Re:[HCDX] A question about the power of European tx'ers
At 11:08 18.06.2003 +0200, you wrote: - Original Message - From: Aurel Chiochiu [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2003 10:27 PM Subject: Re: [HCDX] A question about the power of European tx'ers In Romania, the anti-Ceausescu messages were transmitted over SW, via RFL (Radio Europa Liberã), not over MW, only on SW wich was jammed by the way The jamming of the Romanian Programme of RFE was stopped in August 1963 Radio Europa Liberã was the only foreign station broadcasting to Romania and it was 100% anti-communist programming and all on SW. Incorect! There were some more foreign station broadcasting in Romanian e.g.: VOA, Deutsche Welle, BBC, R. France Intern., RAI and others If they had done this on MW, because of the lower frequency and a higher amount of groundwave (and somewhat less skywave obviously) Ceasusescu would have put local tx'er on the same channels as RFL and the listening would have become impossible. Now RFE had only one MW Transmitter at Holzkirchen and this transmitter broadcast the programs in Polish. However the VOA broadcast in Romanian on mediumwave via the transmitter in Greece on 791 kHz (since 1979: 792 kHz) As for those wondering about the concrete issue... well, in Romania over 90% of the houses have a reinforced concrete structure, because each few years there are big earthquakes there, Houses with reinforced concrete structure was the usual method of constructions for multi-storey buildings in Romania and other East European countries. so that was the reason, in my opinion, why most Romanian stations use over 100 kW, like Craiova 558 use 600 kW and when In Europe are used generally higher powers on MW than in America. 73 Erich ---[Start Commercial]- World Radio TV Handbook 2003 is out! Order it now! http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0823059677/hardcoredxcom ---[End Commercial]--- Hard-Core-DX mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www2.hard-core-dx.com/mailman/listinfo/hard-core-dx http://www.hard-core-dx.com/ ___ THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License published by Michael Stutz at http://dsl.org/copyleft/dsl.txt
Re: [mwdx] Re: [HCDX] A question about the power of European tx'ers
The reason for different audio sound is that radio stations in North America use heavy audio compression. In Europe that is restricted by ITU because it generates splash that may cause interference to nearby radio stations within large frequency range (+- 30 or even 40 kHz from stn original frequency). You can find this phenomenon on FM, too, but is most clearly heard on AM. Because of heavy audio compression (30 dB or even more) the sound of a radio station sounds louder. Commercial radio stations do this as they believe listeners favour and find easier radio stations with loud audio signal. By doing this they try to compensate low power. You can hear the difference if you listen locally to a 1 kW North American stn and compare it locally with same antenna with a 100 kW European stn. The S-meter in the case of a North American stn may show weaker signal than the 100 kW European but the audio sounds louder. Fortunately it is so! The result could be terrific with splash around the MW-band here in Europe if 100-1000 kW stn's use the same audio compression as in North America. By limiting compression ITU tries to limit the disadvantages of European megawatt transmitters. The audio of European low compression radio stations is more realistic. Compression actually is unnatural as it decreases the dynamic range of sound. This is important especially if you listen to classical music. But this is not often broadcast on AM, thus AM-stations use more and more compression around the world. For dx'ers compression is good. You can hear clear audio despite weak slong-distance signal. In case of low compression you need stronger signal to understand what you hear. Jorma Mantyla Kangasala, Finland On Tue, 17 Jun 2003, Aurel Chiochiu wrote: Thanks to all of you who replied ! In Romania, the anti-Ceausescu messages were transmitted over SW, via RFL (Radio Europa Liberã), not over MW, only on SW wich was jammed by the way (I think the tx site of the RFL jammers were in Bod, in the same site that host the 1200 kW LW tx'er on 153 kHz that is used nowadays by Radio România Actualitãti). Radio Europa Liberã was the only foreign station broadcasting to Romania and it was 100% anti-communist programming and all on SW. If they had done this on MW, because of the lower frequency and a higher amount of groundwave (and somewhat less skywave obviously) Ceasusescu would have put local tx'er on the same channels as RFL and the listening would have become impossible. Another thing: I'm still stumped that despite some MW tx'ers are using way over 1 megawatt, European DX'ers are getting more deep-South American DX than those in North America (here a coastal location like Cappahayden, NF, Yarmouth, NS or Cape Cod, MA or east-coast Florida is required to get deep into South America on MW). For exemple there are several powerfull transmitters on 1575, but Radio Familia de Maule from CHile still can be heard on 1570 (at least in Scandinavia). I know that all the Beverages antenna used in Lapland help, but a DX'er using a Beverage antenna in the midwest have problems picking up Central Americans. Might this be because European stations are very directionnal or what ? I have heard from someone that was only a few hundreds of kilometers from Finland-963 that reception of this station was very poor and they might be highly directionnal. I also wonder (even with those phasers, the power is enormous at 1.3 MW) how can you log TAs like CKEC when Norway is next door on 1314. As for those wondering about the concrete issue... well, in Romania over 90% of the houses have a reinforced concrete structure, because each few years there are big earthquakes there, so that was the reason, in my opinion, why most Romanian stations use over 100 kW, like Craiova 558 use 600 kW and when I lived in an appartment at the 4th floor on a concrete-steel frame building, using just a very unsensitive Emerson AM/FM walk-man wich had poor audio on AM to makes things worse (I was in Bucharest, about 200 kilometers away from Craiova; the same distance as Ottawa from here in Mtl.), but the reception was fair and very listenable at high noon in August via pure groundwave. When I was the last summer in a hospital, I could barely detect (without understanding nothing) WVMT out of Burlington, VT (on 620) using the same weak Emerson AM/FM walkman and the window where I was faced directly to the south. They also use 5 kW directionnal north-south as to avoid QRM'ing WZON east of them, in Maine. + Burlington is about 125 kilometers from Mtl. while Craiova was 1.75 times further. But still no way I could hear them, because of the concrete structure; but in Bucharest, Radio Craiova could still be heard on 558 with a very listenable signal and only the ceilings strucutre was in mettalic concrete, but even the walls were in concrete in that appartment. I would like to hear your comments on this
Re: [HCDX] A question about the power of European tx'ers
At 17:21 14.6.2003 -0400, Aurel Chiochiu wrote: Hello all ! I wonder why European MW radio stations use powers of several hundreds and sometimes thousands of kWs ? Did nobody answer this so far? Ok, I try. History lesson: After the WWII, when the radio frequencies became another source of war compensation, and those were taken and granted from losers of the war to the winners of the war, it became crucial to input as much power as possible to the few surviving frequencies. Another option was to develop a FM network, as West Germany did. Adding more power to the air became a sort of arms race, though it was clear from the beginning that no arms race can be won, neither on airwaves. What the regulatory conferences were able to do, was to allocate the frequencies per country, not to control the transmitting power. The limits were issued, in fact, but those were simply not obeyed. It became impossible, since the only real way to handle the interference by stations abroad was to increase own power. Especially Eastern Europe and there especially Soviet Union, on the other hand, considered important to spread the ideological message as wide as possible, also via AM radio frequencies. In a bipolar Europe it was naive to even imagine that any kind of consensus on these matters could have been achieved. In North America the situation has been naturally very different. The very few commercial AM broadcasters of Europe, like Radio Luxembourg, ended up having hundreds of kilowatts on 1440, and even that didn't help at all, because Saudi Arabia decided to start on the same allocated frequency in 1979 (do I remember right year?) with 2000 kW:s to spread their islamic voice from their holy land to all the muslims of the Near East - and in the same time to the large parts of Europe as well. This interference, combined with the liberation of private (FM) radio in Europe in 1970-1980s, (and therefore raised expectations for radio reception quality - with stereo and all) ultimately killed even the Great RTL 208. Is it because in Europe, there are much more concrete buildings than in North America *chuckles* Isn't it absolutely opposite with skyscrapers and towers etc? Or is it more because of some organisations less strict than the FCC (or the CRTC) which don't allow a power limit (like here in North America where 50 kW is the power limit on MW)? That would be a good idea in Europe as well, because with the possible exception of Britain, no average listener really listens to AM here anymore (In Nordic countries not for many decades). But the damage has been already done. Jari Lehtinen Lahti, Finland ---[Start Commercial]- World Radio TV Handbook 2003 is out! Order it now! http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0823059677/hardcoredxcom ---[End Commercial]--- Hard-Core-DX mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www2.hard-core-dx.com/mailman/listinfo/hard-core-dx http://www.hard-core-dx.com/ ___ THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License published by Michael Stutz at http://dsl.org/copyleft/dsl.txt
Re: [HCDX] A question about the power of European tx'ers
Me, Myself and I wrote: Did nobody answer this so far? Ok, I try. Krhm... Of course they did answer. I just didn't notice that topic from headlines in mailbox, because the headline was RE: DIGEST VOL 6. Sorry. Never mind. :-) 73's Jari ---[Start Commercial]- World Radio TV Handbook 2003 is out! Order it now! http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0823059677/hardcoredxcom ---[End Commercial]--- Hard-Core-DX mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www2.hard-core-dx.com/mailman/listinfo/hard-core-dx http://www.hard-core-dx.com/ ___ THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License published by Michael Stutz at http://dsl.org/copyleft/dsl.txt
Re: [HCDX] A question about the power of European tx'ers
The power game originates from 1950's Cold War. After WWII Europe was strictly divided into West and East. Propaganda was important for both sides. Germany was the worst case: East tried to effect the West and West tried to liberate East. In these conditions the power of mw-transmitters was one way to get the message to the target area. Because of this political division ITU failed to reach power limits in the 1948 Copenhagen frequency allocation conference. The result was known as power game on medium-waves. The situation in North America was different. Possibly the radio war between Cuba and the US on MW since 1960's is a little bit similar, but it is not power game as it was in Europe. 73 Jorma Mantyla Kangasala, Finland On Sat, 14 Jun 2003, Aurel Chiochiu wrote: [NON-Text Body part not included] ---[Start Commercial]- World Radio TV Handbook 2003 is out! Order it now! http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0823059677/hardcoredxcom ---[End Commercial]--- Hard-Core-DX mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www2.hard-core-dx.com/mailman/listinfo/hard-core-dx http://www.hard-core-dx.com/ ___ THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License published by Michael Stutz at http://dsl.org/copyleft/dsl.txt
[HCDX] A question about the power of European tx'ers
Hello all ! I wonder why European MW radio stations use powers of several hundreds and sometimes thousands of kWs ? Is it because in Europe, there are much more concrete buildings than in North America, where there is much more absorption of radio waves and the skywave signals of international MW stations like TWR-1467 need to scatter through a window to be audible in a concrete building since the ceilings are in concrete in the direction of the ionosphere ? Or is it more because of some organisations less strict than the FCC (or the CRTC) wich don't allow a power limit (like here in North America where 50 kW is the power limit on MW) ? Enquiring/curious minds wants to know ! 73 and good DX, Bogdan Btw.: Two words about DX the past night: XEPM Radio Educacíon onda corta wasn't too strong and suffered from Radio Japan co-channel interferences. Theinteresting DX was New Zealand-17675 with modern music and very huge almost all the time ! ---[Start Commercial]- World Radio TV Handbook 2003 is out! Order it now! http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0823059677/hardcoredxcom ---[End Commercial]--- Hard-Core-DX mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www2.hard-core-dx.com/mailman/listinfo/hard-core-dx http://www.hard-core-dx.com/ ___ THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License published by Michael Stutz at http://dsl.org/copyleft/dsl.txt
