Radio Caroline power-increase application.

[G6Tanuki]

According to their Twitter feed, Radio Caroline are applying to Ofcom for an increase in their allowed radiated power.

See https://twitter.com/TheRadCaroline/s...70841492848640

This can only be good news for those of us 150+ miles away and who struggle to receive Caroline at a sensible strength even using professional communications-receivers.

[Sideband]

No mention of it on their website though like there was with the last increase?

[agardiner]

Odd that they are only mentioning their existing area. Their signal is really good now. Surely any further increase in power would just expand their reach? If they are applying again though, then this is very good news for the future of AM. They might ultimately be the only station left on the band, but as a community offering now, they won't get bought up by the big boys.

[murphyv310]

Hi
I think it the correct thing to do by stating their expected coverage area, knowing OFCOM it would open a bag of worms if they thought there was DX involved.

A decent receiver is every bit as good as a professional version. I have an old Dynatron tuner from the early 60s and it does better than the all singing and dancing Yaesu FTdx-10 which has a very good receiver with all sorts of filtering and noise reduction, the Dynatron sounds better and the AGC more effective IMHO, I'm biassed of course to older tech.

[sexton_mallard]

Originally Posted by agardiner

Odd that they are only mentioning their existing area. Their signal is really good now. Surely any further increase in power would just expand their reach? If they are applying again though, then this is very good news for the future of AM. They might ultimately be the only station left on the band, but as a community offering now, they won't get bought up by the big boys.

I expressed my delight via Facebook by mentioning I was in the Shropshire area and would email OfCom and received this reply from the Radio Caroline Facebook group requesting that only listeners in the following areas should contact OfCom.

"...please only email if you are commenting on reception in our license area - Essex, Suffolk, Kent, Lincolnshire, Norfolk or on the fringes of this broadcast area.
While we appreciate listeners elsewhere would enjoy an improved signal, areas outside out licence area are not relevant to this Ofcom application and we do not wish to give Ofcom the impression we are asking for too much. Thank you..."

[paulsherwin]

I don't think Ofcom will allow any power increase under the terms of their licence. They will be particularly concerned about a good signal reaching London, allowing RC to become a de facto London local AM station. That's exactly how the original Caroline South operated.

[agardiner]

True enough, but the way AM broadcasting is going, Radio Caroline will become the de facto station full stop.

[Valvepower]

Hello,

The folk on Caroline are now asking on air for people to contact Ofcom. As I’m not on social media and didn’t see this thread I was unaware until they mentioned it on air this morning.

Terry

[Valvepower]

Been thinking…

I wonder if the pending cuts and wholesale re-work of the BBC Local Radio schedule, and how that will affect the more 'traditional listener' could form part of a viable reason for a power increase.

Terry

[agardiner]

The wholesale re-work of BBC local, could open the doors to a whole new generation of local stations; although the barrier to entry is going to be the cost of running them against the ever diluted advertising revenue.

Caroline of course is a community station. Perhaps that is the future model of local radio?

[Radio Wrangler]

Originally Posted by murphyv310

Hi
A decent receiver is every bit as good as a professional version. I have an old Dynatron tuner from the early 60s and it does better than the all singing and dancing Yaesu FTdx-10 which has a very good receiver with all sorts of filtering and noise reduction, the Dynatron sounds better and the AGC more effective IMHO, I'm biassed of course to older tech.

It's quite common for amateur receivers/transceivers having general coverage receive to have an attenuator included in the input filter that covers medium wave. They were scared of overloading the front end if you lived near a broadcast transmitter.

Also, wire antennae are usually very short on medium wave, and so look like a high, capacitive, impedance while radios aimed for amateur band and for professional service usually have low impedance inputs, around 50 Ohms, so the input reflection loss as a medium wave setup is rather bad. All these make for an insensitive underperformer.

David

[Radio Wrangler]

Ofcom may think of Caroline as a local community station, but the whole of the UK sees it as a national heritage station, and a national treasure!

Occasionally, politicians and civil servants need to be reminded that they are the servants of the people. This may be just such an occasion.

David

[videographer]

Maybe if they are allowed to increase transmitter power, they could reduce the level of compression on the modulation?

[agardiner]

Originally Posted by videographer

Maybe if they are allowed to increase transmitter power, they could reduce the level of compression on the modulation?

I think the level of compression has been chosen due to the low bandwidth of the feed to the transmitter site.

[Rich Woods]

Originally Posted by agardiner

I think the level of compression has been chosen due to the low bandwidth of the feed to the transmitter site.

Yes, that’s correct. They are having to use a 64k bandwidth internet feed due to the slow broadband synch speed on site. If their local exchange still offers ISDN then they could get 128k but for how long is anyone’s guess as BT are keen to phase it out.

[Aub]

Maybe it's just me, but their adverts seem to be getting more intrusive recently.

Aub

[mister valve]

It may be of interest.... In the middle of the night two or three weeks ago, I switched my bedside radio on and tuned around the Medium Wave band. Amazingly I received Radio Caroline on 648kHz here in Blackpool (Lancs.) It was very week and suffered rather prolonged fading. However, during daylight hours the next day, I couldn't hear it at all. So I must have been receiving it by skip-wave....

Wouldn't it be nice if they took over, started transmitting on the recently vacated RTE radio 1 sender on 252kHz longwave !!

[Sideband]

Originally Posted by mister valve

Wouldn't it be nice if they took over, started transmitting on the recently vacated RTE radio 1 sender on 252kHz longwave !!

.....or very silently one night slipped aboard the Ross and sailed it out to sea and began all over again on 319, just like they did in 1972! Pity those days are over forever.

[mister valve]

Originally Posted by Sideband

.....or very silently one night slipped aboard the Ross and sailed it out to sea and began all over again on 319, just like they did in 1972! Pity those days are over forever.

Ah ! Those were the days....

[Valvepower]

Hello,

Hopefully this is OK and isn't wandering off the Caroline thread by too much.

Terry Hughes on the early morning show has been doing a feature about Caroline and Laser 558 in the mid 1980's… This had me going down the Laser 558 rabbit hole as I was looking into the bandwidth of the AM modulation, and I stumbled upon this video about Laser 558 on YouTube…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL_OPcg2j4s

Just check out the Radio Frequency Interference on the video camera at 14:21 into the video, caused by being in a such a close proximity to the transmitter and the aerial feeders and such like, mind you I wouldn’t want to hang around in that hold for too long though

Ah, also remember RNI in the early/mid 1970’s.

Terry.