The Way We Were

Here is a classic copy of The Guide from 1999. See how much has changed, how much remains the same but above all, enjoy the nostalgia:

A European Radio Review

This section is an anecdotal review of the spectrum as seen and heard by the writer. Starting with a look at the radio spectrum in general, or Who Is Using What:

Band Lower Limit	Band Upper Limit	User
9 kHz	14 kHz	Radio Navigation (OMEGA)
14	90	Various Services
90	110	Radiolocation (Loran C)
110	160	Military CW Stations
160	190	Fixed Service
190	415	Nautical Radionavigation Beacons
415	510	Maritime Coastal (CW)
510	535	Aeronautical Radionavigation Beacons
525	1605	North American AM Broadcast Band
1605	1800	Fixed, mobile, radiolocation
1800	2000	Amateur 160 Meters
1900	2000	Radiolocation
2000	2300	Fixed/Mobile: Maritime
2300	2495	Tropical Band
2495	2850	Fixed, mobile
2850	3155	Aeronautical mobile (USB,CW,RTTY)
3155	3400	Fixed, mobile
3200	3400	90 Metre International Broadcast
3500	4000	Amateur 80 Meters
3900	4000	75 Metre International Broadcast
4000	4063	Maritime Mobile
4438	4650	Various Allocations
4650	4750	Aeronautical Mobile
4750	5060	60 Metre International Broadcast
5060	5450	Fixed, Mobile
5450	5730	Aeronautical Mobile
5730	5950	Fixed, Mobile
5950	6200	49 Metre International Broadcast
6200	6525	Maritime Mobile
6525	6765	Nautical Mobile
6765	6795	Industrial, Scientific and Medical
6795	7000	Fixed Services
7000	7300	Amateur 40 Meters
7100	7300	41 Metre International Broadcast
7300	8195	Fixed service.
8195	8815	Maritime Mobile
8815	9040	Aeronautical
9040	9500	Fixed Service
9500	9900	31 Metre International Broadcast
9900	10100	Fixed Service
10100	10150	Amateur 30 Meters
10150	11175	Fixed Service Mobile
11175	11400	Aeronautical Mobile
11400	11650	Fixed Services.
11650	12050	25 Metre International Broadcast
12050	12230	Fixed Services
12230	13200	Maritime Mobile
13200	13360	Aeronautical Mobile
13360	13410	Fixed Service, Astronomy
13360	13600	Mobile
13600	13800	22 Metre International Broadcast
13800	14000	Fixed Service
14000	14350	Amateur 20 Meters
14350	14990	Fixed Service
14990	15010	Standard Frequency and Time Operations
15005	15010	Space Research
15010	15100	Aeronautical Mobile
15100	15600	19 Metre International Broadcast
15600	16360	Fixed Service
16360	17410	Maritime Mobile
17410	17550	Fixed Service
17550	17900	16 Metre International Broadcast
17900	18030	Aeronautical Mobile
18030	18068	Fixed Service
18068	18168	Amateur 17 Meters
18168	18780	Fixed Service
18780	18900	Maritime Mobile
18900	19680	Fixed Service
19680	19800	Maritime Mobile
19800	19900	Fixed Service
19900	20010	Standard Frequency and Time
19900	19950	Space Research
20010	21000	Fixed Service
21000	21450	Amateur 15 Meters
21450	21850	13 Metre International Broadcast
21850	21870	Fixed Service
21870	21924	Aeronautical Fixed Service
21924	22000	Aeronautical Mobile
22000	22855	Maritime Mobile
22855	23200	Fixed Service
23000	23200	Mobile Services
23200	23350	Off Route Aeronautical Mobile
23350	24890	Fixed Service
23350	24000	Mobile Services
24000	24890	Land Mobile and Fixed Service
24890	24990	Amateur 12 Meters
24990	25010	Standard Frequency and Time
25010	25070	Fixed Service
25070	25210	Maritime Mobile
25210	25550	Fixed, Mobile
25210	25670	Astronomy
25670	26100	11 Metre International Broadcast
26100	26175	Maritime Mobile
26174	28000	Fixed Service
26174	28000	Mobile Services
26960	27410	Citizens Band
27500	28000	Meteorological
28000	29700	Amateur 10 Meters
29700	30005	Fixed, Mobile

VLF, the power and the glory

Below the good old long-wave is a range of frequencies used as National Standard's for frequency accuracy and time. Nuclear technology has made these very accurate indeed so to convey the pure engineering of these stations, no mathematical shorthand has been used. Down here, we are talking real numbers.

The ELF ranges, where the frequencies are so low we could hear them if they were vibrations in air, contain submarine navigation signals. These require antennas so vast that an entire geological feature such as an atoll is used, soaking up many megawatts of power to get a signal through the Earth, not over its surface.

Geostationary satellites are today's more economical solution.

More Like Old Times.

The writer remembers a Practical Wireless project in the late Sixties for an ELF radio. The new Ferroxcube transformer cores formed the base of the untuned coils working somewhere below 9KHz. The gain came from three stages of OC71's, an OA47 detector and my last OC71 to drive the headphones. The thing was alive. Screaming whistles and whale-like howls tracked the course of electrical storms across entire continents - they showed me the magnetic changes brought on by the movement of the Earths tectonic plates could be heard, but by now I was too scared to listen. The Thing was assigned to The Twilight Zone in the attic.

Disclaimer - The comments with the station name are those of the author and do not represent the opinions of the publisher. He writes like this in the hope he will get invited to parties. We have taken the Devil's Advocate stand so you can form your own opinions.

9KHz
SFERICS frequencies allocated to track the electromagnetic effects of thunderstorms. The receiver itself is quite a simple device but its portability is rather limited by the 16 kilometer antenna. In practice much shorter antennas are used, the figure quoted is a full-size antenna for around a wavelength of 33,000 metres.

10.2KHz
Lower limit of a 3KHz band allocated to The Omega Global Navigational System. The days of this world-wide network of super-stations are numbered as Global Positioning goes up onto the satellites.

60KHz
National Physical Laboratory Standard Time and Frequency Service at Rugby. Colour supplement readers will have seen adverts for Radio Clocks. These use MSF Rugby to pick up time data signals to constantly update an otherwise free-running clock. Accurate to one part in 1,000,000,000,000 per day, this adds big science to boiling an egg. The frequency is a Standard for the electronics industry, drifting only a maximum of two parts in 1,000,000,000,000. Well, we promised you real numbers.

100KHz
LORAN-C Navigation Chain. Using the phase-relationship of a chain of coastal transmitters to cast a radio grid on the waters for our ships to sail by, LORAN is one of the many users of MSF Rugby for standardization. Audible in the UK is the station at Sylt.

198KHz
BBC Radio 4. The Father of Talk Radio. World Service continues overnight, the carrier also carries data for Economy 7 switching, the accuracy being a mere two parts in 100,000,000,000.

252KHz
Long Wave Radio Atlantic 252. Seen as operating outside the conventions of UK commercial radio, this CTL Radio Luxembourg funded rebel without a pause now claims an audience of five million of those who find FM on the move a trial and want pop radio they can hear anywhere. The technical arguments on quality seem lost on the average pop pundit. The downside is Algerian National Radio, who rise in signal strength overnight and as winter approaches to deny Atlantic most of its inland audience.

283.5KHz
Lower limit for Marine Radio Beacons.

315KHz
Upper limit for Marine Radio Beacons.

396.5KHz
Plymouth Marine Non-directional Beacon. This is one of many NDBs dotted around the coastline. Their large service area means a ship can get a lock on one from quite a distance. Rather reassuring for Jack Tars coming home from the sea.

484KHz
GKZ Humber Radio. If you are on the way to becoming a fully-fledged radio ham, this sub-band is full of machine-sent navigation and weather information in morse code. Vital to shipping and excellent revision for the morse test. There is also a rich cocktail of interference from our electricity supply industry to give you the chance of reading it under real battle conditions. We have often wondered if ITV could have endeared themselves to an extra fifty thousand radio hams by giving Inspector Morse a daughter called Dot.

518KHz
Marine Navtex. A digital error-correcting message system for shipping.

525KHz
The lower limit of The Medium Wave or AM Band. In the rush for FM, the fortunes of steam radio wax and wane. A perfect vehicle for speech and rolling news, The UK Radio Authority only see it as a dumping ground for Gold-format - that is, endless golden oldies played by someone who was yet to be born when the record was a hit. Music programming made on the assumption that its audience is too old to appreciate FM.

In the early days of commercial radio in the Seventies, one of the contributors to the IBA Yearbook suggested they should give away a school pencil with a rubber at one end so the reader could sketch in all the changes as take-over fever hit the industry. The same is still true today. The Gold stations do make money but a young management does not know what to do with them. So, it's all change but everything stays the same.

Our American readers can only wonder why we have so many problems in our radio industry. We, the Brits, need to see our broadcasting as art, whereas in the States it is simply a resource. Our American readers may also like to substitute the word "eraser" for "rubber" in the last paragraph unless you are Howard Stern...

545KHz
Lichfield Aeronautical Non-directional Beacon. Very popular with "P for Popsie" pilots in the UK Midlands but why is it in a broadcast band? Its placing outside the 9KHz spacing used on this band leaves two channels that can't be developed. Callsign LIC.

558KHz
Spectrum International. We have been asked what a "multi-ethnic incremental" is. Simply, it is a small station using many languages, quite successfully too.

567KHz
RTE Radio 1. As this was being compiled, the threat of peace hangs over this troubled country. To form a true opinion, free from the rhetoric of career journalists, listen here for the news and a gentle style of radio we have not heard since The Home Service became Radio 4.

612KHz
RTE Radio 2. Can pop music be treated intelligently? It can and can be heard as evening gathers. A useful one to pre-set on the car radio for night drivers.

648KHz
BBC 648 for Europe. A special service for Europe from Orford Ness with opt-outs in German. Essential listening in the south-east for those in the know and the many who hold the more traditional broadcasting values dear. Watch out for time-checks in CET, Central European Time. A listing can be found on CEEFAX Page 648, times GMT/BST. Also in the better broadsheets and on subscription from Bush House and where ever better books are sold in and around London. End of commercial.

Among the yellowing cuttings that form the research - indeed, research was, believe it or not, done for this Guide - is one from The Guardian that reads, "Friday 1615, Science in Acton."

BBC World Service can be heard overnight on your local BBC Station. And on Radio 4 Long-wave, Radio Scotland and on Astra. If the satellite technology defeats you, you are in good company.

In the South-east, daytime World Service can be heard on 648 and for limited periods, on 1296.

648 is good enough for in-car reception in Central London, the only drawback being the opt-outs in German and other main European languages. This has some value for language teachers stuck on the M25 marking German homework. Meanwhile, back in Germany they are all teaching English...

It's open season for the rest of us. We must resort to short-wave if we want uninterrupted listening to World Service. Meanwhile, it was one Jasper Carrot who remarked that the chances of finding a radio station in English after midnight driving home from a gig were on a par with a snowball in Hades. The same skip effect that brought you Radio Luxembourg from the Grand Duchy is also responsible for the foreign voices fading in behind the Sony Award winning sound of your favourite local station as darkness falls. The skip is perfect to bring Central Europe to your door so, as the good Carrot observed, most night reception seems to German. Looking back, they do seem to have thrown a towel or two over some of our popular channels.

873KHz
AFRTS Europe from Frankfurt. The American Forces Radio and Television Service serves a slice of apple pie to the troops in Europe.

930KHz
CJYQ Newfoundland. One of the benefits of a falling sunspot count, the North American DX season opens up. Stations from across the pond can be heard around midnight as UK local radio closes down. Signal strengths can be high enough to allow reception on modest sets, the problem is the Americans use a 10KHz spacing where we use 9KHz. This will cause interference in all but the best receivers but the variety of frequencies a 9KHz spacing produces gives more interesting work to UK jingle writers.

945KHz
GEM AM. The all-oldies outlet of Midlands Radio PLC. Don't look away from the monitor too long or it will have changed it's name along with the other "Gold Format" AM stations. While researching this, I was in touch with the Radio Authority asking for a general listing of which contractor is using what frequency. They, the controlling body did not know - contact National Transcommunications Ltd who run the transmitters. NTL did not know - they only send it, they don't know what it is. Could I write to each station in turn?

Well, not really. But it does concern me that the industry changes faster than its governing body can monitor it.

It is difficult to identify Oldie stations as, not only do they sound the same, they are the same. A feed for up to five transmitters comes from one studio. Digital sampling is used to insert the local ident in each feed to an area transmitter on a command from the main studio.

You think you have local radio, but it is only a part of a regional set-up.

1215KHz
Virgin 1215. Poor old Richard Branson. Those who remember Brian Matthew on Saturday Club will recall the upstart Radio 1 starting up here in 1967. They called it 247 metres in those days and even then BBC engineers said this channel had a jinx on it. Louder in Holland than it ever was in the UK, Radio 3 used its experience here as a real case for FM-only during the mid-Seventies. In the meantime, the Radio Authority will have to keep building Richard AM relays in a vain attempt to beat off the night-time joys of Albanian Radio from downtown Lushnje.

1296KHz
BBC World Service, Orford Ness. Much as 648 but with more English language teaching and mid-European services as above. Less used now, Merlin Communications are looking for another European customer for this channel.

1368KHz
Manx Radio, Isle of Man. Listeners on the west coast can hear TT Race commentary. This is the UK's first commercial radio station. It may not have been this station but the first advert we remember was for Camel Lites, an American cigarette brand. What my four-year-old imagination could not handle was the need to ride a camel after dark anyway...

STOP PRESS: The Isle of Man to get Pan-European Long-Wave Radio?

1386KHz
Radio Moscow via Kaliningrad. There's a name off the old station glass...

The trend over recent years is to have your message broadcast on the normal AM band of your target country in the hope of higher audiences than could be expected for short-wave. Bless you, short-wave radio fan, but in the ratings game - the game accountants play more part in these days - the figures can be all but dismissed. You can do this by hiring air-time on local radio for a fistful of roubles or you can buy land in your target area and set up a relay station. Moscow got in early with this million-watt powerhouse, now audible in the UK.

1630KHz
WAFE, Baltimore. Our sudden interest in FM is not new. Over in the States, the rate of take-up of FM frequencies is great, the regulating body - the FCC - is trying to revitalize AM by extending the band to 1750KHz. Just who will have the radios to hear the new stations we don't know, but on this side of The Pond experimental stations like this one are real catches.

Future experimental stations will have a 2 in the callsign.