New longwave station in Finland?

[Mediafrog+]

FWIW somebody thinks longwave is still viable in the Arctic: Arctic 252

No indication that this even has a license from the Finnish telecommunications authorities.

I suspect this will never get on the air, or will be short lived. Seems more of a wallow in nostalgia rather than any serious effort to serve a modern media audience.

 

[gr8oldies]

FWIW somebody thinks longwave is still viable in the Arctic: Arctic 252

No indication that this even has a license from the Finnish telecommunications authorities.

I suspect this will never get on the air, or will be short lived. Seems more of a wallow in nostalgia rather than any serious effort to serve a modern media audience.

Someone may have more money than sense.

 

[wildthangjim]

I can't say that this makes sense from a coverage standpoint, but there are a lot of places in the world with little/no mobile phone service and need radio for emergency warnings etc. I don't know about Finland, but I was in Norway above the arctic circle a few years ago and if you didn't have access to a DAB receiver, you couldn't get any radio (AM or FM).

 

[radiofan2023]

That website has a link to their Youtube channel, the person running it is a Dxer:

Arctic Radio

Dx-ing in the far North of Finland mostly using older radios. 900m long wire with a radial 20-wire earth Founder of Arctic 252 - 252 kHz LW

www.youtube.com

There’s also a Gofundme section where he’s trying to raise 3,000 Euros and says he needs help from someone who knows about broadcast antennas:

Arctic 252

The world‘s first new LW station this Millennium!

arcticradio.net

I’m guessing a good LW broadcast antenna and the other equipment he’ll need is going to cost more than 3,000 Euros….

 

[Mediafrog+]

I don't know about Finland, but I was in Norway above the arctic circle a few years ago and if you didn't have access to a DAB receiver, you couldn't get any radio (AM or FM).

The Norwegian public broadcaster NRK had a 100kw longwave station at Ingøy in the far north of the country that operated on 153 kHz for a number of years, but closed down in 2019. Ingøy Is around 160 miles from the proposed 252 operation in Finland. Guess the Norwegians didn’t see any future or need for longwave in their own Arctic region, which might be a lesson for others.

Ingøy radio transmitter - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I’m guessing a good LW broadcast antenna and the other equipment he’ll need is going to cost more than 3,000 Euros….

Especially a station operating at a wavelength close to 1,200 meters. But, hey, they’ve raised €220 already as I type this.🥴

 

[davideduardo]

The Norwegian public broadcaster NRK had a 100kw longwave station at Ingøy in the far north of the country that operated on 153 kHz for a number of years, but closed down in 2019. Ingøy Is around 160 miles from the proposed 252 operation in Finland. Guess the Norwegians didn’t see any future or need for longwave in their own Arctic region, which might be a lesson for others.

Ingøy radio transmitter - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Especially a station operating at a wavelength close to 1,200 meters. But, hey, they’ve raised €220 already as I type this.🥴

Quarter wave tower is about 900 feet high. Have we priced one of those lately?

This is a hobbyist who will likely use a long-wire antenna. It works, but not very efficient.

 

[CentralFL]

I wish them luck. Longwave is interesting because of the huge groundwave involved, but sadly very few listeners anymore.

 

[yeoldeschool]

It would be interesting to see longwave turned into a new amateur radio band intended for amateur broadcasting rather than two-way conversation. Imagine news, talk, and music formats produced by average people, not big business. A new ham license class above the current top "amateur extra" class ("amateur ultra"?) could be introduced to operate stations there -- something which added elements of high power and/or broadcast engineering GROL style exams to the existing "amateur extra" exam requirements. Each longwave amateur station's "ultra" licensee would be required to be present on-site with the transmitter whenever it was operating, but amateurs with lesser ham license classes would be able to operate the non-RF components of such stations (mixing boards, mics, playback sources, etc.), allowing there to be hosts, "jocks," etc. Frequency coordination bodies within the amateur radio community would decide on agreements for when each station would be allowed to transmit, on which frequencies, and for how long, similar to how shortwave broadcasters agree on their seasonal schedules.

I guess this would be impossible in North America considering the band's use by, I believe, aeronavigation beacons. But here, mediumwave has one foot in the grave, so perhaps our "amateur ultra" stations could go there instead -- eventually!

 

[Mediafrog+]

It would be interesting to see longwave turned into a new amateur radio band intended for amateur broadcasting rather than two-way conversation. Imagine news, talk, and music formats produced by average people, not big business.

And the money to produce such programming is coming from……where?

Longwave receivers are far more scarce than those for shortwave. Who would listen, outside of longwave geeks?

 

[yeoldeschool]

And the money to produce such programming is coming from……where?

Longwave receivers are far more scarce than those for shortwave. Who would listen, outside of longwave geeks?

Well, amateur radio is non-commercial and all-volunteer in practice (even using the ham bands for commercial aims is forbidden in most countries). So the purpose of designating an amateur longwave broadcasting service would simply be to extend the ham world's spirit of education, learning, experimentation, and teaching into the realm of high power one-way broadcasting. Besides voluntary donations sent in by interested SWLs, all funding would have to come from within the amateur radio clubs whose members were working on these theoretical stations as community efforts -- pooling member funds, labor, and resources for ambitious projects is fairly routine in the ham world.

Obviously, hams would not be able to afford the massive wattages and lengthy schedules state-funded longwave broadcasters had always been capable of. But at least the band would still serve some purpose this way, giving ordinary people (with ham licenses) the ability to experiment with broadcasting to far-flung audiences and with broadcast technology. That's something no other existing amateur radio bands currently allow. In fact, transmitting for too long, or "to no specific parties" on the regular ham bands is actually called "broadcasting" and can cost you your license.

Anyway, I'm suggesting this idea only in the sense that, otherwise, the longwave band would literally just sit there, dead. As long as nobody else wants it, it should be handed over to the public. The amateur radio community and its licensing structures would provide a means by which to do that, letting in serious people while keeping the "riff raff" element out. (Nobody would want to see the band become a high powered CB service, lest it end up sounding like 27.025 MHz )

 

[kevtronics]

It would be interesting to see longwave turned into a new amateur radio band intended for amateur broadcasting rather than two-way conversation.

Such a thing has existed for decades, albeit on a very small scale. FCC Part 15 allows unlicensed use of 160 to 190 kHz with a maximum power of 1 watt and a maximum antenna length of about 50 feet:

LF (Low Frequency)

The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) is the national association for amateur radio, connecting hams around the U.S. with news, information and resources.

www.arrl.org

You won't get out very far, but you can broadcast anything you want within those limitations.

 

[boombox4]

Such a thing has existed for decades, albeit on a very small scale. FCC Part 15 allows unlicensed use of 160 to 190 kHz with a maximum power of 1 watt and a maximum antenna length of about 50 feet:

LF (Low Frequency)

The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) is the national association for amateur radio, connecting hams around the U.S. with news, information and resources.

www.arrl.org

You won't get out very far, but you can broadcast anything you want within those limitations.

There is also a Longwave Amateur Radio band around 135 kHz or so, below the part 15 one you mentioned, and there is another one at 472 kHz.

But yeah, no broadcasting allowed in those bands. The part 15, 160 kHz band can be fun, though. I had a 160 kHz Part 15 station that reached most of my neighborhood. Running a mic'd FRG-7 (tuned to a local station as an experiment) through a compressor into the mic input of the P-Box put out a decent sounding signal. My antenna was around 60 ft.

Here is a chart showing the two bands included in with others that hams can use.:

https://www.arrl.org/files/file/Regulatory/Band%20Chart/Band%20Chart%20-%2011X17%20Color.pdf

 

[Bongwater]

FWIW somebody thinks longwave is still viable in the Arctic: Arctic 252

No indication that this even has a license from the Finnish telecommunications authorities.

I suspect this will never get on the air, or will be short lived. Seems more of a wallow in nostalgia rather than any serious effort to serve a modern media audience.

And of all the LW frequencies, 252 (Occupied by RTE Ireland and Algeria) has got to be the worst.

 

[Mediafrog+]

And of all the LW frequencies, 252 (Occupied by RTE Ireland and Algeria) has got to be the worst.

The 252 kHz signal of RTE was shut down in April, 2023. Algeria still there, but is 2,400 miles from the proposed Finnish station, so perhaps not much of a problem.