It's easy to avoid if you simply keep using what works. For example, I still use Office 2003 because it does everything I need.
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BBC 198 kHz longwave closure date?
- Thread starter Mediafrog+
- Start date
Here’s an article about the Long Wave masts and some other historical info and pictures:
www.bbc.com
This video includes Al Ryan’s signoff @Miss Tuned mentioned, which included a “good night” in Gaelic, “oíche mhaith”:
Long Wave radio era set to end with Droitwich switch-off
But campaigners want the LW masts in Worcestershire to be given listed status.
www.bbc.com
This video includes Al Ryan’s signoff @Miss Tuned mentioned, which included a “good night” in Gaelic, “oíche mhaith”:
The redirect loop is still going on 198 kHz early Tuesday, June 30 in the UK. Quite possibly its last day on the air after over a century of BBC broadcasting on longwave.
Absolutely!
For that reason, I'm using MacOS 10.14 Mojave(released September 2018 and last updated July 2021) on my computer. It hasn't received updates in awhile, but it still works well enough and is safe enough if I'm careful.
I actually did try to upgrade, but every time I went past Catalina (MacOS 10.15), my audio interface broke. On Catalina, my interface worked, my DAW software broke, so I decided to stick with Mojave because everything works.
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198 kHz is now off the air. Unsure when the final shutdown occurred, but no signal received on various SDRs in the UK around 1400 UTC today.
Goodbye to the BBC on longwave after more than a century.
Goodbye to the BBC on longwave after more than a century.
According to posts by Alan Pennington and Richard Langley on Glenn Hauser’s World of Radio site, the final shutdown of 198 kHz was at 1103 UTC today, or just after noon in the UK.
For whatever it's worth: I block Youtube's embed JavaScript in my browser. One side-effect is that Youtube thumbnails don't appear in those embeds, only direct links. Had I known that video had a slop thumbnail, I'd have included a clarification assuring the video itself was real.
And now that I'm looking at it, @Mediafrog+ is correct that the model in the video is the same as what's in the slop thumbnail (black face). I have no idea why the uploader decided to generate it with his Slopomatic '76 when he could have just photographed the actual radio. Maybe he was after the dramatic lighting effects.
I know the guy, I'll ask him. My guess is that he used one of those tools that offers to generate an AI thumbnail for you when you upload a video.
They are killing off some of the smaller ones where Radio 5 is the only station left. The sites used to be shared, but one by one the other AM stations have gone, and the resource required to broadcast just Radio 5 on AM to a town of say, 50,000 where most people are listening on DAB isn't worth it.
We also have the same issue as the U.S. where the land is worth more as a development site for residential or business than as a radio station. Both the sites that are closing this month are on the edge of towns with housing developments butting right up against them, and will have houses on them as soon as the towers come down.
BBC starts closing BBC Radio 5 Live AM transmitters – RadioToday
radiotoday.co.uk
With the closure of 198, was there any publicity in the UK relating to the end of the TeleSwitch data service that was transmitted on the longwave signal?
I’ve been reading and hearing a lot of stories about the UK housing shortage, so I would think the pressure to redevelop land will only increase.
As I understand it, 198 was kept around longer than the BBC really wanted it to be kept around, purely because of the electricity metering stuff on the signal. The electricity companies were the ones paying for it for the past few years, not the BBC.
I'm not up on the detail, but I read that the requirement for it from the electricity companies has now ended as they have spent the past few years going around replacing all the old meters with 4G-connected "smart" ones, which is why it got shut off when it did, rather than being driven by the BBC.
They can't build them fast enough, it's crazy. My town is encircled on three sides by brand new housing developments and it still isn't touching the sides of what's needed. It's not just the UK - the Netherlands is in a worse situation, I was there last month and the whole place looks like a giant apartment construction site, there are whole new cities going up in places like Almere Poort, and still they have a housing crisis. Ireland is the same, to the extent that radio is full of angry songs literally about the housing crisis like this one.
Back in the UK, I was lucky to grab a property in need of some redecoration for about $225k, but that's considered crazy low. They were short sighted through the late 20th and early 21st century in terms of not building the amount of housing needed for a growing population and structural changes like more one-person households, and now Europe is playing catch-up while the U.S. pretty much kept building throughout.
Is the new housing built in a cheap/slipshod way there or does it depend on the housebuilder/area? An ex bought a townhouse that was only a few years old and it was very drafty around the windows. A handyman took off the window casings and found out the drafts were because the builder hadn't caulked/foamed around the window frames!
New houses tend to have minor faults and snags, but I'm not overly familiar with it because my house is from 1934 and I've never lived in a brand new one.
Nothing as bad as the "Mica scandal" in Ireland:
‘Blocks like Weetabix:’ how mica scandal upended lives in Ireland
Residents living in buildings that have to be demolished due to defective blocks describe anguish
Neither have I. That is terrible about the Mica scandal, thanks for the link.New houses tend to have minor faults and snags, but I'm not overly familiar with it because my house is from 1934 and I've never lived in a brand new one.
Nothing as bad as the "Mica scandal" in Ireland:
‘Blocks like Weetabix:’ how mica scandal upended lives in Ireland
Residents living in buildings that have to be demolished due to defective blocks describe anguishwww.theguardian.com
The oldest place I’ve lived was built in the 1920’s and had a coal room. My current house was finished/inspected in 1967, the original signed inspection sticker is in the basement. I’m finishing work that my brother had started to improve the house.
Longwave has incredible groundwave coverage during the day, often 1,000 miles or more depending on transmitter power. It was great for fill-in coverage where mediumwave and FM didn’t reach.
Unfortunately, like shortwave and to a great extent mediumwave, the longwave audience is pretty much gone, having moved on to platforms with better audio quality and reception characteristics.
Algeria on 252 kHz is my deathpool pick as the final LW station to pull the plug, though the 164/209/227 transmitters in Mongolia may steal the prize.
Are there still any dual-purpose beacon/aero weather stations left on longwave in North America? Back in the last millennium, I remember hearing "TUK" in Nantucket, MA, and "LQ" in Lynn, MA, transmitting spoken weather reports and forecasts over the steady repetition of their identifiers in Morse 24/7. Neither has been doing that for many years now. What's going on elsewhere?
I think LQ operated on 382 kHz and TUK on 193.
I think LQ operated on 382 kHz and TUK on 193.
I’ve seen reports that 251 kHz “AM” in Amarillo still has spoken weather reports, but most of those are now gone. GLS 206 in Galveston, Texas and GNI 236 in Grand Isle, Louisiana were two more powerful examples and widely heard decades ago, but both also long gone. I recall being able to hear GLS in Amarillo in the middle of the day, some 600 miles away in the early 1980s.
TUK was on 194 kHz.
Current longwave beacons:
The list shows LQ now assigned to a beacon in Springfield, IL, while TUK is no longer on the air. I also see that "MMK" Meriden, CT, and "OX," Oxford, CT, the nearest beacons to me when I lived in Connecticut, are not on the list either.
McGRath, Alaska doesnt have a combo, but just the usual NDB, VTR on 350.... but it has the distinction of being fairly high powered at 1kw and uses an NVIS antenna. It will eventually go away as its broken down a few times and parts are becoming unobtanium.
I'm not sure when the beacon was launched, but im fairly certain this was used by KSKO back when they were on AM had a fire at the transmitter site further down the road, which got KSKO back on the air in 2-3 days with a loaner transmitter, which back in the 80s when it happened, in rural alaska was a feat. I'm unclear on exactly what or when happened, but i recall something happened.. (in the course of my 5 1/2 years there, i heard lots of KSKO Stories that werent really "Documented")
