V analogue FM narrative and conclude incorrectly that the attempt to replace FM with DAB failed in Ireland.

The reality was that DAB as a service was never really rolled out in Ireland and nearly half the population couldn't receive it. The radio stations on the DAB platform were the usual RTÉ suite of stations on FM as well as a few more like RTÉ Gold, RTÉ 2XM, RTÉ Radio 1 Extra, RTÉ Pulse, and RTÉjr Radio. There were no commercial radio stations so the choice was extremely limited.

DAB really offered very little incentive to buy a digital radio as nearly everything of interest could be heard nationwide on the FM service which has saturation coverage. As a service, it might have been interesting back in say the 90's but in todays world of podcasts, audio books, streaming services, smartphones, etc, a DAB radio looks like an antique.

I remember showing a DAB radio to someone back around 2005. The first question I got was 'Can I get BBC radio on it?'. Answer no, just the usual RTÉ stations plus a few more. No wonder it failed.

Maybe there will be a new digital standard like DAB+ introduced in Ireland in the future but it looks like the analogue FM service from 88 to 108 MHz is going to be around for a long time.

Timeline of DAB in Ireland
On-Air (tests): January 2006 to June 2006
On-Air (tests): December 2006 to November 2008
On-Air (public service): December 2008

On-Air (tests): to March 2001

Closure: April 2021