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  • Hacker News
  • Seems like everyone's shutting down radio services. CHU and Weather radio in Canada too :(
    by _whiteCaps_
  • These transmitters consume insane amounts of power. Per Wikipedia, that's 500 kW of rated transmission power for this one [1], so probably a solid megawatt of grid power input.

    At 30 ct/kWh, that's 300€ per hour, 7200€ per day and about 2.6 million € a year - for a customer base that is only decreasing.

    [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droitwich_Transmitting_Station

    by mschuster91
  • That is too bad, you would think these could be kept active for historical purposes. But seems these services are all being turned off even though I heard a few were very useful in this day and age.
    by jmclnx
  • IIRC, their operation relies on enormous vacuum tubes that the BBC can’t get replacements for any more.
    by cjs_ac
  • Radio Society of Great Britain reaction: https://rsgb.org/main/radio-sport/rsgb-contest-club/bbc-long...

    Rather defensive press release thing from the BBC: https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/articles/2026/radio-4-broadc...

    by leoc

  •      Droitwich uses two metre-high ceramic and metal valves, 
     which are no longer made.
    said valves: https://www.radiorewind.co.uk/images/1983027.jpg https://www.radiorewind.co.uk/images/1983023.jpg

    from: https://www.radiorewind.co.uk/radio1/droitwich.htm

    https://i0.wp.com/www.richardmudhar.com/blog/wp-content/uplo...

    by WarOnPrivacy
  • "valves" being british for vacuum tubes (though there's an entire generation of scifi where future computers are built around miniaturized valves even among american authors for some reason, Asimov in particular)
    by eichin
  • List of longwave radio broadcasters - including those that have shut down. The shutdown list is much longer than those remaining (only 7 remaining).

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

    by UncleOxidant
  • BBC Radio 4 can be streamed here, including internationally: https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/live/bbc_radio_fourfm

    Or

        mplayer 'https://a.files.bbci.co.uk/ms6/live/3441A116-B12E-4D2F-ACA8-C1984642FA4B/audio/simulcast/dash/nonuk/pc_hd_abr_v2/aks/bbc_radio_fourfm.mpd'

    vlc 'https://lsn.lv/bbcradio.m3u8?station=bbc_radio_fourfm%22&bitrate=320000%22'
    (Links from https://garfnet.org.uk/cms/tables/radio-frequencies/internet... )
    by Symbiote
  • For other readers, please be aware that only BBC World & BBC Radio 4 can be streamed outside of the UK.

    For about a year now, BBC has been aggressively geoblocking other radios.

    by karambahh
  • That's the end of the world, then. The British nuclear deterrent will launch when Radio 4 on long wave stops.

    https://www.forcesnews.com/services/navy/nuclear-promise-let...

    > The process by which a Trident submarine commander would determine if the British government continues to function includes, among other checks, establishing whether BBC Radio 4 continues broadcasting [on long wave]

    > Submarines on patrol were reported to have briefly gone on nuclear alert in 2004 when Radio 4 went off the air for 15 minutes due to a power cut.

    by amiga386
  • That station is said to be one of the signals used by the UK’s nuclear subs to assess the state of the country in a war scenario.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort#:~:text...

    by goodthenandnow
  • I hope they update their protocols
    by MonkZ
  • Suspect it is the Anthorn station these days.
    by 2b3a51
  • Imagine if the end of humanity is caused by everybody assuming somebody else told the captains about this.
    by jon-wood
  • IMO, when the last LW transmitter shuts down, the whole band needs to be reallocated to hams. Realistic small-ish antennas are shockingly doable with a capacitance hat, loading coil, and counterpoise.
    by bilegeek
  • The witness of the conspiracy practice in me says that the opposite is more likely to happen in the world whose govenments strive to limit its ineterconnectedness and turn it into a set of isolated anclaves not unlike Orwell's Eurasia, Eastasia and Oceania.

    The next logical step in that direction would be cracking down on HAM, not liberalization of it.

    We'll see.

    by wartywhoa23
  • I thought hams already had plenty of bands. Is there not one in this range?
    by microgpt
  • I hate to rain on your parade, but a lot of interests want the low-frequency spectrum. It will absolutely never be allocated to amateur radio.
    by toxik
  • "Longwave" has no universally agreed defintion, but good news, amateur radio already has usage of 135.7 kHz to 137.8 kHz.

    Building equipment that works on frequencies this low, and avoiding natural interference, can be extremely difficult.

    by LeoPanthera
  • Best we can do is privatisation and selling it to a party donor.
    by RobotToaster
  • There’s still a lot of utility stations in the LF/longwave band. Particularly time signals (WWVB in the US, ALS162 in France, DCF77 in Germany, JJY in Japan, etc.) and NDB beacons.

    At least in VK/Australia, there’s the 2200 meter band, but it’s quite limited (1W power limit, CW/digital only, 135.7–137.8 kHz).

    At the same time, as much as I don’t want the AM broadcast band to die, I’d love an amateur band in the lower/middle part of MF/MW.

    by yakkers
  • I'm very sad to see this go.

    I was listening to DAB in the car, not so far from here last weekend, and it kept cutting out. Whereas you could get LW everywhere!

    I developed a love of cricket on Test Match Special from a very young age. A tiny inexpensive radio could get it anywhere. I actually never minded the interruptions from the Shipping Forecast, the real reason they kept this service up for so long. I know there are many ways to get a forecast now, none of which is as reliable as radio 4.

    by jimnotgym
  • Funny you mention the cricket

    In the HBO miniseries Generation Kill the marines are tuned into the beeb long wave to get news updates, and there's a cricket score read out in the first episode

    https://www.reddit.com/r/generationkill/comments/6o2w2s/epis...

    by arprocter
  • A/The real reason was that electricity meters were built around a part of the signal being used to switch between price tiers but recently phased out.
    by Scoundreller
  • Digital radio was always going to be crap, it doesn't degrade gradually as signal gets worse They should have just put all the money into a better 4G network and ran radio through that.
    by Peanuts99
  • Some things in life happen for the very last time and we never realize it. Where were you when Jim Maxwell interrupted the test match coverage, for the final time, to declare that “listeners on long wave will now hear the shipp-ing four-cairst”? :)

    With apologies to Affabeck Lauder

    by gorgoiler
  • That's such a pity. Building a simple AM radio receiver was a simplest and coolest electronics project to do with kids.

    You need two transistors, a ferrite coil and a small set of simpler elements. And it is so simple you can actually explain what every part of the circuit does.

    And then the reward... Once built you could listen to BBC regardless of where you are in Europe. My kids just LOVED IT, no Netflix K-Drama replaces this experience. My daughter was listening to BBC on her radio every night going to sleep.

    by alentred
  • Look at this fancy pants needing a transistor for that /s

    (but yes I do miss those simpler days - but I guess the basics now is making an Arduino flash an LED)

    by raverbashing
  • My dad helped me build a crystal set when I was about 7. I still remember listening to a serialisation of Lorna Doone on the (MW) Home Service on headphones under the bedclothes.

    Sad that the LW sevice had to close but the BBC is short of cash and it won't get better either.

    by jcsager