Low Power MW DX? - UK Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration Discussion Forum

Croozer · 11th Mar 2018, 3:46 pm

Driving home on the A90 just south of Aberdeen last week, at about 2am, the 'autoseek' on the car radio pulled up a relay of BBC R5 on 1116kc/s

I've just looked this up and the closest TX I can find is Burnaston for BBC Radio Derby. But that is listed as only 1kW, and I must have been more than 400 miles distant, using a factory standard Vauxhall Astra radio, on a windscreen aerial. Have I missed something closer? It wasn't bare reception, but strong, steady entertainment quality, spread over about 3kcs on the dial. Freak conditions?

paulsherwin · 11th Mar 2018, 4:23 pm

As you say, it's either BBC Derby or BBC Guernsey. You can get DX reception like this in the middle of the night, especially if there's no co channel interference. There are no big transmitters on that frequency anywhere in Europe - in fact, there are few transmitters of any type.

https://mwradio.eu/freq/1116/

'LIVEWIRE?' · 11th Mar 2018, 4:47 pm

Looking at the map on http://mwradio.eu it appears that the only places outside the U.K. with transmitters on 1116kHz are Hungary, Italy & Spain, and the highest power Transmitters are 15kW. It seems to be one of the few European 'clear channels'

Boom · 11th Mar 2018, 5:15 pm

I understand that Radio Caroline who use 1kW on 648kHz has been received in the USA.

I'm also trying to ID a suspected 1W LPAM station on 1431kHz which may be Apple AM and which floats in and out here some 60 miles away.

Hartley118 · 11th Mar 2018, 5:19 pm

Medium wave DX can be quite remarkable once you're in an area free from local interference and have a reasonably selective set. My example was with a much more powerful (50kW) transmitter, but it was 3000 miles away.

I recall that in the 1960s in the early hours of the morning I could receive WABC New York in Manchester on the Radiomobile valve radio fitted to my elderly Rover 90 with its two-foot roof mounted car aerial.

At that time in those days, most European stations had closed down around midnight, leaving a quiet background. Switch-mode power supplies also barely existed so that local interference was minimal. It taught me that SNR on the medium wave is much more dependent on minimizing interference than on fancy long-wire aerials. A car radio with the engine off is also of course free from mains-borne rubbish.

It does appear that WABC 770kHz has a surprising reputation for signal coverage. See http://www.musicradio77.com/transm.html for an interesting technical article.

Martin

Radio Wrangler · 11th Mar 2018, 5:54 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hartley118

I recall that in the 1960s in the early hours of the morning I could receive WABC New York in Manchester on the Radiomobile valve radio fitted to my elderly Rover 90 with its two-foot roof mounted car aerial.
Martin

You sure they hadn't given you a specially selected set, Martin?

David

G6Tanuki · 11th Mar 2018, 6:13 pm

I can remember regularly listening to WINS on 1010KHz back in the late-1960s late at night after broadcast TV had shut down so the usual slew of rasping line-timebase harmonics (every 10.1KHz) was absent.

Most decent MW portable radios would get it; same was true for the low-power AFN stations in Germany (which were great because they relayed commentaries of US baseball-games and boxing matches).

Biggles · 11th Mar 2018, 6:31 pm

Turning the ignition off in a modern car doesn't necessarily get rid of car generated interference. I thought that I would do a bit of SW listening at work right up in the middle of nowhere with a long wire aerial. Toyota pickup was generating all sorts of horrible hash all over the bands. I could have disconnected the battery but then my set would have gone off too. I gave up. It even interferes with the CAT cable finding gadget we have.
Alan.

Focus Diode · 11th Mar 2018, 7:30 pm

As a TVDXer in the past MW/AM still fascinates me. In NE England Radio Caroline comes in quite well as does Manx Radio who, as we know, sometimes transmits Caroline North. At dawn the Manx Radio reception in reminiscent of Luxembourg on 208m, very strong with fading.

In SW England we could hear Radio Forth from Edinburgh on 194m after Radio Bristol relaying Radio 2 closed down. Unhappy time when R2 went 24hr which kept Bristol's MW and VHF transmitters operating when already available on 433, 330m and stereo VHF. Grrr!

Long live MW!

'LIVEWIRE?' · 11th Mar 2018, 7:34 pm

Ref; post #4. According to the MW radio site (link in post # 3), there are only three Hospital Radio Stations(Chichester, Rehill, & Sheffield) on 1431kHz, & their Tx's are only 1 watt (0.001kW) each, plus a Smooth R. station (350watts) in Rayleigh on 1431. No mention of Apple AM. I'm surprised that R. Caroline can be heard in the U.S.A., due to the presence of WSM Nashville on 650kHz, which is a 50kW 'clear channel' transmitter broadcasting, according to their website, 24/7/365. No doubt there are other U.S. stations on 650 as well, and it would have to be a highly selective receiver that could resolve a LPAM station on the east coat of England, only 2kHZ LF of WSM, etc.

Focus Diode · 11th Mar 2018, 7:43 pm

Can't edit my original post. Caroline is generally weak but stable during the day here. As the day darkens it suffers from interference from I think is a Polish station. Later in the evening it's quite stable but that varies.

In the late '70s I remember a station.,"Radio Mandelga" (or at least sounded like that) on 257m MW (1169/1170khz). Had an unique jingle made up of extracts from Kraftwerk's "Radio Activity", "Hall of Mirrors" and Neil Diamond's "Jonathan Livingstone Seagull" instrumental section plus another I never identified. I remember them playing Magazine's "Real Life" album in its entirety.

Anyone else remember it or have any ideas of its country of origin. Thought it may be French but problem wrong l. It was a long time ago.

Boom · 11th Mar 2018, 8:09 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by 'LIVEWIRE?'

No mention of Apple AM.

Seems they changed from Apple AM to Apple FM in 2013 so it won't be that one then!

Caroline also said they had been received in Japan.

'LIVEWIRE?' · 11th Mar 2018, 8:51 pm

That article about WABC New York is fascinating, Martin. For one thing, I either didn't know, or had forgotten, that a vertical mast makes a better radiator if it is an (electrical) half-wavelength at the transmitted frequency. Obviously this is only practical at the shorter wavelengths from around 390 to 185 metres, but it goes some way to explaining why, of two different stations in the same location at the same power, the one on the higher frequency is often a stronger signal, other considerations being equal. This presumably applies at all frequencies, but doesn't fully explain why, e.g., the signal from Radio1 is almost always than that from other network stations (at least it is in my workshop). Classic FM, by contrast is not so strong a signal, yet it is Higher in frequency. Following on from that, do any UK AM stations broadcast from vertical masts which are half their transmitted wave length? All the foregoing aside, I'm still surprised that stations such as WABC & WINS can/could be received in Britain on ordinary radios. I doubt they'd ever be audible here now.

Hybrid tellies · 12th Mar 2018, 9:55 am

Since the closure of many high powered European transmitters its quite interesting how many distant lower powered transmitters that can be heard. At night when the local noise levels have dropped two of my favourite catches from my home location near Bristol are BBC R4 from Redruth on 756Khz and BBC R4 from Redmoss near Aberdeen on 1449Khz, both only 2Kw transmitters. I only use a reasonable portable radio with its built in ferrit rod aerial.

G6Tanuki · 12th Mar 2018, 10:06 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by 'LIVEWIRE?'

Following on from that, do any UK AM stations broadcast from vertical masts which are half their transmitted wave length? .

The "T" antenna [horizontal wire suspended between two masts, with a feed to the centre of the horizontal] popular in the broadcast industry can be operated either as a 1/4-wave or 1/2-wave depending on frequency. There's one of these I regularly drive past on the M5 just south of Birmingham: not sure what it's radiating.

The horizontal wire may or may not contribute to the radiated signal.

In the 1930s the US Blaw-Knox company heavily promoted the 1/2 and 5/8-wave vertical lattice-mast for MW broadcast-stations. Their design was the one which starts off thin at the bottom, gets fatter for the first 1/3 or 1/2 of its height, then tapers to a point again at the top.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaw-Knox_tower

Andrew2 · 12th Mar 2018, 10:18 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by G6Tanuki

I can remember regularly listening to WINS on 1010KHz back in the late-1960s late at night after broadcast TV had shut down so the usual slew of rasping line-timebase harmonics (every 10.1KHz) was absent.

Most decent MW portable radios would get it; same was true for the low-power AFN stations in Germany (which were great because they relayed commentaries of US baseball-games and boxing matches).

Yes indeed. I used to lie in bed around midnight with my Emerson transistor radio, tuning between the pirate ships and the AFN relays. I also liked the lush easy-listening music from the big European stations like Deutsche Welle. (Picture nicked from 'net, not my radio but just like it, even the same colour.)

turretslug · 12th Mar 2018, 11:25 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by 'LIVEWIRE?'

For one thing, I either didn't know, or had forgotten, that a vertical mast makes a better radiator if it is an (electrical) half-wavelength at the transmitted frequency. Obviously this is only practical at the shorter wavelengths from around 390 to 185 metres.

It may have been the exception that proved the rule, but for some years, the world's tallest structure was the insulated-from-ground half-wavelength vertical radiator at Konstantynów in Poland, working with a sender originally on 227kHz (1321m), later 225kHz (1333m) with commensurate structure adjustment. The modulator/sender was reputed to run from a substation with 6MW power capability and was said to result in usable reception in North America,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_radio_mast

Admiitedly not really "Low power MW", though!

boxdoctor · 12th Mar 2018, 11:46 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by G6Tanuki

The "T" antenna [horizontal wire suspended between two masts, with a feed to the centre of the horizontal] popular in the broadcast industry can be operated either as a 1/4-wave or 1/2-wave depending on frequency. There's one of these I regularly drive past on the M5 just south of Birmingham: not sure what it's radiating.
The horizontal wire may or may not contribute to the radiated signal.

Possibly acts as part of the radiating element, but most likely mainly as a "capacity hat" to keep the aerial size physically smaller.
Also there are all the Dutch low-power legal stations http://radio-tv-nederland.nl/am/am.html some of which, as I have found, occasionally propagate as far as central England if conditions are right.
BTW, In the 'sixties, in the car park of a certain park in Derby, I could hear all the "Pirate" stations on my Philips car radio, (with its AFxxx before the

tin whiskers got going!).

Tony

Herald1360 · 12th Mar 2018, 12:03 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by G6Tanuki

The "T" antenna [horizontal wire suspended between two masts, with a feed to the centre of the horizontal] popular in the broadcast industry can be operated either as a 1/4-wave or 1/2-wave depending on frequency. There's one of these I regularly drive past on the M5 just south of Birmingham: not sure what it's radiating.

]

That sounds like Droitwich R4 198kHz..... technically off topic!

'LIVEWIRE?' · 12th Mar 2018, 2:20 pm

I agree with Chris, that is almost certainly the Droitwich LW Tx. IIRC, the horizontal wire is for 198kHz, whilst the towers are used for several MW transmitters, viz. Radio5 Live(693kHz),Talksport (1053kHz) & Absolute Radio (1215kHz). Whether any of these masts are a half-wave at one of the frequencies above, I don't know.

11th Mar 2018, 3:46 pm	#1
Croozer Pentode Join Date: Jul 2016 Location: Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. Posts: 110	Low Power MW DX? Driving home on the A90 just south of Aberdeen last week, at about 2am, the 'autoseek' on the car radio pulled up a relay of BBC R5 on 1116kc/s I've just looked this up and the closest TX I can find is Burnaston for BBC Radio Derby. But that is listed as only 1kW, and I must have been more than 400 miles distant, using a factory standard Vauxhall Astra radio, on a windscreen aerial. Have I missed something closer? It wasn't bare reception, but strong, steady entertainment quality, spread over about 3kcs on the dial. Freak conditions?

11th Mar 2018, 4:23 pm	#2
paulsherwin Moderator Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Oxford, UK Posts: 27,960	Re: Low Power MW DX? As you say, it's either BBC Derby or BBC Guernsey. You can get DX reception like this in the middle of the night, especially if there's no co channel interference. There are no big transmitters on that frequency anywhere in Europe - in fact, there are few transmitters of any type. https://mwradio.eu/freq/1116/

11th Mar 2018, 4:47 pm	#3
'LIVEWIRE?' Rest in Peace Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: N.W. Oxfordshire(Chipping Norton) Posts: 7,306	Re: Low Power MW DX? Looking at the map on http://mwradio.eu it appears that the only places outside the U.K. with transmitters on 1116kHz are Hungary, Italy & Spain, and the highest power Transmitters are 15kW. It seems to be one of the few European 'clear channels' Last edited by 'LIVEWIRE?'; 11th Mar 2018 at 5:06 pm.

11th Mar 2018, 5:19 pm	#5
Hartley118 Nonode Join Date: Aug 2015 Location: Cambridge, Cambs. UK. Posts: 2,198	Re: Low Power MW DX? Medium wave DX can be quite remarkable once you're in an area free from local interference and have a reasonably selective set. My example was with a much more powerful (50kW) transmitter, but it was 3000 miles away. I recall that in the 1960s in the early hours of the morning I could receive WABC New York in Manchester on the Radiomobile valve radio fitted to my elderly Rover 90 with its two-foot roof mounted car aerial. At that time in those days, most European stations had closed down around midnight, leaving a quiet background. Switch-mode power supplies also barely existed so that local interference was minimal. It taught me that SNR on the medium wave is much more dependent on minimizing interference than on fancy long-wire aerials. A car radio with the engine off is also of course free from mains-borne rubbish. It does appear that WABC 770kHz has a surprising reputation for signal coverage. See http://www.musicradio77.com/transm.html for an interesting technical article. Martin __________________ BVWS Member

11th Mar 2018, 6:13 pm	#7
G6Tanuki Dekatron Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Wiltshire, UK. Posts: 14,005	Re: Low Power MW DX? I can remember regularly listening to WINS on 1010KHz back in the late-1960s late at night after broadcast TV had shut down so the usual slew of rasping line-timebase harmonics (every 10.1KHz) was absent. Most decent MW portable radios would get it; same was true for the low-power AFN stations in Germany (which were great because they relayed commentaries of US baseball-games and boxing matches).

11th Mar 2018, 5:15 pm	#4
Boom Retired Dormant Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Westbury, Wiltshire, UK. Posts: 2,451	Re: Low Power MW DX? I understand that Radio Caroline who use 1kW on 648kHz has been received in the USA. I'm also trying to ID a suspected 1W LPAM station on 1431kHz which may be Apple AM and which floats in and out here some 60 miles away.

11th Mar 2018, 6:31 pm	#8
Biggles Rest in Peace Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Hexham, Northumberland, UK. Posts: 2,234	Re: Low Power MW DX? Turning the ignition off in a modern car doesn't necessarily get rid of car generated interference. I thought that I would do a bit of SW listening at work right up in the middle of nowhere with a long wire aerial. Toyota pickup was generating all sorts of horrible hash all over the bands. I could have disconnected the battery but then my set would have gone off too. I gave up. It even interferes with the CAT cable finding gadget we have. Alan.

11th Mar 2018, 7:30 pm	#9
Focus Diode Octode Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Borough of Gateshead, UK. Posts: 1,420	Re: Low Power MW DX? As a TVDXer in the past MW/AM still fascinates me. In NE England Radio Caroline comes in quite well as does Manx Radio who, as we know, sometimes transmits Caroline North. At dawn the Manx Radio reception in reminiscent of Luxembourg on 208m, very strong with fading. In SW England we could hear Radio Forth from Edinburgh on 194m after Radio Bristol relaying Radio 2 closed down. Unhappy time when R2 went 24hr which kept Bristol's MW and VHF transmitters operating when already available on 433, 330m and stereo VHF. Grrr! Long live MW!

11th Mar 2018, 7:34 pm	#10
'LIVEWIRE?' Rest in Peace Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: N.W. Oxfordshire(Chipping Norton) Posts: 7,306	Re: Low Power MW DX? Ref; post #4. According to the MW radio site (link in post # 3), there are only three Hospital Radio Stations(Chichester, Rehill, & Sheffield) on 1431kHz, & their Tx's are only 1 watt (0.001kW) each, plus a Smooth R. station (350watts) in Rayleigh on 1431. No mention of Apple AM. I'm surprised that R. Caroline can be heard in the U.S.A., due to the presence of WSM Nashville on 650kHz, which is a 50kW 'clear channel' transmitter broadcasting, according to their website, 24/7/365. No doubt there are other U.S. stations on 650 as well, and it would have to be a highly selective receiver that could resolve a LPAM station on the east coat of England, only 2kHZ LF of WSM, etc.

11th Mar 2018, 7:43 pm	#11
Focus Diode Octode Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Borough of Gateshead, UK. Posts: 1,420	Re: Low Power MW DX? Can't edit my original post. Caroline is generally weak but stable during the day here. As the day darkens it suffers from interference from I think is a Polish station. Later in the evening it's quite stable but that varies. In the late '70s I remember a station.,"Radio Mandelga" (or at least sounded like that) on 257m MW (1169/1170khz). Had an unique jingle made up of extracts from Kraftwerk's "Radio Activity", "Hall of Mirrors" and Neil Diamond's "Jonathan Livingstone Seagull" instrumental section plus another I never identified. I remember them playing Magazine's "Real Life" album in its entirety. Anyone else remember it or have any ideas of its country of origin. Thought it may be French but problem wrong l. It was a long time ago.

11th Mar 2018, 8:51 pm	#13
'LIVEWIRE?' Rest in Peace Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: N.W. Oxfordshire(Chipping Norton) Posts: 7,306	Re: Low Power MW DX? That article about WABC New York is fascinating, Martin. For one thing, I either didn't know, or had forgotten, that a vertical mast makes a better radiator if it is an (electrical) half-wavelength at the transmitted frequency. Obviously this is only practical at the shorter wavelengths from around 390 to 185 metres, but it goes some way to explaining why, of two different stations in the same location at the same power, the one on the higher frequency is often a stronger signal, other considerations being equal. This presumably applies at all frequencies, but doesn't fully explain why, e.g., the signal from Radio1 is almost always than that from other network stations (at least it is in my workshop). Classic FM, by contrast is not so strong a signal, yet it is Higher in frequency. Following on from that, do any UK AM stations broadcast from vertical masts which are half their transmitted wave length? All the foregoing aside, I'm still surprised that stations such as WABC & WINS can/could be received in Britain on ordinary radios. I doubt they'd ever be audible here now.

12th Mar 2018, 9:55 am	#14
Hybrid tellies Nonode Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: 1966-1976 Coverack in Cornwall and Helston Cornwall. 1976-present Bristol/Bath area. Posts: 2,967	Re: Low Power MW DX? Since the closure of many high powered European transmitters its quite interesting how many distant lower powered transmitters that can be heard. At night when the local noise levels have dropped two of my favourite catches from my home location near Bristol are BBC R4 from Redruth on 756Khz and BBC R4 from Redmoss near Aberdeen on 1449Khz, both only 2Kw transmitters. I only use a reasonable portable radio with its built in ferrit rod aerial. __________________ Simon BVWS member

12th Mar 2018, 2:20 pm	#20
'LIVEWIRE?' Rest in Peace Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: N.W. Oxfordshire(Chipping Norton) Posts: 7,306	Re: Low Power MW DX? I agree with Chris, that is almost certainly the Droitwich LW Tx. IIRC, the horizontal wire is for 198kHz, whilst the towers are used for several MW transmitters, viz. Radio5 Live(693kHz),Talksport (1053kHz) & Absolute Radio (1215kHz). Whether any of these masts are a half-wave at one of the frequencies above, I don't know.