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Marking the end of Radio 4 Long Wave from Droitwich in September 2026

Hugh Breidenbach

What programme will mark this closedown?

The BBC broadcasts Radio 4 on Long Wave from Droitwich Transmitting Station, which is owned and operated by Arqiva.

Plans for ending Long Wave broadcasts have been announced and postponed. Online sources suggest that a final date has been announced as September 2026.

I cannot find an authoritative source to confirm this.

  1. If you go in person to find a point of contact at Broadcasting House, you will merely get directed to a “WhatsApp” mailbox that is not monitored.

I am a volunteer for the IET Local Network Germany, where R4 LW has been a lifeline to ex-pats. I have also conducted a very basic experiment to measure radio reception in Berlin, with assistance and advice from amateur radio experts. This is detailed in the links below.

Nostalgia aside, BBC Radio 4 Long Wave has served UK business, culture, and defence, from maritime broadcasts to national contingency communication.  A programme to duly commemorate the closedown ought to be in the pipeline.  A number of people would like to contribute to it.

The professional engineering institution most closely linked with the BBC is the IET.  Can anyone recommend a BBC contact please?

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    I am not the right person to answer the main questions you pose, but your maps show why at least pre-internet long waves were the way to get coverage at the scale of whole countries, and how the radio tele-switching was possible. Your Berlin listening tests are also of interest, as they do show that the whole of the path (including the bit that is up in the air ) all needs to have been in darkness for some time for the decay of the ionization to take effect. The ion lifetimes (recombination times) in the different layers are very variable - where there is almost no atmosphere the random walk before suitable event is very long. 
    I suspect your sensitivity would have been external noise limited in a city location, rather than the natural noise floor, but it is hard to tell, and as interference can equally come in from hundreds of miles away, predition of that is very hard.

    I agree with your sentiment, that it would be great shame is this end of an era was not marked in some way - there was so much remarkable pioneering development that went into getting long wave (well radio generally) to work in the first place, and the knowledge is dying off as those who did it are leaving us. It is unfortunate that LW and MW are almost of no value for listening now as there is so much buzzing and feezling from random electronics that an indoor portable radio is nowadays  almost useless in many households.
    Mike

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    As far as I am aware, the current intention is to shut-down medium wave (MW) broadcasting in the UK by 2027 and I would imagine the same timeframe may apply to long wave (LW) broadcasting too.

    Searching online, I found the following link (in German) that gives the very specific date of 26 September 2026 for the shut-down of BBC Radio 4 LW on 198 kHz, which would be consistent with the the intention for a complete shut-down by 2027.

    https://www.radioeins.de/programm/sendungen/medienmagazin/radio_news/beitraege/2021/bbc_langwelle.html

    That said, I have lost count of how many dates for the shut-down of BBC Radio 4 LW have came and went over the past few years! Confused

    The article mentions the Lisnagarvey Transmitting Station in Northern Ireland, which now has only two out of its original five MW stations remaining on air, showing the MW shut-down is well underway.

    When BBC Radio Ulster on 1341 kHz from Lisnagarvey was shut-down in 2021, I don't think there was anything special to mark the occaision - as far as I know, the programming stopped and was replaced with a recorded annoucement for a few weeks, before the transmitter was finally switched off.

    - Ross

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