Radio Scotland on MW.

[neutronic]

Yesterday evening I received Radio Scotland with the help of a loop antenna at the other site of the North Sea ( North Holland). (At the moment with nice bagpipe music. )
With just only a wire or ferrite antenna gave too much interference with other stations.
The frequency was somewhere around 370 meters.
But in their website I cannot find anything about correct meters or frequency.
What is the correct value to tune to?
Jard N.

[Radio Wrangler]

810 kHz = 370.37 metres

David

[neutronic]

Thanks David !
Greetings from Jard N.

[paulsherwin]

At the moment I'm not aware of any plans to switch off the R Scotland MW service. There might be political problems in doing it. R Scotland isn't easily receivable south of the border, as you might expect, though it's easy enough to listen to on iPlayer and other streaming services.

[Tim]

BBC Radio Scotland is receivable down here, all be it faint (but steady) in Wiltshire, if you have a good set. I use it as a test, both for frequency, and for "goodness" of a radio. Better in the daytime, as less interference.

Thinking about it, the Netherlands may well be nearer to the transmitter than I am!

[paulsherwin]

I wasn't suggesting that it's impossible to receive it in England, only that it's hard work with typical domestic equipment. All transmitters have geographical service areas, and while it's obviously possible to DX them, that's not something to do for everyday listening.

[Radio Wrangler]

Mercator's projection is a bit misleading at these latitudes from the transmitter near Denny, Weymouth is about 40 miles closer than Schipol.

David

[kellymarie]

I'm in Weymouth and can receive radio Scotland at varying strengths sometimes it's wiped out by Spanish QRM. It's transmitted from 2 100Kw transmitters one at Burghead and the other at Westerglen my RX is an FT817 with 60 foot wire areal

[pmmunro]

Neutronic,

Nice to hear from another contributor from the Netherlands.

If you didn't already know, the BBC Radio Scotland transmitter is at Westerglen near Falkirk in the central belt of Scotland as described here; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wester...itting_station

PMM

[granazis]

I receive R. Scotland on 810khz in Surrey, North Holland is not much further than I am from the station.

[neutronic]

It just went through my mind, between Scotland and my house there is besides the North Sea only 5 miles of dunes and some low forest. Perhaps the propagation is extra helped by the water.
In fact Radio Caroline too gives a very good reception, which is also in a straight line at the other side .
Jard N.

[paulsherwin]

A sea path always helps propagation.

Radio Caroline is based at the old BBC World Service European transmitter site at Orfordness. While the transmitter is massively less powerful than the one used by the BBC, I would expect reception to be better in NL than in most of the UK.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orford...itting_station

[emeritus]

To celebrate my retirement a dozen years ago, we went on a cruise from Southampton along the Norwegian coast. In Southern Norway, Radio Scotland was the only station I could pick up on my Sony portable during daytime, Norway having by then ceased MW broadcasting.

[Vintage Engr]

Interesting coincidence. I'm in Shropshire, & on Monday evening, just for the fun of it, I sat for a while, searching the now much-depleted MW band. This was only on an old Bush TR82, inside the house.

Radio Scotland was the first station I found, & it was at an amazingly good signal level. Now that most of the UK stations have disappeared off MW, one can hear many more continental ones at a fair strength & listening level.

I do have an advantage here, being at around 830' ASL, with no ADSL or other man-made QRM, background noise on MW & SW bands at a minimum level. If I turn off all LED lamps & SMPS wall-warts, it goes even lower!

David.

[Vintage Engr]

An addendum:
I've just noticed Paul's mention of Radio Caroline, that also came belting through!

David.

[George Cooper]

I get a really great signal from the Radio Scotland MW Transmitter, but it has to be noted that I live three miles from the transmitter lol.

How long they will keep it going ?, time will tell.

[turretslug]

It's probably causing a fair amount of head-scratching- Scotland has some tricky terrain and relatively far-flung small communities, not to mention being a bit of a political hot potato generally. I recall that it took forever for stereo on FM to creep its way right up the mainland, never mind the off-shore bits.