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You may have heard Joe Duffy’s
Liveline segment in July last year about the centenary of the
BBC Shipping Forecast. It’s broadcast at 00:48 on BBC Radio 4,
preceded by a short piece of light music, Sailing By, before
the station closes down at 1 am. On long wave (LW), the frequency
then carries the BBC World Service. For some, the forecast is like a
soothing mantra, the repetitive structure and intonation of the words
easing them off to sleep.
The forecast is also broadcast
later in the day at 05:20, 12:00 and 17:55, and provides detailed
weather reports and forecasts for the seas around the British Isles
and surrounding European waters. (The “British Isles” is a
contentious term, but then there’s the “Irish Sea”, so we’re
sort of quits.)
In a documentary from January 2025,
Kilcullen man Al Ryan, a BBC presenter, was among those who spoke
about the Shipping Forecast. It celebrated its 100th birthday in the
early hours of 4 July last year, expertly read by Al, who always
signs off with oÃche mhaith, before the national anthem is played
and Radio 4 closes down.
The BBC World Service originally
broadcast on short wave (SW) in Europe, but transmissions on the SW
bands ceased in 2008 because, according to the BBC, “increasing
numbers of people around the world are choosing to listen to radio on
a range of other platforms including FM, satellite and online, with
fewer listening on short wave”. It also broadcast to Britain on MW,
but transmissions ceased in 2011 on 648 kHz due to budgetary
constraints.
It still broadcasts on 198 kHz LW when BBC
Radio 4 closes down at 1:00 am and the transmission network is handed
over. This was useful for anyone with a bedside radio having an LW
band. I’ve been listening to it and Radio 4 on and off since the
1980s, originally on my father’s old Philips car radio, with a car
battery attached that I’d charge up every so often. An aerial
strung between my bedroom window and a large apple tree improved
reception.
FM wasn’t common on car radios that dated
from the 1960s. However, with the amount of electronic gadgets in a
house nowadays generating electromagnetic interference (EMI),
including phone chargers, burglar alarms and broadband modems,
listening on long wave has become increasingly difficult due to
interference.
By the early 1990s, reception of Radio 4 and
the World Service had become available on FM in most of the UK.
However, it is only possible in some parts of Ireland or by
increasing signal strength using an antenna.
Radio 4
transmissions on the LW band were scheduled to end because of
increasing costs of maintaining the network, although the BBC had not specified a date in an article from 2023. Transmission is
energy-intensive and parts for transmitters are becoming harder to
come by due to the legacy equipment used. According to an article in The Guardian from 2011, only a small number of parts are still
available for the transmitters. There is also a shift from listening
on radio to online, and many radios no longer have an LW band.
A
transmitter in Worcestershire and two additional transmitters in
Scotland are operated by a private company, Arqiva. According to a
more recent article on the website Keep Longwave:
“In
personal correspondence seen by the Campaign to Keep Longwave, a BBC
representative stated, ‘we have not made a firm decision as to when
we will close the Radio 4 LW service’.”
On 11 May this
year, the BBC finally confirmed that:
“Radio 4’s Long
Wave (LW) service will close on 27 June 2026. We will broadcast daily
on-air reminders to help everyone switch to other ways of
listening.”
For those who have listened to the radio
station on a bedside radio, it’ll be necessary to leave a modem on
at night and use a tablet or phone for reception. The alternative is
a radio capable of tuning to internet radio stations. A clock radio
that also has presets for storing regular broadcast channels and
internet streams may be even more difficult to find.
Apparently,
Trident submarine commanders have a hand-written “letter of last
resort” written by the British PM, detailing what to do if there is
a nuclear attack. Supposedly, one of the checks to establish the
continued existence of a government is to monitor Radio 4
transmissions, the long wave signals having a large range and
subsurface penetration.
