BBC Radio presenter’s family brutally murdered in crossbow attack
https://www.news.com.au/world/europe/bbc-presenters-family-brutally-murdered-in-crossbow-attack/news-story
Discussed further in the British Television thread (for some reason).
So they can just complain and make a competitor not come into the market?
Yes. Although to be fair that’s how the ACMA acts here - like a protection racket for the incumbent operators.
In this scenario though I do kind of get the operators’ concerns. A few new ones have popped up over the last couple of years, like Boom Radio, in order to fill a gap left by BBC as they moved Radio 2 younger. Now they seem to be trying to launch a station to get back the audience they had already abandoned.
Meanwhile, the BBC Radio 3 spinoff is set to go in Autumn:
https://twitter.com/matt/status/1813518353946022302
A couple of recent stories. Firstly, XS Manchester has ditched a majority of it’s presenter-led programmes. Outside of Breakfast (7-11) & Drivetime (16-20), the entire schedule is made up of nonstop music.
Secondly, Bauer has announced it’s intention to replace KISS with Hits Radio on 3 of its 4 remaining FM transmitters (covering London, Norfolk, and the Severn Estuary). The one remaining transmitter will cover Bristol on 97.2 as it has done since 1992.
A question for those in the UK, specifically the eastern parts such as Essex and Suffolk.
I have tried to tune into UK radio using the TEF nodes in the Netherlands, without any success thus far. I find this surprising given that the high powered BBCs make it to Germany and even Poland via tropo.Some of the nodes are are very close to the UK such as Middelburg. I know the FMs in the Netherlands use vertical polarisation which would help to minimise interference to the UK and Germany. Do the high powered BBC outlets (and others) have a severe null towards Europe?
Yes, there are usually nulls in the direction of continental Europe to some degree, especially for the powerful transmitters in the east and south.
The other thing is that the band in the Netherlands is quite packed. The best bet on those TEF servers in NL is usually 89.7 from Tacolneston in the east of England (BBC Radio 2 at 250kW mixed pol), I’ve noticed that on them a couple of times.
Here’s the V pol pattern for Tacolneston, you can see there’s a varying null between NE and SE (also in other directions too though which I didn’t expect so much, and with the most power going towards Belgium!) -
Yes I’ve tried 89.7 Tacolneston as I’m vaguely aware that’s in the east, but no luck so far. Nothing from Wrotham. The Netherlands have their own networks on most of the BBC frequency blocks.
Has anyone stood on the shore of, say, Norfolk/East Anglia with a TEF and received Netherlands full tilt? I’d imagine it would surely be possible.
I think you’d definitely get something most of the time over on the east coast.
Not specifically East Anglia but I took my TEF further up north on the east coast (on cliffs near the town of Whitby in north Yorkshire) on what seemed to be a pretty flat day with no tropo early this year, and I heard the Netherlands there on FM (~450km), along with Denmark (~600-750km) and northern Germany (~600km). Nothing particularly strong, but audible. I think with any tropo these would get up to RDS strength fairly quickly.
Because we don’t have anything high power under 88MHz here, some of the nearer continental European stations make it across quite often by scatter if you’re relatively high up and/or have a good antenna. I live in the west of England and with the TEF up on 300m ASL ground round here I’ve had Belgium scattering in on 87.6 the few times I’ve tried.
It’s a pity England doesn’t have any ultra high points; it’s only in the Scottish Highlands where you get above 1000 m, and tropo conditions up there are pretty poor most of the time to say the least. Snowdonia in Wales would be the highest in the southern half of the UK I think?
I am lucky to have a DX site about 10 minutes drive away that’s 900 m ASL with a great HAAT (my town is only 700 m ASL, high by Australian and UK standards though).
I’ve seen a video on YouTube of a guy picking up various Norwegian DAB muxes from the mountains in the Highlands of Scotland (their high power FM was turned off a few years back).
On the west side I reckon there’d be a fair chance of Iceland via tropo, if you did manage to get lucky with the conditions.
The best DX we get does seem to be by the sea where you can null out the inter-UK stuff a bit. Otherwise higher up in England you just tend to get lots of BBC stations every 0.1MHz!
It would have to be a fluke to get Iceland via tropo; there’s always a disturbance lurking over the ocean that far north, even in late summer and early autumn. Though with the changing climate I guess anything is possible!
One of the guys over here used to get a trace of one of Iceland’s VHF Band 3 TV transmitters on tropo apparently, but that was running 1000kW.
Then much nearer of course, but there’s a rebroadcast transmitter in the far north east of Scotland that sometimes gets its input feed swamped by the Faroe Islands, and ends up retransmitting that instead, with RDS.
Analogue or digital, why would Iceland need such a high power transmission?
You think a small population base would have sites just for the population bases.
Iceland has LW radio as well, I believe it’s still going on 189 kHz, picked up on an online SDR in Canada. Iceland is a fishing nation so this made sense I suppose, but there’s less demand for VHF (especially TV) on the frigid seas.
Perhaps they wanted to promote Bjork, among other sens and dottirs of the nation?
I will quickly note that their transmission on 207kHz ceased last year, with 189kHz set to follow within the next few months.
Thanks @BBI45, I found a site to translate the entire webpage:
The long wave goes silent and calls for suggestions on where RÚV’s FM system can be improved
RÚV’s long wave mast on Eið, the third tallest structure in the country, will be demolished tomorrow. All RÚV broadcasts on longwave will be stopped next year and the FM system will take over the role of safety broadcasts.
February 28, 2023 at 11:51 GMT
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RÚV’s long-wave mast is about 220 meters high.
RÚV – Rúnar Snær Reynisson
RÚV’s long-wave broadcast from Eiðum will be finally silenced tomorrow when the mast, the third tallest structure in the country, will be taken down. Since yesterday, an announcement about the change has been sent out. The FM system in East Iceland has been strengthened and replaced by longwave, and RÚV is asking for suggestions on where the FM system could be improved.
“The mast will be cut down. So we cut to the pillars and then it falls to the ground. Increased requirements for flight safety have called for us to take action and remove the structure to increase flight safety at Egilsstaður Airport. Which is very important,” says Bragi Reynisson, director of technical affairs at RÚV.
The police cordon off the area
Yesterday, the mast completed its mission after broadcasting RÚV’s long-wave program for a quarter of a century. It was built between 1996 and 1998 and is 220 meters high. Only two structures are taller in this country. The U.S. Army’s transmission mast in Grindavík is almost 305 meters high, but the highest is RÚV’s long-wave mast at Gufuskálar in Snæfellsnes, 412 meters high. It was built in 1963 for the British and American LORAN-C positioning system, but was converted into a RÚV long-wave transmitter in 1997. “Of course, it is always problematic to demolish such a tall structure. We get help from our construction manager at Efla. And then we will join the team from the police to look after the area itself; that everything is now safe around it when we demolish this large structure,” says Bragi.
The long wave will be completely silent next year
RÚV’s long-wave mast at Gufuskálar continues to serve for some time, but will be taken out of service next year, and then RÚV’s long-wave broadcasts will be permanently discontinued. The long wave travels very far and under the best conditions to other countries. However, long-wave radios have become rare and it costs a lot to run the system. Therefore, it is considered better to use funds to strengthen the FM system. Channel 2 on FM takes over the role of safety broadcasting in an emergency.
“There are holes in it, as there have been with the long wave, but they are just in other places. But what we have done in recent years is to build a large number of transmitters in order to consolidate the FM system. And we have replaced equipment at older transmission sites, and we have also built backup power or battery backup power for up to 24 hours at all the main transmission sites now in the East. We strive to cover all year-round residential areas and all major highways and major tourist attractions. But unfortunately there will be places that are outside that are simply very difficult to reach. There we have to refer to other ways to make contact, such as for example through satellite systems such as Starlink or through satellite phones,” says Bragi.
However, work will continue to consolidate the FM system. At ruv.is/dreifikerfi , you can access information and make suggestions about where the system needs to be improved.
RÚV
Long wave
Eastland
Jenas also does work for talkSport, and was presenting a show on air when the news broke.
The radio station said it had been made aware of the story as the programme started - but a decision was made “with Jermaine that he should continue to present”.
“Given the array of serious allegations being reported as the story continues to evolve, it’s for Jermaine as a private individual to address them in the way he chooses,” it said.
“There are no plans for Jermaine to broadcast as a presenter on talkSport in the immediate future.”
In an interview with talkSport radio, he repeatedly said “I can’t really talk about it” when asked about the claims being made.