https://histoirde.over-blog.com/2023/01/fin-des-go.html
It is with a certain nostalgia that I see the disappearance of the longwave bands. I can still picture myself in the early 1960s, at the start of my radio career, tuning the IF coils, the needle on the dial string, and finally the 'magic eye', with its green sectors shaped like three-leaf clovers, indicating the reception level (the larger the illuminated area, the better the reception quality). A time when there was neither FM nor the internet.
To listen to the radio, one used a radio set, mounted inside a beautiful cabinet. The dial ranged from 150 to 300 kHz. To find stations, one had to turn the knob and move the needle to the names displayed on the dial: France 1 (later France Inter) 162 kHz, Europe 1 183 kHz, Monte Carlo 216 kHz, Radio Luxembourg (later RTL) 234 kHz. The same frequencies were used throughout France.
The Great Waves.
Before the democratization of the FM band in the 80s, the standard was amplitude modulation (AM) broadcasting.
Long waves have an interesting advantage: a high range that can be received up to 500-1000 km, without dead zones.
Depending on the power (we received French GO as far as Algeria, a comfort for conscripts during the conflict), but this range has an obvious disadvantage: the power required is high, (several hundred kW).
Radio waves (short, medium, and long) are convenient… they know no borders; but politics is never far away. Private radio stations, which were not state-run, were prohibited from broadcasting in France.
To circumvent the ban on broadcasting in France, the stations (RTL-Europe 1) installed their transmitters just a few kilometers from the Moselle River, on the other side of the border. This was the case for Radio Luxembourg from 1933, which later became RTL, then Europe 1 in 1955.
Long Wave Transmitters
To be heard across the entire territory, each radio station had a huge transmitter.
- France 1, the predecessor of France Inter, was the only French radio station with its transmitter located in France. Situated in Allouis, in the Cher department (near Bourges), in the heart of France, it had a power output of 2 MW and consisted of two 350-meter pylons. Commissioned in 1947, it broadcast until December 31, 2016, on a frequency of 162 kHz. While not entirely shut down, its power was increased from 2 MW to 800 kW, as it was still used for time signals. The station notably broadcasts French legal time and also serves as the reference for clocks in SNCF train stations .
- Europe 1's station was based in Feisberg, between Saarlouis and Creutzwald, in Saarland. With a directional antenna aimed approximately towards Bordeaux, composed of pylons of 280 and 282 meters, with a power of 2000 KW, it broadcast from 1955 to 31/12/2019.
- RMC, on 216 Khz. The first GO transmitter, put into service in 1965, was located at the Col de la Madone (Peille-05), equipped with 2 transmitters of 600 KW, with a directional antenna, oriented towards Bordeaux, consisting of 3 guyed lattice radiating masts 320 m high.
On July 15, 1974, the transmitter was moved to Roumoules (05). Three 300-meter-high pylons, oriented towards Nantes and Brest (to avoid interference with NRK - Norwegian National Radio), had a power output of 15 kW, capable of reaching up to 2400 kW. It became inactive on March 28, 2020.
- RTL, on 234 kHz, has a 2000 kW transmitter located in Beidweiler, northeast of Luxembourg City. It consists of a directional antenna array made up of three guyed masts, each 290 m tall, broadcasting its signal towards France. When RTL was called 'Radio Luxembourg' (before 1974), the transmitter was located in Junglinster (Luxembourg).
While longwave stations were received across a large part of the country, the audio quality was significantly inferior to FM broadcasting. Modern broadcasting methods, DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) and IP broadcasting, offer even better quality, although this depends on the choices made by the stations (for example, with DAB, the relatively high compression can result in a lower quality than analog broadcasting).
With the discontinuation of RTL on GO, a whole chapter of history disappears; our 'good old' radio set lived well, even if its reception was sometimes unreliable."
Published by Pierre in History https://histoirde.over-blog.com/2023/01/fin-des-go.html
I took the liberty of translating a very good article about longwave radio stations into English.
In the 1960s and 1970s, most French people listened to longwave broadcasts on tube or transistor radios.
I remember we listened with my parents to RTL or Europe 1. When I was a teenager, I liked to listen to France Inter during the night. “Life would be really tough around the clock if we didn’t have the Pop Club with José Artur.” Jose invites many artists, and we can listen to good pop music. In the 70s, RTL make a great radio show with Mr. Georges Lang; he was my favorite DJ because his music show was great. POP music, rock, and many styles of music that are loved by young people or truck drivers. I dont remember for Europe 1 if they have a POP Rock show late the evening. On MW medium wave, a nice radio station was historically referred to as Radio Luxembourg, a legendary commercial station that broadcasted to the UK and Europe on the 208-metre medium wave (1439 kHz) wavelength. Known as the "Station of the Stars," it pioneered pop and rock music broadcasting in the mid-20th century. Even though I don't speak English yet, I like the DJ who speaks fast before playing a song. Later, the pirate radio stations on MW, like Radio Caroline, also play good music with cool DJs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Caroline
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