AM Radio fading into history
A significant point has now been reached in the “passing” of AM radio, as Bauer have now given up Absolute Radio’s national AM licence. This means the 1215Khz (247 metres) frequency that originally bought BBC Radio 1 into our homes & cars will fall silent for the last time.
AM listening now only accounts for 2% of listeners, with most BBC local radio closed on AM, & former ILR AM frequencies dwindling. I still have a well used AM radio in the car. It’s permanently tuned to Radio Caroline, which, while miles away from their Orfordness AM transmitter still gives reasonable reception here in Hertfordshire. I suppose you could call this a “heritage” service by them now, as to me all the crackling & hissing of weak AM radio is something that has always been associated with listening to the early pirate stations. |
Re: AM Radio fading into history
My only distinct memories of AM are it being on in the car on our way to or from holidays and being overcome by static every time we went under power lines (that would have been Radio 2 on medium wave) and Atlantic 252 on long wave in the late 80s and early 90s, which for some reason was preferred over radio 1 amongst most folk I hung around with, and even the bloke who drove our school bus.
“I listen to the best music on long wave radio, Atlantic 252” … (no longer) |
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I remember Radio 1 on 247 in my early cars, and something on about 1500 meters ?
I believe Radio 5 is still on 693/909, I last had that on in the car just before the pandemic. |
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My wife used to listen to French LW radio stations, despite all the pops and whistles. When her radio died, I could not find a decent portable radio with LW.
She now uses a Bluetooth speaker linked to her mobile phone, working on the home wifi. Also a mains-powered internet radio in the kitchen. Perfect quality, but she says she misses the poor quality of LW! I don't think I've tuned to an AM station in decades. According to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, AM and FM broadcasts will continue to at least 2030. |
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BBC Radio 1 did broadcast where Talksport is broadcasting from right now on AM 1089 - In Central Scotland anyway. As I did pick up the tests for Absolute Radio - then called Virgin Radio on AM 1215. |
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The BBC gave up use of 1215 for the launch of Virgin Radio in 1993. |
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I'm a bigger fan of LW. Fantastic if you're at sea and like cricket :)
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think the last time I did anything with AM was illegal CB Radio
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Still have fond memories of listening to radio Luxembourg in the evening on an am pocket radio as a teen. IIRC around 1.5MHz. No matter how much power they put up the mast, eventually 1 megawatt, it always suffered from fading due to reflections off the ionosphere.
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| used to drive past the Radio Luxemburg transmission station quite often. You could tell you were getting close when all the radio harmonics started swamping all the other stations.
247khz also 208khz. |
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As for AM, that waveband also got several boots at the same time when firstly ILR stations had to launch a separate AM service and then the arrival of two national commercial stations on AM plus Radio 5 and 5 Live. ---------- Post added at 13:21 ---------- Previous post was at 13:20 ---------- Quote:
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The resulting issue was where test match Special was to go. In 1992 it was broadcast on Radio 3 FM, in 1993 the morning's play was on radio 5 with the afternoon coverage on radio 3 FM and by 1994 it had been moved to radio 4's long wave frequencies where nearly 30 years on, it remains. Also at the same time, a number of BBC Local stations lost their AM frequencies. Some such as BBC GLR, BBC GMR and BBC WM, were given to commercial radio but others such as BBC Radio Cleveland's AM frequency, were, for some unknown reason, were never reused. |
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