BBC R4 Mobile longwave reception in France.

[wakou22]

Hi folks! I am not 100% sure that this is the most appropriate place for these questions, but I know that hobbyists like yourselves are usually very generous with their time and expertise, so here goes!
I am a truck driver, working mainly in France, Belgium, NL, Germany etc. I do not particularly like music, especially the sort of rubbish they play on French radio stations. Something that would make a HUGE difference to my "quality of life" (!) would be the abilty to listen comfortably to BBC Radio 4 whilst on the move. The trucks I drive are most often Mercedes which seem to have very noisy diesel pumps/alternators. Could anyone here suggest solutions?
One thing I have thought of is to buy an old three band radio with ferrite rod antenna, and velcro it to the roof of the truck, and hang an extension speaker through the sunroof hatch. I then thought that being as I want this for only one station (although 909/693 MW would be a bonus) that it might be possible to build a reciever dedicated to 198 khz. This surely would have no need of tuning circuitry, or power amplification, and I could provide it with a HUGE ferrite rod. Would this be possible? Would the components suffer from "creep", and would it be best to have some kind of tuning circuit? Would this be a fairly simple circuit? If so is there anyone on here who could design one? I am not an electronics expert, but I have a friend who repairs amps etc in a music shop, and I am sure he could do the actual build.
If the above are not feasible, is there a (simple) way to suppress the RF noise from the pumps? (I drive many different trucks, would it be poss to "croc-clip" a capacitor somewhere?)
What about antennae, I have seached the 'net for years but there does not seem to be much out there to enhance LW reception, except this
http://www.rf-systems.nl/aa-2.html, which I managed to track down and buy, only to find that
a) I don't know what to connect to it and
b) upon doing some research, I was told that "Car radios do not have a ferrite rod, so this product is not suitable"

Any suggestions would be very welcome!

[paulsherwin]

Ferrite rods are directional so aren't very appropriate for use in vehicles.

Your best approach would probably be to use a standard (but high quality) car radio with a specially mounted aerial. The aerial is what picks up the electrical interference so you should mount it as far away as possible, ideally right at the back of the truck on the roof. You should connect it with CT100 grade coax cable (the sort used for satellite installations). It may help to add a small preamp at the aerial end. As you drive a number of trucks this approach may not be feasible.

You will find reception of BBC AM services difficult or impossible south of Paris regardless of the equipment you use. A radio with a built in mp3 player loaded up with BBC podcasts may be a better solution. You can also plug in an external player or feed the signal to the radio using an FM microtransmitter.

Good lick, Paul

[Sean Williams]

The real problem you have here cant be easily solved - the sort of distances you cover are somewhat out of the official coverage area of the stations you mention - the fact that you can hear them at all is more by luck.

As for supression of "interference".....

Anything you add to a vehicle needs to be done in a permanent fashion - most modern vehicles will already have as much supression as you will ever need.

The issue here is mainly down to low signal strength - something that you will be unable to improve to any useful degree in a vehicle based situation - you nead a really big antenna for 198 khz - far bigger than you will able to safely fit.

Sorry to pour cold water on here!

Sean

[wakou22]

Thanks for your quick replies folks!

You will find reception of BBC AM services difficult or impossible south of Paris regardless of the equipment you use. A radio with a built in mp3 player loaded up with BBC podcasts may be a better solution. You can also plug in an external player or feed the signal to the radio using an FM microtransmitter.

I realise that the signal is not "designed" for reception in these places, but there IS signal there, I used to have a chunky old hacker hunter type machine which would not work inside the cab, but received well outside. I also used to have a truck in which R4 was reasonable in, for instance, Vienna (!!!). I am sure this last was due to unusual atmospherics, but...

Ferrite rods are directional so aren't very appropriate for use in vehicles.

I knew about this, but with the Dutch widget and a stick aerial maybe??

Your best approach would probably be to use a standard (but high quality) car radio with a specially mounted aerial.

What sort of aerial? Would it be worth getting an ordinary telescopic and trying it with a long CoAX, mounted on the roof at the back?

[wakou22]

And........
Would it be possible to build a "box" arrangement to make a "portable" car radio, which I could plug in to the cigar lighter, and mebbe output the sound via one of those cassette-type donglers to the "fitted" system?

[PhaseLockLoop]

An alternative is with the incoming innovations such as Digital radio -- one could have the recordings on Hard drive like with Sky TV -- so when you are in UK your truck records your fav progs on radio 4 -- then when you are in "ooooh lala - sacre bleu" Frogland you can simply
listen to your choice.

I am uncertain how far digital radio has come

I wonder if this could be done on a fairly vast MP3 player
Quality would be good and I wonder if you can insulate your truck from the deisel clanking and banging so your listenning space as less ambient noise.

cheers

Alex

[wakou22]

Originally Posted by PhaseLockLoop

I wonder if this could be done on a fairly vast MP3 player
Quality would be good and I wonder if you can insulate your truck from the deisel clanking and banging so your listenning space as less ambient noise.

cheers

Alex

Thanks, Alex. When I referred to "noise" in the original post , I meant RF noise, rather than the common or garden "clanking". Modern trucks come close to cars in that particular regard!
Your solution is, of course, the sensible one, it hardly matters if "The Afternoon Play" or "Woman's Hour" is from today, yesterday or six weeks ago. However, listening to a recording
of "Test Match Special" would be regarded by many (not me tho') as a bit sad! Having said that, I am curious as to whether a solution can be found. I am sure that there are 1,000's of English folks with holiday homes in France and elsewhere, not to mention truckers and other people travelling for a living who would like the possibility. Another idea that occured to me recently was 3G moblile internet, but with companies charging typically £1/Mb or more, this would be a very expensive way to get my fix of Henry Blofeld's pigeons etc!

[paulsherwin]

Originally Posted by wakou22

What sort of aerial? Would it be worth getting an ordinary telescopic and trying it with a long CoAX, mounted on the roof at the back?

Given your circumstances, the best approach would probably be a whip aerial with a magnetic mount on the end of a length of coax. ICE dealers often sell them for use with CB equipment, or you can buy them on eBay. The magnetic mount would allow you to attach the aerial to any steel surface and remove it easily, though it might be vulnerable to theft and vandalism.

A car radio in a box would be cheap and high performance, but would be a bit clunky. A high quality 'world radio' type portable or a portable comms receiver would be a better choice, connected to the external aerial. You would need to inhibit reception via any built in ferrite rod somehow, since this would pick up electrical interference. The simplest way to do this would be to put it in a tin box. You could send the signal to the existing car radio using an FM microtransmitter, which would work even if the radio doesn't have a cassette player (many are CD only now).

There are odd bits of Europe which seem to enjoy good R4 reception despite the distance. Gibraltar seems to do quite well, possibly because of the long sea path. I'm surprised it gets to Austria but there are few hard and fast rules when it comes to radio reception.

I've been assuming you want to listen while driving. If you just want to listen while parked up, one of the portable satellite systems designed for caravaners would give you all the radio and TV choice you could want.

Paul

[mastermanx2001]

Would short wave be any good, I think World service has some Radio 4 programs. Probably too much interference.

[paulsherwin]

Originally Posted by mastermanx2001

Would short wave be any good, I think World service has some Radio 4 programs. Probably too much interference.

Unfortunately the BBC WS no longer transmits to Europe on SW.

Paul

[russell_w_b]

Originally Posted by paulsherwin

Unfortunately the BBC WS no longer transmits to Europe on SW.

Paul

True, but Orfordness broadcasts BBC WS on 648kHz to northern France and the Benelux countries. It's even digital (DRM) on 1296kHz!

[wakou22]

Strangely enough, I can get a "just about" listenable World service on most trucks using 648khz (MW), unfortunately, the world service is not what it was. Each programme is repeated three or four times in any day, and the programmes seem mainly to be about the third world and its problems, even the most committed "One-Worlder" cannot put up with listening to a documentary about the economic outlook of Botswana more than once!

[Steve_Bell]

I suppose wireless internet on a laptop is out of the question, either due to cost of connection or reception?

You can "Listen Live" to Radio 4 on the internet.

[BGmidsUK]

Originally Posted by paulsherwin

one of the portable satellite systems designed for caravaners would give you all the radio and TV choice you could want

Unfortunately this may not work too well if you venture far outside the UK as the BBC use transponders on Astra 2 which have a footprint tightly-focussed on the UK.

Doing this allowed them to go FTA (and ditch Murdoch's encryption system) without risking problems with copyright, as reception is rather limited outside of the British Isles. Not too sure if they use the same transponders for radio as well as TV. I'll check this later

Therefore you will probably need a bigger dish to get a decent signal! You should be OK in northern France, Belgium and the Netherlands but I would be surprised if these portable kits would work as far out as Germany.



BG

[John Robson]

Originally Posted by wakou22

I am a truck driver, working mainly in France, Belgium, NL, Germany etc. I do not particularly like music, especially the sort of rubbish they play on French radio stations. Something that would make a HUGE difference to my "quality of life" (!) would be the abilty to listen comfortably to BBC Radio 4 whilst on the move. The trucks I drive are most often Mercedes which seem to have very noisy diesel pumps/alternators. Could anyone here suggest solutions?

If it is anything like some cars, then most of the noise comes from the
engine control unit. Add to this poorly designed receivers, with aerials
mounted in the wrong place you end up with a problem.

Shame as good reception of long and medium wave on a car radio
is possible.

You could always try a portable radio with a external antenna input and
attach a random length of long wire to antenna socket, and the earth
to the lorry earth/power supply earth. Failing that a mag-mount with
a long rod antenna attached to the roof of your cab.

If you manage to get a signal, but you feel there is room for improvement
then give a tuning unit ago, they can be easily built. There are few
designs around on the internet.

[dominicbeesley]

I've been thinking about this recently as I'm off to Le Mans in a couple of weeks. I've managed to get R4 LW all over europe but only by "luck" i.e. away from all interference and with a lot of long wire hanging out of the bus.

I've recently had a lot of luck on 80m with a simple loop aerial would this "scale up" to LW?

I unfortunately cannot hope to hear anything on the move though, my engine is 100% 1970's Ford, all mechanical, no RF noise but not a hope of hearing anything whatsoever on the move! My 100 watt HiFi is completely wasted except in traffic jams.

Dom