# BBC R4 LW service under threat...again



## Troppo

Seems that the current round of axe wielding at the BBC may effect the 198 kHz 500 kW LW service.

Apparently, the tx PA valves are getting hard to source, so the BBC has bought all known supplies....

When the valves are all used up, that will be it....

Seems the purchase of a solid state tx is too expensive....

A shame, as 198 is great to listen to from Europe...


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## Gareth Jones

Thats a shame - R4 is presently the best of the uk stations. I remember listening to R2 all day long (which was then on 198 Kcs) while in port in Italy, I connected the main TX antennae to the main receiver.


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## Robert Hilton

*Radio 4*

It would be the best if they didn't insist on broadcasting cricket well beyond where it is generally played. What's wrong with the Sports Channel?


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## Chris Isaac

Had its day!
It can all be received via Internet radio.


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## sparkie2182

Quite so, Chris.


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## Coastie

Troppo said:


> Seems that the current round of axe wielding at the BBC may effect the 198 kHz 500 kW LW service.
> 
> Apparently, the tx PA valves are getting hard to source, so the BBC has bought all known supplies....
> 
> When the valves are all used up, that will be it....
> 
> Seems the purchase of a solid state tx is too expensive....
> 
> A shame, as 198 is great to listen to from Europe...


It is available via the internet though.


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## Pat Kennedy

There was a discussion about this on R4 last week in which it was pointed out that the BBC had bought up all the available valves for the transmitters a while back, and that when they were gone, they were gone. At which point a chap from a European national broadcaster, I think it might have been Denmark, said that his organisation had forseen this several years ago and had renewed/converted to transistors at an acceptable cost.
It was not explained why the BBC had not done this, but reading between the lines it seems that a short term solution was more acceptable to the bean counters at the time.


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## G0SLP

Chris Isaac said:


> Had its day!
> It can all be received via Internet radio.


Not on line when at sea, though, Chris - there's a thread on this running at present 

http://www.shipsnostalgia.com/showthread.php?p=545916#post545916


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## andysk

G0SLP said:


> Not on line when at sea, though, Chris - there's a thread on this running at present
> 
> http://www.shipsnostalgia.com/showthread.php?p=545916#post545916


And not everybody ashore has access to the internet either, but even when they do, the download speed may well not be enough for streaming.

And why shiould those who can't or choose not to have internet access be deprived of R4 on LW, despite paying their taxes including a TV licence fee.

Rant over !


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## sparkie2182

Why should ANYONE pay for the T.V. licence??????????????


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## Nick Balls

Should we lose 198 I can see little or no point in the continuation of the BBC's transmission of the shipping forecast. Its long been superseded by Navtex and more sophisticated systems anyway and a large number of the areas have always been out of range of FM . So the only point appears to be as some nostalgic and curious 'pet' of the BBC's. the dictation speed of that forecast has long been dropped and I really doubt that many seafarers use the service anyway.


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## borderreiver

Found the Navtex system not that good. Small ships/boats 198 AM shipping forecast Great. Even my wife turns the bed side radio on for to listen to.


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## sparkie2182

"Found the Navtex system not that good"

Why so?


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## borderreiver

Even when set up correctly they do not receive all the information particular weather forecasts . This is on a few ships.


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## sparkie2182

Thanks for that......

Any particular reason given?......It's pretty basic stuff.


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## david.hopcroft

Gareth Jones said:


> Thats a shame - R4 is presently the best of the uk stations. I remember listening to R2 all day long (which was then on 198 Kcs) while in port in Italy, I connected the main TX antennae to the main receiver.


I did the same connecting main to the Broadcast receiver in the lounge. Great listening from Dakar northwards. Also had the advantage that I connected a shorter aerial to the auto alarm - cut down on the false alarms no end !!

David
+


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## 8575

There was nothing quite so comforting when coming in from deep sea to get the 198 shipping forecast plus the music that preceeded the 0600 broadcast and the music just prior to the late night forecast; can't remember the music names though. Back in the 1960s it was the light programme before moving to Radio 4. Also good for time checks by the way. When coasting it was essential listening at 0600 each day. Somehow it was all very reassuring.

But life goes on...


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## Ron Stringer

borderreiver said:


> Even when set up correctly they do not receive all the information particular weather forecasts . This is on a few ships.


Things must have gone downhill in the past few years then. We had our first one running in the lab about 1977/78 and left it on for almost 15 years. Printed out the forecasts and warnings from all the stations that we had selected and ignored all except distress-related messages from those that we had de-selected. It never broke down and only needed feeding with paper rolls. Latterly the printer was replaced by a TFT display, to save even that chore. 

I thought it was the bees knees and only bettered by the INMARSAT SafetyNet broadcasts, that had a much better range and no interference (QRM) or static (QRN) signal disruption.

I know that since then the equipment price has fallen dramatically but I hadn't been aware that the service standard had also fallen.


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## sparkie2182

A "must" for the recreational sailor too these days.


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## King Ratt

For Waighty. 

The theme tune for the 1500 metre broadcast was called "The UK Theme". A medley of traditional British songs played from1978 to 2006. It was then taken off the air and caused a rumpus with many of the listening public at its demise. It can be heard on Youtube.


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## Ron Stringer

King Ratt said:


> For Waighty.
> 
> The theme tune for the 1500 metre broadcast was called "The UK Theme". A medley of traditional British songs played from1978 to 2006. It was then taken off the air and caused a rumpus with many of the listening public at its demise. It can be heard on Youtube.


It wasn't just for the long-wave broadcasts, it was used on all the Radio 4 broadcasts - LW, MW and VHF. Used to precede the start-up of Radio 4 every morning. There was a big huff and puff when the BBC decided to drop it - petitions, the lot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_4_UK_Theme


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## Nick Balls

To sweet sound of Bing's 'Sailing By' at the end of the day will forever remind me of arriving on the bridge of a supply boat during mid winter just as those gentle tones concluded, followed by the 2nd mate saying 'I Fu**ing hate that bloody music' ..............I could see his point, being told its a force 11 is no fun when you are right there!


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## Ron Stringer

Nick Balls said:


> To sweet sound of Bing's 'Sailing By' at the end of the day will forever remind me of arriving on the bridge of a supply boat during mid winter just as those gentle tones concluded


Have to agree with you there, Nick. Somehow the sound of "Sailing By" on the LW broadcast in the cramped space of a radio room, or back in my cabin after coming off watch, had a comforting sound, however rough it was outside. I still listen to it at 0055 but in my home, over VHF or DAB, the magic isn't there.


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## steve Coombs

The Long wave transmission should be converted to DRM (not dab) which would enable the majority of the UK to be covered with one TX from Droitwich in near FM Quality, but of course we lag behind in planning and thinking as usual. Even the irish TX on 252khz is capable of DRM.


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## NoMoss

What might sound a rather trivial reason for lamenting the loss of GBR is that my alarm clock receives the signal to keep on time and to change when the clocks change. I wonder how many other people with clocks and watches will be affected?


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## david.hopcroft

It was on 200khz in earlier times. It was so stable that there was a frequency measurer or like at GKZ that was based on the signal.

The fate of our Main W5 RT (DSB) and WT transmitter was also in part sealed by a lack of valves. STC in Paignton wanted to ceased production of the PA's because only the PO used them (CV1630 ?). So they bought them all up.

I still have one - makes an impressive show !

David
+


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## R719220

Jeez! R4 LW is an institution that should never be closed. Whilst I am quite obviously in a minority of one, I have spent most of my adult life utilising R4 LW for what it was meant for!! TMS.... Test Match Special. I go back as far as Alvar Lidell and John Snagge reading the Wx report (when R4 was still on 200 Khz....1500 metres) and the greatest of the greats (John Arlott) doing the cricket commentary.

As much as I keep up to date (and sadly, I am an enthusiast) with Windows, Mac and Linux, it is heresy to tell me that I can get R4 on the internet. I know I can, but I don't bloody well want it on the internet. I want it on my transistor portable or car radio. It's what it was made for. I have many happy memories of motoring in northern France listening to TMS. And when I was at sea, hearing John Arlott being interrupted by Alvar Lidell/John Snagge taking 10 minutes off to read the Wx. Progress...So irritating then, how much to be welcomed now!


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## borderreiver

Could not agree with you more. Plus the Archers . Get all this half up the Norwegian coast plus Antwerp and again Northern France and on to the Swiss border. When driving in the UK R4 LW is not broken by local news from a area your are not


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## Ron Stringer

R719220 said:


> Jeez! R4 LW is an institution that should never be closed. Whilst I am quite obviously in a minority of one, I have spent most of my adult life utilising R4 LW for what it was meant for!! TMS.... Test Match Special. I go back as far as Alvar Lidell and John Snagge reading the Wx report (when R4 was still on 200 Khz....1500 metres) and the greatest of the greats (John Arlott) doing the cricket commentary.


Think that memory may be playing tricks there. In Alvar Liddell's time, the 200 kHz long wave transmitter was used for the National and Europe Programmes (during the War), after the War by the Light Programme and then for a time by its successor, Radio 2. The shipping forecast was also broadcast on those latter programmes, since it went out on 200 kHz. Radio 2 moved off 200 kHz in 1978, when Radio 4 took over residency. Some years later the frequency was later moved from 200 kHz to 198 kHz as a result of the reassignment of the LF band at a Geneva WARC (World Administrative Radio Conference).

Although it could be received over a wide area of Europe (and even down to the Azores) it never met its original design objective of providing coverage of the whole of the UK from a single transmitter, sited as near as possible to the mid-point of the major centres of UK population.


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## R719220

Ron

Don't have the slightest doubt that my memory plays tricks. Absolutely! However, I am well aware of the name changes 'twixt Light Programme, Radio 2 and Radio 4. Let's not complicate things here. None of this detracts from the fact(s) that I well remember Alavar Lidell, John Snagge and John Arlott broadcasting TMS, Wx reports, etc. As far as I'm concerned it provided damn good cover from anywhere I listened it until such a time as I had to tune in to the BBC World Service.

Apart from semantics, what exactly have I said that you disagree with? In truth, the great Alvar Lidell may have finished broadcasting when I first went to sea ('tho I can certainly remember his broadcasts) but John Snagge certainly had not! Nor had John Arlott. I am well aware of when the Beeb moved from 200 KHz to 198 KHz. In the overall scheme of things this was later rather than earlier....I had been finished at sea some 14 years by then!

Edit: In fact Alvar Lidell didn't retire until 1969, so for once my failing memory serves me correctly. I can still hear his voice, after reading the Wx saying...."and happy (or pleasant?) sailing gentlemen..."


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## Coastie

borderreiver said:


> Even when set up correctly they do not receive all the information particular weather forecasts . This is on a few ships.



Navtex has been taken out of at lest SOME Coastguard Stations. (Mind you, so has DF!)


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## Naytikos

To add my slant on the posts by R719220, I have fond memories of getting up at 0600 to listen to live cricket from Australia rebroadcast on 1500m (as everyone referred to it then) on the family Ecko battery receiver. This was in the fifties when I was at primary school the other side of Worcester from the Droitwich transmitter. Having acquired a crystal set as an 8th birthday present I soon found that I could expand it's medium-wave only coverage to long-wave by altering the aerial/earth connections. By this means I was listening when Jim Laker took 19 for 90. 
My first 'ship', a Grimsby trawler, had a receiver permanently tuned to 200Kc/s and piped throughout the accomodation; woe betide anyone who touched the tuning knob!


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## R719220

Sitting on the corner of my desk is an old Roberts transistor radio. It has four wavebands, LW, MW, SW and FM but is permanently tuned to 198 kHz. In all the years I've had it it has only been used a couple of times for a quick scan of the bands and to check it still works.

It is only switched on at test match time. It doesn't really have any other uses. Years ago, when test match cricket was free-to-air I used to watch TV with the sound turned off and listen on R4. Especially in the days of Brian Johnson.

When/if it closes I shall be bereft. I have just googled and been looking at a list published last year by the Telegraph of the top 30 BBC salaries. I bet they could easily afford a new solid state PA if they got rid of one of those.


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## Ron Stringer

R719220 said:


> Apart from semantics, what exactly have I said that you disagree with? In truth, the great Alvar Lidell may have finished broadcasting when I first went to sea ('tho I can certainly remember his broadcasts) but John Snagge certainly had not! Nor had John Arlott. I am well aware of when the Beeb moved from 200 KHz to 198 KHz. In the overall scheme of things this was later rather than earlier....I had been finished at sea some 14 years by then!
> 
> Edit: In fact Alvar Lidell didn't retire until 1969, so for once my failing memory serves me correctly. I can still hear his voice, after reading the Wx saying...."and happy (or pleasant?) sailing gentlemen..."


I'm not looking for a fight here. I was just pointing out that since the LW transmitter was not used for broadcasting Radio 4 until 1978, you didn't hear Alvar Liddell reading the weather on a LW Radio 4 broadcast. As you state correctly, he retired almost ten years before the change.

You are one ahead of me if you can remember when the WARC frequency plan revisions were implemented and the Droitwich transmitter was moved from 200 kHz to 198 kHz. Not too long ago but almost certainly longer than I might guess. Maybe 10 years?

There was another announcer who had a very distinctive voice and who often read the late night weather broadcast and who, sadly, retired/stopped doing those broadcasts only a few years ago. He was easy to listen to and the message came over with perfect clarity (and he always closed with a few words that sounded sincere, not as if they were read from a script). Since there has been a mish mash of people doing them and some sound as if they had been recruited from a Tesco's Customer Services desk. Some can't pronounce the letter 'R', some have trouble with the letter 'T' in the middle of words. Alvar Liddell and his generation of broadcasters would have been appalled.

Droitwich was one of those exotic names (Athlone, Hilversum, etc) that appeared on the dial of our battery-powered radio during the war. While I was working for Marconi's in Chelmsford, when looking through old books in an office there, I came across photos of the old 25kW long-wave 5XX installation at Chelmsford. The lead-in insulator for the station transmitting mast was/is still in the roof. That transmitter was the precursor of the Droitwich set up, since it was later transferred to the BBC and taken to Daventry with the intention of providing UK-wide coverage by the so-called National Programme. Unfortunately it was found that 25 kW was not enough.

With the intent of overcoming that deficiency the BBC ordered, and Marconi then built, a 200 kW replacement in 1933/34 which was installed soon after that, not at Daventry but at a new site in Droitwich. It was given the 5XX callsign of the original. However there were still 'holes' in the LW coverage around the UK and extra 'fill-in' MW transmitters had to be built in Scotland and elsewhere to provide the National Programme.

Since much of it happened in, or just before, our lifetime and had such a profound effect on people's lifestyles, I find that part of the history of radio to be fascinating. Some of the people that worked on those transmitters are still alive and turn up to the annual Marconi Veterans Reunion- although they are fewer every year.


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## R719220

Ron Stringer said:


> I'm not looking for a fight here. I was just pointing out that since the LW transmitter was not used for broadcasting Radio 4 until 1978, you didn't hear Alvar Liddell reading the weather on a LW Radio 4 broadcast....


Well, I'm not looking for a fight either. Like you, I have been listening to/aware of the BBC's Long Wave transmissions since I was a small child. Now, for the life of me I couldn't tell you when the Light Programme became Radio 2 became Radio 4. It isn't of any importance to me since they all broadcast Test Match cricket under whatever the service was called at the time. (Unless my memory has failed me again).

I will, therefore change my statement to say that I remember hearing Alvar Lidell, John Snagge et al on the BBC Long Wave transmission of 1500m/200kHz under whatever service/name it was at the time....1960/1964 and around those years by some margin.

I'm sure that most people would understand what I was talking about even if I should have said R2 or Light Programme and not R4. Thank you for pointing it out and be assured that the word _pedant_ never even crossed my mind....[=P]

As A PS... just had a quick google and apparently the date that 200kHz changed to 198 kHz was 1 February, 1988.


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## Troppo

198 kHz is real radio!

Yes, interesting that the BBC needs 2 fill in tx'ers, even with the main tx at 500 kW...

Alas, the BBC, like the ABC is now run by the IP obsessed.


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## Worldspan

*Light Programme*

On the subject of 200 kc/s, I can remember hearing (signal too weak to say "listening to") the _Archers_ via the ship's main aerial when we were in the Red Sea.

W


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## Troppo

Just back from a 6 week trip to Europe/the UK.

My European hire car's radio didn't have an LF tuner, and the clowns at the BBC have closed the 648 kHz relay of the world service...aarrgghh......



So short sited....idiots.


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## Moulder

R651400 said:


> That is perfectly correct HCD a company that builds high stability crystal controlled oscillators used the old 200 khz LW frequency as a comparator, 5 x 200 giving 1 Mhz.


Also as a matter of interest - the carrier was (and maybe still is) subliminaly modulated by a user because of the excellent UK footprint.

Steve.
(Thumb)


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## Chris Isaac

This is the BBC Home Service, and now "Luddites Corner" a programme dedicated to those that cannot embrace progress.
Listeners are advised to retard their sundials by 40 years before tuning in.


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## Ron Stringer

R651400 said:


> Was never quite sure the reason for the move from 200kc/s to 198kc/s


It came about when the ITU changed the arrangement of the LW broadcast band at a WARC (World Administrative Radio Conference). The spectrum was allocated with set frequency intervals between assignments. That meant the breaks came in (I think) 9kHz steps and the nearest to 200 kHz was 198 kHz, the next being 205 kHz.

The frequency separation between stations in the MF AM broadcast band (525 - 1605 kHz) is also 9 kHz.


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## sparkie2182

"This is the BBC Home Service, and now "Luddites Corner" a programme dedicated to those that cannot embrace progress.
Listeners are advised to retard their sundials by 40 years before tuning in."


Agreed..............and the U.K. licence payer foots the bill.


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## Mayday

Chris Isaac said:


> This is the BBC Home Service, and now "Luddites Corner" a programme dedicated to those that cannot embrace progress.
> Listeners are advised to retard their sundials by 40 years before tuning in.


Well said.

Jmac.


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## King Ratt

For Ron Stringer. Frequency separation in the UK and Europe is 9 kilohertz channel spacing in the Medium Wave Broadcast band. that is the separation on my car radio.


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## Ron Stringer

King Ratt said:


> For Ron Stringer. Frequency separation in the UK and Europe is 9 kilohertz channel spacing in the Medium Wave Broadcast band. that is the separation on my car radio.


Thanks for that, you are right in both cases. Must get my glasses out of the car where I left them. Can do it now, the rain has stopped at last. Even the wind has dropped now. It is more like Autumn here than Winter - we had storms here Boxing Day and then again this week on Tuesday and today.

Once I have the specs, I can go back into the post and correct it. Find it hard to read the small print without them and cannot be doing with keep enlarging the page to read the tiny bits and then reducing it again to see the full picture.

Spoke too soon, the rain is hammering against the windows again.


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## 8575

King Ratt said:


> For Waighty.
> 
> The theme tune for the 1500 metre broadcast was called "The UK Theme". A medley of traditional British songs played from1978 to 2006. It was then taken off the air and caused a rumpus with many of the listening public at its demise. It can be heard on Youtube.


Many thanks for that King Ratt


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## King Ratt

Waighty, you are welcome. Hope you heard it on Yootube OK.


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## Graham P Powell

Dave, Just looked at that picture of you holding the valve and its the same as the one I have here. CV1630. I'm not sure how I got mine. I have a massive tuning condenser as well. At GKA there was a slightly bigger valve in a glass case. I wonder what happened to it?.
rgds
Graham Powell


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## david.hopcroft

Graham

The 1630 was the final stage of the W5 WT and DSB RT. There were two of them, and the driver was a CV1627. Your condenser is probably on the W5 picture lurking in the back somewhere !

David
+


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## Graham P Powell

Dave, I have a feeling that my valve came from Portishead itself. The condenser was given me by "Jumping Jack" Todd who you may remember!.
LIke most GKA guys, Jack was really good at something else and in his case it was making and repairing Grandfather clocks.
rgds
Graham


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## Ron Stringer

R651400 said:


> Spoken like a true head in the sand one shipping company seafarer! Disciple similarly #44 immediately below.
> RTL France on 216 kc/s covering the entire country with complete clarity is now integrated into the internet with interaction world wide via broadband.
> Why not the BBC LW?


The cost of running the service will continue to rise as budgets become even further reduced because of the Euro's problems. (France has already had its credit status reduced). When there is already access via the internet and DAB, how high on the priority list will broadcasting to a shrinking audience sit? Austerity programme cuts to other services are already activated - it can't be long before the politicians decide that the taxpayer can no longer afford to support minority interests.


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## Troppo

DAB and internet access are all well and good, but how do you rx the BBC in Europe if you are travelling, using a simple portable radio or your car radio?

You use LW.


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## Troppo

Many radios in German cars have LW, as do some UK ones.

However, on my last trip, we had a volvo....no LW....grrrr!

And the dopey BBC had just closed the 648 kHz world service tx to Europe....


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## Troppo

If you can get a clear channel on MF, it is great.

I live in far northern Australia, and I can drive around and listen to the Sydney MF station on 702 kHz at night....that's about 2500 km... It runs 50 kW into a big vertical.


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## Jeff Taylor

Given that the Russians, and to some extent the Chinese, have cloned virtually all of the major amplifier and preamplifier tubes to serve the guitar amp and HiFi demand (my son engineers and manufactures custom guitar amplifiers), and since they have much of the original tube production equipment, one wonders how big an order it would take to induce them to produce a run of transmitter tubes. I suspect it wouldn't be that out of line.


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## Troppo

Of course the BBC want to close 198. The valve thing is only an excuse. They could get new valves made, or replace the tx with a solid state one.

Alas, the IP-obsessed run state broadcasting now...the ABC is the same.

Of course, every little village in outer-nowhere has internet access! No problem.

HF is so old fashioned....who needs it!

A mate of mine runs radio oz (ABC shortwave service) - the big thing now is local FM relays via a satellite feed....


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## mikeg

Jeff Taylor said:


> Given that the Russians, and to some extent the Chinese, have cloned virtually all of the major amplifier and preamplifier tubes to serve the guitar amp and HiFi demand (my son engineers and manufactures custom guitar amplifiers), and since they have much of the original tube production equipment, one wonders how big an order it would take to induce them to produce a run of transmitter tubes. I suspect it wouldn't be that out of line.


I'm sure one of the valve factories in Russia, China or Slovakia would happily provide a quote. Russian factories like Svetlana, Sovtek or Slovak JJ's and multiple Chinese manufacturing bases have already copied and manufacture multiple valve types successfully. As Jeff has said there is a good market in the music business with countless manufacturers of valve based equipment. On the HiFi front there are plenty of other valve based equipment manufacturers - off the top of my head, Jolida, Manley, Audio Research, Lumley, McIntosh, Herron Audio, Conrad-Johnson, Audio Research, VAC, Cary Audio, BAT, Rogue Audio to mention just a few. Come on BBC get your act together!


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## Ron Stringer

I would suggest that there is rather more to the cost of running a high-power LF transmitter station and its antenna farm than the price of the transmitter output tubes. Their availability (or lack thereof) is only a red herring. Once the station is closed, the land can be sold off for redevelopment and the staff redeployed elsewhere or made redundant. Big savings to be made at no cost to either the government or the BBC. 

Remember that radio listeners make no contribution to the running costs of the organisation - their revenue comes from TV licences and sales of programme material on CD/DVD at retail outlets and via the internet. (They used to receive a sizeable contribution from the Foreign Office towards the cost of running the World Service but that has now been withdrawn on austerity grounds.)


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## Troppo

Indeed.

I do not like the concept, as it encourages a them/us mentality, but they are certainly well organised and motivated...


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## Coastie

Ron Stringer said:


> "With the intent of overcoming that deficiency the BBC ordered, and Marconi then built, a 200 kW replacement in 1933/34 which was installed soon after that, not at Daventry but at a new site in Droitwich. It was given the 5XX callsign of the original. However there were still 'holes' in the LW coverage around the UK and extra 'fill-in' MW transmitters had to be built in Scotland and elsewhere to provide the National Programme"..


"This is BBC Radio Two on Fifteen Hundred Metres Long Wave and on 202 Metres Medium Wave in parts of Scotland."!


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## Coastie

steve Coombs said:


> The Long wave transmission should be converted to DRM (not dab) which would enable the majority of the UK to be covered with one TX from Droitwich in near FM Quality, but of course we lag behind in planning and thinking as usual. Even the irish TX on 252khz is capable of DRM.


The British Government are reluctant to go down the road of the vastly superiour DRM and prefer to use DAB. 

I wonder why?

Could it be because if all broadcasters used DAB only, we would not be able to receive any broadcasts from outside the UK?


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## Coastie

I remember on two occasions listening to Radio 4's longwave programmes on FM in my car, but I _was_ driving past the TX at Droitwich at the time!


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## Coastie

I remember the tooth filling incident.


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## Troppo

Update.

I was driving around Nice last week, and I could hear Drotwich (in the noise, admittedly) on my hire car radio - with a little 6 inch antenna. 

It was late afternoon. 

Impressive.


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## sparkie2182

Not often you see Nice and Droitwich in the same sentence.


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## trotterdotpom

sparkie2182 said:


> Not often you see Nice and Droitwich in the same sentence.


Nice to see Droitwich spelt correctly.

John T


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## Troppo

I'm really annoyed that the hire car I had in December didn't have an LF tuner...we were in the Somme...it would have been thumping in...


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## Troppo

Naaah, mate - it was a bloody Volvo...


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## Troppo

I had a new little Renault diesel in Nice - a very nice car.


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## Hugh Slavin

sparkie2182 said:


> Why should ANYONE pay for the T.V. licence??????????????


Sparkie, we must pay for a licence to get programmes without adverts. I was horrified to learn from my New Zealand domiciled brother that they had no public service broadcasts of any description. On the digital channels now what is the ratio -50/50 possibly? OK for the cup of tea makers, but what a waste of time.

Next - Radio 4 LW - I have just bought a new VW, and the salesman (young) could not understand what I was after when I found there was no longwave band. The days when I measured how far from home we were by the strength of the 200kcs signal may have be superceeded by how far through France southbound we can still pick up "Just a Minute", but it looks like we are not going to win. The French still have a couple of longwave stations, don't they? - all the best - H


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## Troppo

The Australian version of the BBC is funded directly by the Government.

No adverts.

No TV licence.

Lovely weather.


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## trotterdotpom

Troppo said:


> The Australian version of the BBC is funded directly by the Government.
> 
> No adverts.
> 
> No TV licence.
> 
> Lovely weather.


Also the ABC PO Box number in every State Capital is No. 9994, taken from the test batting average of Don Bradman .... 99.94

John T


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## Troppo

Ha ha ha!

(Applause)


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## Worldspan

Hugh Slavin said:


> I have just bought a new VW, and the salesman (young) could not understand what I was after when I found there was no longwave band.


I once had a car radio with a band spread 49m (broadcast band) short wave.

W


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## GBXZ

Hugh
We do have public broadcasting here in NZ, the National programme and the Concert programme are broadcast nationally on FM and MF. Both are funded by the tax payer, and there is no licence required. They as all government departments do always complain about poor funding etc, but they do a good job. Television (TVNZ) is all commercial, and again no licence is required, but you get what you don't pay for, so if you want any content you go to SKY.
Regards
R


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## harry pennington

In the 60s when in port i would hook up the main AE and get a good signal even as far as Cyprus and the east med. h


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## trotterdotpom

Apparently they tried introducing a Licence in Australia but nobody paid it. They tried intoducing fines but nobody paid them. They stopped bothering - she'll be right, Sport!

John T


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## spongebob

GBXZ said:


> Hugh
> We do have public broadcasting here in NZ, the National programme and the Concert programme are broadcast nationally on FM and MF. Both are funded by the tax payer, and there is no licence required. They as all government departments do always complain about poor funding etc, but they do a good job. Television (TVNZ) is all commercial, and again no licence is required, but you get what you don't pay for, so if you want any content you go to SKY.
> Regards
> R


Returning to NZ after seven years in Brisbane it is the ABC government funded TV channels that I miss the most. It's an excellent non commercial service offering continuous news broadecasts plus good Docs and entertainment mostly sourced from the good old BBC.

Bob


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## Bob Murdoch

trotterdotpom said:


> Apparently they tried introducing a Licence in Australia but nobody paid it. They tried intoducing fines but nobody paid them. They stopped bothering - she'll be right, Sport!
> 
> John T


I think it was in 1974 that the Aussie licence fee was scrapped as a vote getter naturally. It was a good idea to pay it before that, because they certainly hounded you for it and if not paid then they were after you for the fine! (EEK) Not that I had any trouble myself, being an extremely honest and law abiding citizen. (A)

I remember that the cancellation of the need for a licence was announced some weeks (months?) in advance of the legislation coming into force, but it was also announced that if your licence renewal fell due before that, then the full fee still had to be paid.

Back to Radio 4 I get excellent reception on LW here just outside Ghent.
Cheers Bob


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## Naytikos

_Posted by Bob Murdoch_


> Back to Radio 4 I get excellent reception on LW here just outside Ghent.


At least your ears won't Aix, Bob.

(Sorry, couldn't resist that)


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