Portable radio reception

[Casper46]

I bought a Roberts radio to use in the MH to listen to radio 4 on Long wave whilst in France. It works fine out of the MH, but picks up all sorts of interference, no matter where I put it inside. Would it be possible to use an external aerial and connect it to the radio? I know that I could listen to the radio on the Avtex, but I listen to it very early morning and don't want to have to get out of bed and start sorting the sat dish out.

 

[Chickie]

We bought one for the same reason. It does not work outside the UK. We complained to roberts but they did not want to know. Why is it called a world radio? When it don't work world wide. Or even Europe. No idea about an outside aerial worth a try.

 

[Richard n Ann]

We bought one for the same reason. It does not work outside the UK. We complained to roberts but they did not want to know. Why is it called a world radio? When it don't work world wide. Or even Europe. No idea about an outside aerial worth a try.

It works, you're just out of range of the transmitter. You'll have to learn the local language

 

[Allanm]

We tried a few radios to pick up R4 in France and all suffered some sort of interference inside the various vans we had.
Just about everything in the van will cause interference that the radio will pick up, I think adding an external antenna might just make matters worse, but worth a try. An external aerial will also be directional so might need a bit of trial and error to see if it improves the signal but at night it might also pick up more interference from other sources ( street lights, vehicles passing, weather conditions.)
We found the best radio for us was a Grundig Yacht Boy 80, but luckily, we don’t get much interference in our new van.
Radio 4 on long wave can only really be picked up reliably in Northern Europe so the top half of France will be the best place to receive it.
Further south, you should be able to pick it up on short wave.

 

[Casper46]

Thanks everyone, I will try Short wave, and not bother trying a extra aerial.

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[Augusta08]

In northern france the longwave can work, or we use the camos satilitte dish . Beyond that we use the bbc iPlayer app on the phone we've found that with a Bluetooth radio or speaker the iplayer is reasonably frugal with bandwidth. 10gb per month is fine for most news and Archers catch-up.

 

[Allanm]

Thanks everyone, I will try Short wave, and not bother trying a extra aerial.

I might have been wrong earlier suggesting short wave to pick up R4 or the World Service, I think they might have stopped broadcasting a while ago.
Have you tried BBC radio player online?

 

[Casper46]

Not knowing what I’m talking about, I thought I couldn’t use iPlayer abroad.

 

[Jaws]

I bought a Roberts radio to use in the MH to listen to radio 4 on Long wave whilst in France. It works fine out of the MH, but picks up all sorts of interference, no matter where I put it inside. Would it be possible to use an external aerial and connect it to the radio? I know that I could listen to the radio on the Avtex, but I listen to it very early morning and don't want to have to get out of bed and start sorting the sat dish out.

Wellllll.. the answer is yes, but I suspect you will not bother

The frequency is 198 kilocycles ( or .198 megacycles )
To get the wave length ( close enough any way ) divide 300 by the frequency.
Makes the wave length 1550 metres
Types that by .95 for the velocity effect gives your 1440 metres
So to string a centre fed dipole up each side of the feed point would have to be 740 metres long, ideally at about 300 high

Of course you COULD make a base loaded vertical dipole if you have about 100 metres of zinc wire netting to bury in a 10 metre by 10 metre square to use as a counter poise , and say a 10 metre tall pole at the bottom of which you place a 5 gallon drum with approx 500 metres of lacquer coated 18 gauge copper copper wire.. If you go go that way a good tip is to fill the drum with water, as that will increase the 'Q' ( the goodness ) of the coil thereby increasing the band width and making the windings less critical

Another approach would be a shunt fed vertical.. Not so efficient, harder to tune, but no ground plane needed


Having said all that, most folk find a coat hanger on a bit of wire dangling outside the window seems to work !

Bet you are REALLY glad you asked now !

 

[Richard n Ann]

Wellllll.. the answer is yes, but I suspect you will not bother

The frequency is 198 kilocycles ( or .198 megacycles )
To get the wave length ( close enough any way ) divide 300 by the frequency.
Makes the wave length 1550 metres
Types that by .95 for the velocity effect gives your 1440 metres
So to string a centre fed dipole up each side of the feed point would have to be 740 metres long, ideally at about 300 high

Of course you COULD make a base loaded vertical dipole if you have about 100 metres of zinc wire netting to bury in a 10 metre by 10 metre square to use as a counter poise , and say a 10 metre tall pole at the bottom of which you place a 5 gallon drum with approx 500 metres of lacquer coated 18 gauge copper copper wire.. If you go go that way a good tip is to fill the drum with water, as that will increase the 'Q' ( the goodness ) of the coil thereby increasing the band width and making the windings less critical

Another approach would be a shunt fed vertical.. Not so efficient, harder to tune, but no ground plane needed


Having said all that, most folk find a coat hanger on a bit of wire dangling outside the window seems to work !

Bet you are REALLY glad you asked now !

Sterling work Jaws, I knew the aerial would need to be very long but couldn't be arsed working it out

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[iandsm]

Perhaps not the answer you were looking for but you don’t need a radio, a smartphone with a Radioplayer or BBC sounds app works well.

 

[Mike800966]

I think that you will find that the BBC stopped all of the European broadcasts some time ago. However R4 on 198 should be receivable when stationary down to Bordeaux or thereabouts. Dont forget that the aerials built into portables for LW are quite directional ( the max being at right angles and the min at the ends) thereby you can often null out crap. Sets like the Roberts actually had a small pivoting base for exactly that reason
Just realised that I said "when stationary". I meant to suggest that you would be using a battery operated portable radio as opposed to the one on the van. All the electronics in the van will make so much noise around LW that its useless, anything with a microprocessor in it is capable of generating Radio Frequency noise. That includes switch mode psu's like grotty phone chargers.
I put the question to Google and got this website which clearly states that you can listen to the BBC over the internet. Provided that you have a good wifi signal of course.
Have a look at https://bestradios.co.uk/how-to-listen-to-uk-radio-abroad/ It also gives an opinion on various portable radios

Good Listening

Mike
G8JXS

 

[daveandsan]

Wellllll.. the answer is yes, but I suspect you will not bother

The frequency is 198 kilocycles ( or .198 megacycles )
To get the wave length ( close enough any way ) divide 300 by the frequency.
Makes the wave length 1550 metres
Types that by .95 for the velocity effect gives your 1440 metres
So to string a centre fed dipole up each side of the feed point would have to be 740 metres long, ideally at about 300 high

Of course you COULD make a base loaded vertical dipole if you have about 100 metres of zinc wire netting to bury in a 10 metre by 10 metre square to use as a counter poise , and say a 10 metre tall pole at the bottom of which you place a 5 gallon drum with approx 500 metres of lacquer coated 18 gauge copper copper wire.. If you go go that way a good tip is to fill the drum with water, as that will increase the 'Q' ( the goodness ) of the coil thereby increasing the band width and making the windings less critical

Another approach would be a shunt fed vertical.. Not so efficient, harder to tune, but no ground plane needed


Having said all that, most folk find a coat hanger on a bit of wire dangling outside the window seems to work !

Bet you are REALLY glad you asked now !

They never taught me that on my foundation course John.

 

[138go]

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/oct/09/bbc-radio4-long-wave-goodbye

Looks like you maybe living on borrowed time. The signal comes from Droitwich in Worcestershire and you are shielding the signal because its inside a metal box. You could use FreeSat as they carry the radio channels as well as Tv.

 

[Mike800966]

Some years ago I met a chap who used the van body as the aerial
(as it was insulated by the tyres) and got good results on LW.
I used to be able to receive the R4 pm programme at 5 o'clock down in Algarve . That was on skip length but it always faded out just before the six o'clock news!
Mike

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[Mike800966]

I understood that the Droitwich Transmiteer is running on very old components and the valves in particular are not availabe any more so its being well looked after. As they say when its gone its gone- but then arent we all!

 

[Jaws]

They never taught me that on my foundation course John.

Ahh.. that 'cos I was not your tutor then !
Not officially part of it of course but I always reckoned wave length calculations were well worth having no matter what

 

[Jaws]

I understood that the Droitwich Transmiteer is running on very old components and the valves in particular are not availabe any more so its being well looked after. As they say when its gone its gone- but then arent we all!

Valves are still made by a few companies, and the CX output bottle range are def. available.
MOD uses them in certain applications

 

[Jaws]

The latest from the powers that be ref. digital radio coverage is that it reaches 97% of the population
given the population as of last year that means 1,992,000 people cannot get it..