Famous European AM stations

[JHGibson]

For interesting histories of some of the main AM stations go to:

https://goodbyeam.worldpress.com/page/9/

I was interested to learn that in WW2, the BBC syncronised the frequency of several stations in different parts of the country to prevent them being used by the enemy for DF navigation.

The BBC also assisted Radio Athlone in setting up relay stations on the same frequency in the North of England and in Scotland for the same purpose. Latter Radio Athlone was syncronised with stations in Dublin and Cork for the same reason.

John.

[JHGibson]

I had difficulty with my original website location, try
https://goodbyeam.worldpress.com
John.

[paulsherwin]

The BBC networks were all synchronised until privatisation of the transmission network about 20 years ago.

[Nuvistor]

https://goodbyeam.wordpress.com

I could not get the links to work, the above link works on my computer.
Frank

[AC/HL]

Yes, that one is OK, ignore the links in the earlier posts.

[colly0410]

Thanks for the link, I'm finding it interesting..

[Restoration73]

The synchro bit used the telephone network. Amazingly the same network was later used to provide national uk syncs for BBC1 network programs e.g. "Nationwide", although failures did occur.
Radio 1 was synchro on 1214, although not in sync with Radio Tirana in the background!

[colly0410]

Originally Posted by Restoration73

Radio 1 was synchro on 1214, although not in sync with Radio Tirana in the background!

Here in Nottingham area we were in a R1 mush zone, I presume that Droitwich & Moorside Edge came in about equal strength & caused fading & distortion. Problem was solved when R1 went to 275/285 metres in the late 70's, Droitwich 285 metres was perfect with no fading or distortion. 275 still had distortion & fading, I presume it was Moorside Edge & Brookmans Park interfering with each other..

[Nicklyons2]

In the early years of the 'tone lock' system there was an effect called 'door bang'. Because the tone was multiplied up at the transmitter to provide the carrier reference, if there was phase jitter on the phone circuit over which the tone was being sent the phase multiplied up was a frequency shift. This pulled the transmitter off frequency and back over a split second; the effect, on a listener's receiver, sounded like a banging door!

[Restoration73]

The problems affecting R1 became those of R3 when it moved to 1215. There was a brief period when two different transmitters carried R4 and WS (probably Crowborough) very late at night on 1457 - this ended when R4 Midlands left 1052 (there was a taped loop message) and WS took it up. European Service also had 1088 at the same time as R4 Scotland back in the 70's. After 1978, there were plenty of R1 mush zones on 1053 and 1089 especially on a car radio in the south here.

[Nymrod121]

I seem to recall from my Crowsley Park days tbat synch group tolerance was +/- 0.05 Hz for BBC national networks, +/- 0.1Hz for non-synch ... Ian (G4JQT), can you confirm/edit?

[ Radio Tirana ... +/- a lot more. "Na-na-nee-na na-na .. naa .. naa" ]

Best wishes
Guy

[Ian - G4JQT]

Yes, that seems correct, although the BBC had one local station (Radio Derby?) that drifted/cycled something like +2/-5 Hz for years and years.

A colleague said the 0.05 Hz was arrived at after listening tests deemed that most people could tolerate a distorting fade every 20 seconds or so, that lasted only a few seconds, and it wasn't too technically difficult to achieve.

On the other hand some pirate ship stations had a deliberate offset of about 30 Hz which was ok because the beat was too low to be reproduced by most radios' speakers. They couldn't achieve the 0.05 Hz tolerance anyway, even if the foreign co-channel station could, so a deliberate 'inaudible' 30 Hz offset was a good compromise!

I think the international limit is meant to be +/- 5 Hz, or maybe it's +/- 10 Hz. That's certainly what my Ofcom RSL transmitters are required to keep to.

Regards,

Ian

[BGmidsUK]

Radio 1 reception was always better on 1089 I think but even this was awful at night, lots of fading and interference once it started to get dark. This was high up on the Eastern edge of Leicester. Stations from all over western Europe came in well at night, I often listened to YLE and other stations from the northern countries, Radio Moscow and French/German stations also provided good evening listening.

Lazer 558 and Atlantic 252 were favourites for music and the latter always provided good (enough) reception, even at night.


Brian

[Restoration73]

As a keen DXer in the 80's and 90's, the following offered excellent English language
programmes with very strong signals;
Sweden 1179 kHz
Norway 1314 kHz (sunday only)
Belgium 1512 kHz
All had programmes for DXers

[hannahs radios]

I remember all those stations. I also remember that radio Moscow had a DX show as well. I lived in Newbury in Berkshire then and radio 1 suffered from phase distortion on both 275 and 285 meters even inthe day there was a little fading evident. I remember in the winter evenings I could here the Albanian transmitter at Durres on 1089khz burbling away under radio one this tx I believe was only 150 kW yet still audible here.