Europe 1 on 183kHz

[michamoo]

The french station Europe 1 broadcasting on 183 kHz closed just before midnight CET last night after 64 years on air at a couple of Megawatts.

longwave is getting rather empty this end of Europe and all pretty sad and depressing really.

[Julesomega]

Yes, my aunt used to listen to 'Europe No. 1' most of her life for daytime talk programmes, and in the 60s I listened most evenings to Salut les copains.
Prohibitively expensive to keep broadcasting on LW, maybe it will be auctioned off to the phone companies or something to use for gigabit QAM, nice stable propagation

[Heatercathodeshort]

Entertainment radio wise is changing dramatically. I don't think the 'radio' as such will exist in it's present form. As we all know, incredible as it might seem, there are devices at the moment that can reproduce 35 million songs and all the radio stations that exist on air.

Radio sets as such mAy vanish as quickly as video recorders did.

It's a great shame for us vintage guys but the truth is very few people actually listen to any AM broadcast today. It was always nice to here the French language on the LW.

Times they are are a changing. John.

[Herald1360]

Originally Posted by Julesomega

Yes, my aunt used to listen to 'Europe No. 1' most of her life for daytime talk programmes, and in the 60s I listened most evenings to Salut les copains.
Prohibitively expensive to keep broadcasting on LW, maybe it will be auctioned off to the phone companies or something to use for gigabit QAM, nice stable propagation

Not sure you could do gigabit in any shape or form in a 150kHz bandwidth (long wave, 150-300kHz).

[turretslug]

It is a shame how LW- a band with getting on for a century of broadcasting behind it!- is emptying, particularly at the LF end- I liked the French programming on 163.84 (then 162) and 183kHz and also miss German programming from Sender Donebach on 153kHz. It gave purpose to the 60-160kHz band on my CR100 and could be heard night and day.

How long does 198kHz have?

Oh, well, time and tide....

[Skywave]

Originally Posted by Heatercathodeshort

Entertainment radio-wise is changing dramatically. I don't think the 'radio' as such will exist in it's present form.

Come 2030, I anticipate that 'A.M' for entertainment broadcasting will have simply ceased to exist. I find that a truly depressing thought - and indeed hope I am wrong . . . but I doubt it.

Al.

[Sideband]

Unfortunately it's called 'progress'. Whatever our own thoughts, you can't stop advances in broadcasting. We like the vintage technology of course but really we're only a handful of enthusiasts in the real world....consider how many people AT THIS MOMENT are listening to radio on AM.... not just enthusiasts, I mean genuinely listening....the number will be vanishingly small. Its expensive to run a huge megawatt transmitter for a population that is either streaming, or listening on Freeview or satellite or FM or DAB..... Over Christmas I called in to my son who has Alexa (he loves gadgets). He just asked it to play UK 60's music and we had a whole evening of 60's revival and not a radio was used or a knob twiddled. I have no idea where the music was streamed from.

[Julesomega]

Top Shelf Oldies?

I was regaled by that yesterday when I visited a record-collector friend.

Personally I hate these narrowcast webstations with no announcements, no details or comments on the playlist, no comments from listeners, no news or any acknowledgement that anything else is happening in the world.

[G6Tanuki]

Originally Posted by Julesomega

Personally I hate these narrowcast webstations with no announcements, no details or comments on the playlist, no comments from listeners, no news or any acknowledgement that anything else is happening in the world.

For me, the lack of such 'intrusions' is precisely why I listen to streamed music! I don't want some overpaid presenter giving me his/her opinions about what we've just heard/are about to hear, cracking jokes, telling me what the weather's like in Wisconsin, or details of the latest offers on Audis at a car-dealership in Stuttgart.

[boxdoctor]

I too will miss Europe 1, as I do the French station on 192 Khz. Often more musically interesting in the late evening than the Beeb offerings (Jazz concerts from around Europe, etc.)
I must agree with Julesomega about the importance of having an occasional annoncement.
Just a stream of never-ending music with no information about who is performing the piece being listened to or even what it's title is is, to my way of thinking very "1984".
As for Sideband's son's "Alexa", no device containing a microphone, permanently live, and connected to the devil knows where would be allowed in my house. What a data-mining opportunity that is! . Tony

[Heatercathodeshort]

I think we are all becoming very insular. I have guys that text me but will not speak on the phone. Morse code anyone?
It's a shame but gone are the days when you wound your own coils and constructed a one valve receiver that pulled in at least 5 medium wave stations at good volume. How exciting that was!
Over the Christmas and just for old times sake I constructed 'The 6K7 Pocket Receiver', a 1948 design by F.G. Rayer employing a single 6K7 valve operating at only 4.5v H.T. It was good fun and works very well.
I don't know how long it will be possible to do this but time marches on and listening conditions change. It's an age thing of course. Regards for 2020, John.

[Station X]

One post moved to a new thread here:-

https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...d.php?t=162593

[linescan87]

It's sad to see another big signal disappear off the airwaves, just like France Inter 2 years ago.

Hopefully when the last commercial stations leave LW and MW they will be turned over to enthusiasts. Already in the Netherlands it is possible to apply for a 1 Watt licence and there are lots of amateur stations playing all sorts of music over there ( along with the bold boys at the top of the MW band).

[raditechman]

Sad to see these transmitters closing down, not much we can do, except enjoy the other while they are still there.
It never seems the same from a "pantry" transmitter but that may be all eventually.

John

[G6Tanuki]

I think we just have to accept the idea that MW/LW/SW broadcast-radio is on an accelerating trajectory towards extinction. State-run broadcasters are probably going to be the last hangers-on because they don't have so much pressure to get rid of loss-making bits of their operations.

"Radio" in itself is at-odds with the listening habits of loads of the under-40s; even Classic-FM's ads now talk about being able to be heard "on Global Player, on your smartspeaker, on digital" - they seem to have dropped the "digital radio" bit.

The MW/LW commercial stations in the UK are rapidly disappearing as broadcasters don't bother to renew when their existing licence comes up for renewal. I guess they nust have some reliable listenership-method on which to base their decisions? It's several decades since I last heard a pirate-station on MW - a Band-II FM antenna's easier to fit to the roof of a London tower-block than a long-wire.

Enjoy it while it lasts, then accept that MW/LW broadcasting will enter the land of largely-forgotten things like milkmen, acetylene lamps, mothballs, starting-handles on cars, bedwarming pans, gas-mantles, payphones, horse-drawn trams and ginger-beer-bottles-with-a-marble-in-the-neck.

[linescan87]

We have a pirate radio station on MW in Dublin, comes on every weekend 1395kHz, "Energ Power AM" and the Dutch pirates are on most nights with mainly polka type music or 60's classics between 1600 and 1650 kHz, but sometimes lower.

It would be nice to see a situation here in Ireland and the UK where low power licenses would be granted to amateur radio stations as is the case in the Netherlands. Would make for interesting DX and give us something to listen to.