Radio Caroline 648kHz

[Geordie McBoyne]

At 4pm today received weak signals on 463meters playing Rock and pop music, no station idents, might well be Caroline. The weak signals are flanked by two Spanish language stations.

Geordie McBoyne.

[Murphyv310]

Hi.
I see another YouTube clip coming on.
This afternoon I changed the Anode bend detector in the 3 valve minimalistic superhet radio from an EF91 to an EF184. Wow what a big difference, I also replaced the 10k cathode resistor with a 10k pot in series with a 1k fixed resistor, this has allows me to set the bias point to give far better results on weak signals. Setting the pot to 9k plus the 1k is still amazing so the EF184 has to be the best valve I have tried in this position.
Caroline is coming through very well and that remember is with only one tuned IF stage. Manx radio on 1368 kHz is literally blasting in.    

The above picture includes the EF184 (rear view) and changes to the wiring, incidentally an EF80 is worse than the EF91 in this stage.

[Murphyv310]

Hi.
A short video of the set on Caroline https://youtu.be/t4KCRRzgV2U
I have since replaced the volume control and did a quick realignment for a further slight improvement.

[Geordie McBoyne]

10:20pm. Positively identified Radio Caroline on 463 metres. Repositioning the frame aerial in the room improved results.
Receiver is the Pilot X65B.

Geordie McBoyne.

[Geordie McBoyne]

Midnight Caroline was received at almost full strength with very little background noise. This morning receiving very weak signals on 648Khz.

Geordie McBoyne.

[Crackle]

Psst, shhh dont tell anyone, or Ofcom may make them turn down the volume as it is only supposed to be a local station.

Mike

[Terry]

Psst, shhh dont tell anyone, or Ofcom may make them turn down the volume as it is only supposed to be a local station.  

Too late, Mike!

I think Trevor and Andy have already scooped the pool on this!

[Murphyv310]

Hi.
Andy and myself have to concede that we don't hold any sort of a record on receiving Caroline on 648kHz. There has been really good reports from Northern Sweden and Norway with other European DXers getting phenomenal results.
Personally I doubt Ofcom will have an issue, they are aware of how medium wave's propagation changes in the dark and is seasonably variable into the bargain.
Recently Ofcom have issued a number of licences on Medium Wave and this for us has to be good, at least they are not brushing Medium Wave into the rubbish bin. Caroline is a very responsible broadcaster and that is one of the reasons they were allocated 1Kw ERP.
I'm all for well run community radio and if done properly well why not allow more of these transmitters, the Europeans are dying out, why though should we. Come Brexit we could be to the forefront of using a really good medium for promoting local events, local retailers and traffic reports. Medium wave is not dead yet so lets keep it up and running.

[radioman]

Well said Trev.
It's just after 2.00pm here and I'm listening to Caroline on 648kHz - long fades though and admittedly this is with my comms rx and about 50 ft long-wire.
In about an hours time I'm sure it will be receivable on my portable.
With the shortest day approaching the signal's getting earlier every day !

Andy

[BusyBee]

For MW anywhere in the Uk could be regarded as local.It is really only on higher frequencies that 'line of sight' becomes important, and even then strange effects sometimes occur.