This Tuesday and it’s the end of an era.  The massive 500kW BBC Radio 4 longwave transmissions from Droitwich in central England will end.  Actual broadcast content ended on June 27th and for 3 days there is only a closedown message every minute. The audio stops altogether for a few seconds in between these messages.  198kHz  (and before that 200kHz) has been a fantastic beacon signal from northern Europe for LW DXers further afield but now it is dead.  BBC broadcasts began 100 years ago and the Droitwich station started in 1934. So it’s a last chance to look for the signal before Tuesday. Click on the picture to hear the current closedown message.

Short Youtube video of the final messaging from BBC Radio 4 Longwave

The RSGB have done an excellent article about the shutdown on their website: https://rsgb.org/main/radio-sport/rsgb-contest-club/bbc-long-wave-shutdown/

Good luck to those DXers who can receive the signal at this late stage! Please contact me on jon dot hudson at sdrplay dot com if you have a report or YouTube clip to share.  In the sample video I was using the networked nRSP-ST built-in web server running SDRconnect, and accessing it on an iPhone over the network. The antenna was a wire dipole (a G5RV) designed for HF,  but I’m only 80 miles away here in Bedfordshire. More about all our products here: https://www.sdrplay.com/products/

In other news, we are close to releasing a brand new website so some urls may change. Where possible redirects will guide you to the new location.