Medium and Long Wave Hobby / Free / Pirate Radio broadcasting in the UK

[Wk-end]

Hi WK-END. Yes agreed about "yoof" not knowing about radio. Your "WK-END" stream sounds very good, BUT how do you get listeners online? I am involved with RJR 98.3, who have MORE listeners online now. However, it's the "ethnic audience" that makes RJR. Can you answer how you get your listeners with an online station that's not ethnic?

We have 3x TX on atm Fella.

[David2999]

Good Stuff!!

[Wk-end]

Very lucky to have a big team that love radio.

[Persona Non Grata]

It seems Ofcom does not have the recources to try and track down Pirates on Medium waves

Ironically one of the reasons FM became popular with pirates back in the day was that the GPO (initially) didn't have the wherewithall to track them

Similarly when pirates first started using UHF links it took a year or so for the authorities to figure out how to track these.

[David2999]

As this is a very wide read and popular Free radio forum, how do the members here feel about our gaining access to the MW band? As we are talking MW, only public broadcasting has ever happened there, and there is no UK law saying we cannot access MW now on a strictly "secondary shared basis". We are in "Region 1", and that's where MW is abandonded. Therefore, as there is NO legal or logical reason why we should not now use MW, (provided transmissions are non political, non commercial (no adverts) or controversial in any way). I feel the time is right to do Free Radio in the MW band, as is permitted (or openly tolerated) in several other countries. It was Mike that raised the fact MW will soon be totally abandoned and disused. I feel Ofcom cannot supply ANY sensible reason why our access to MW cannot now happen. What are your thoughts (as Free radio enthusiasts) on this way to take our interest in Free radio forward, as the methods of UK media delivery are today expanding rapidly into the online digital and smartphone platforms?

[Time2Shine]

The idea that avoiding advertisements or controversy will make a shred of difference to enforcement is naive.If they receive complaints, which may well come from redio hams or competitors, they will enforce. However much I may enjoy listening to MW and agree with the fun side of MW broadcasting it isn't exactly a band that people go to to get their tunes..

[Albert H]

A good and easy way to start is to hook up a signal generator (that can be modulated) to an antenna. When more power is required, add a PA!!

Not really.... You'll find that most signal generators will drift. Crystal control is essential.

Just four cheap CMOS ICs, a couple of regulators, a power FET (or two) and a cheap Class D audio amplifier from China (Aliexpress is your friend). The only slightly tricky component is the crystal - 4608kHz is ideal for Europe (9 kHz steps) and 5120kHz for 10 kHz steps for the Americas. You'll need a power supply - 30 - 40 Volts is ideal - and 10 - 15V for the logic. You'll need a metal box to house the thing, and (possibly) a heatsink to keep the FET(s) happy. You'll need some ferrite ring cores (type 2 and type 43 for the MW band).

Zozo (elsewhere on this site) has a prototype AM rig, with pretty much the recipe above.

I built a little 50W (carrier) / 200W (peak) rig yesterday for a friend. It was built on Verboard for the logic, used a cheap Chinese audio amplifier module for the modulator, and copperclad PCB material for the hot end. The whole thing went together in under two hours, and we spent more time playing with it on the air last night than I did constructing it! It's stable, harmonically clean, reasonably powerful, robust, and cost just a few £ to throw together! It went to a neighbouring country this morning, and is probably on the air already!

[87to108]

Underground (buried) antennas work well on these old bands too!!

for "work well" I take it you mean for radiation, and not using the ground as a dummy load!

Can you give any examples of any successful use of underground/buried antennas on MW or LW ??

I am aware of military use at ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) for slow data transmission

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

but would be considered unusable at the relatively (to ELF) much higher in frequency MW/LW (150 - 1700 kHz approx)