I listed to Radio 5 Live and other stations in the car. Towards the end of 2015 it became impossible to pick up any of the stations to listen to. All I could hear was a loud crackling/roaring rise. A few weeks ago I found that was able to get very good reception again. Just a few days ago it deteriorated to the old crackling/roaring sound. I live in Fife in Scotland. Does anybody know what has been happening?

Can't have been to do with tomorrows religious broadcast on 603kHz then. Maybe the remote control wasn't working and they had to send someone out to site to pull the plug!

It might be the area your driving in or it could be your car radio.

I know 2 people one with a car who's am doesnt really pick up well it is very faint and the other has a van and got a new radio a few months back and the Am sound is the best I have heard in a while

If it is happening when your car is stationary outside your house it could be a neighbour with a Powerline adapter. They happened to go away for a few weeks & turned it off, but the interference came back again when they returned.

Otherwise if it's happening generally around town I can only think that you have an intermittent problem with your car radio.

Power line adaptors don't affect medium wave, certainly my Tp-Link one doesn't.

Drive through the middle of Buckingham and you get massive interference on AM and a little on FM as you drive past the old town hall which also kills DAB stone dead. My theory is that there is some secret MoD machinery being operated there down in the basement.

All sorts of things can kill radio reception. The illuminated advertising hoardings at Pride Park Stadium in Derby kill AM and FM - normally only a few seconds until you've driven passed but annoying if you get stuck in a rush hour traffic jam.

We've got so much media overload these days that people don't complain about these things the way they would have done 20 years ago.

Does the crackling generally rise and fall with the engine note as you go through the gears? If so it's either an earthing or suppression problem. As you live in Fife, the Westerglen transmitter is only a few miles away from you so R5L AM reception should be 100%.

The receive antenna, either external or on-glass, is connected into the radio via a screened cable that needs to be earthed both at the radio and at the antenna end. Sometimes these earth connections can oxidise with age, becoming partially or totally non-conductive and exposing the radio to pickup of the electrical pulses coming from the fuel injection system. AM radio reception and sometimes FM will gradually become more noisy or sometimes disappear suddenly.

If you can, try to access the back of the radio and reseat the antenna input plug, giving both the central pin and external barrel a wipe when you take the plug out. At the antenna end, try to expose the chassis connection and give it a clean. If it's an external antenna and the chassis hole is rusty, you can try a restorative product like Hammerite Kurust to reduce the oxide layer back to conductive Iron complexes. Halfords and others sell a pencil applicator of this stuff for less than a fiver.

On modern vehicles both these jobs are usually a PITA, so an easier alternative is that it might be poor radio suppression of the fuel injection system, and the earth connection of this not being up to scratch. Grab a manual, find the fuel injection controller, unplug the electrical connector and give it a good clean and spray with switch cleaner or other similar product that will not damage the contacts.

Dis/re-assemble the connector a couple of times when dry and try the reception again to see whether it's been restored to its former glory...

Almost - explanation given for the delay to swithcing off 711 (and 603 as well) at
http://www.mediumwave.info/news.html

"FRANCE
Today I got some explications, why Rennes and Lyon (711 & 603 kHz) don’t stopped at the same times as other frequencies.

RENNES: When, on the night of 31 to 1, the Nodal Center (in Paris surburb) switched off by remote control the transmitter, after a technical problem, the cooling system has also been cut. Normally it would stay active as long as the the temperature falls.
Fearing a fire at the transmitter site, the Nodal center switch ON again the transmitter, and 711 kHz stay on the air. This saturday morning, a technician go to the transmitter site and he switch OFF the transmitter manually, the cooler system later.

LYON: Every Sunday a Mass in broadcast by association Notre Dame des Ondes (for 77 years). This Sunday January 2nd, the Mass will be celebrate by Cardinal Barbarin, Bishop of Lyon and “Primat des Gaules”. For this reason, the transmitter will be switch off Sunday night before midnight. So this Mass will be the LAST, so try to listen it at 1700 UTC.
Have a nice Sunday,
73’s Christian Ghibaudo (2/1-2016) "

Well, just over a week on and the MW switch off hasn't brought about the end of civilisation in France. There are a handful of complaints here:

http://mediateur.radiofrance.fr/mess..._1=All&tid=All

But several appear to be from Francophones living outside the French borders like Belgium or Switzerland, who, like with BBC listeners abroad, have no entitlement to receive the domestic services.

Comments like 'I don't want to sit by my computer all night' show that appreciation of alternatives like internet radios is low (or else people are just not prepared to invest).

Looks like the 'feedback' programme to be broadcast on 18-1-16 will deal with this issue.

Looks like 3 FM frequencies are now cleared for use in Strasbourg including one for Radio France which could be used for France Bleu Elsass?
http://www.lalettre.pro/Strasbourg-c...ock_a9381.html
Leaves Bretagne 5 left on AM in France and it intends to still go digital mediumwave DRM sometime, if adjacent frequencies to 1593 are released (1602 and 1584 are still in use in some places) could go in simulcast, but will also need affordable DRM sets, the lack of which has held back DRM.
http://www.lalettre.pro/Bretagne-5-s...-OM_a9391.html
The World service DRM transmissions for Europe on 3955 now seem to be just one hour à day, reduced from several hours a day. So wonder if they will eventually close?
http://www.drm.org/?page_id=151

Any date for 252 to start to reduce hours?
http://www.rte.ie/news/2014/1219/667931-rte-longwave/

I think DRM is even more of a dead duck than AM. There are just no DRM receivers available and for this part of the world its to late to try and re establish DRM thanks to the take up of DAB and DAB+. DRM missed the boat some years ago and is now left high and dry.

With no receivers available, DRM is never going to take off.
Why did it go so wrong?

It was a solution for a problem which had already found alternative solutions.

1. There was already a digital alternative (DAB/DAB+) which was good-enough for most of the major broadcasters
2. The larger LW/MW/SW broadcasters have seen there audiences switch to satellite TV or FM Radio.
3. The niche broadcasters have got satellite and online broadcasts as a viable option
4. The smaller local broadcasters can't spend years simulcast in DRM/Analogue to drive uptake - and in many cases the frequencies weren't available
5. DRM was an acronym with a tainted reputation
6. DRM+ came way too late, and when it was finally here the world was in a global recession
7. The services it was aimed at were often those aimed at audiences with less access to cash or the open market - the services aimed at the general population in affluent countries were on DAB/FM and that's where money could be made selling radios, therefore no demand and no supply.

An earlier appearance of DRM+ on the FM bands might have been able to sneak into the likes of Germany, Netherlands, and Sweden before the DAB+ resurgence of the last few years.

Eh? Have I missed something?

Digital Rights Management. It has a bad reputation because it makes it harder for people to play/store content legally, and people who want to illegally distribute content often find a way to circumvent it anyway.

Not so much a death, but rather an injury !
One of the Start Point masts is now bent owing to a cable stay failure today

Scroll down to 13:45 hrs

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-en...devon-35287800

AM lives

http://www.southgatearc.org/news/201...m#.VpkCfRWLShc

DRM in the sense of MW is Digital Radio Mondiale, a digital system used on LW, MW and SW. You can get up to 4 stations on the one frequency. DRM+ is on FM but there are no known receivers yet.

The only DRM receiver I have seen is the Morphy Richards DRM 27024 Digital Radio. This gets LW, MNW, SW in analogue and DRM, plus FM and DAB. It does NOT get DAB+ but CAN see the service labels of DAB+ stations but does not let you listen.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Morphy-Richa.../dp/B00A8HOYHA


The other brand I know is sold in India - the Avion Electronics AV-DR -1401.

That can be found here:
http://www.avionelectronics.in/

This is nothing to do with the other DRM. Hope that helps.

"Currently unavailable.
We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock."

Shame. I suppose it is worth looking out for on Ebay.

"Engineers are at the scene near Start Point after a cable snapped, causing the top third of one of the transmitters to bend slightly..."

Since when did it require a university degree to unbend a mast? They're far more likely to be technicians....

The Morphy Richards DRM radio has been out of production for six or seven years now.

That must be a fairly tricky thing to correct.

Would anyone here want to climb a 450 foot mast of which around 100 foot is leaning and weighed down with stays on two sides?

How do you go about dealing with that safely?

I suppose you could lower someone from a helicopter to attach a line for subsequent stay use. But I don't see how you could possibly straighten the mast from the ground.

As far as I can see it's buckled at the break insulator point, the former insulators were "latticed out" when the masts were converted from being anti-fade radiators to conventional base fed.

Europe 1 LW Saarlouis had a similar thing about three years ago and I've no idea what they did, but they were on reduced power for months and their sharp HRP (four mast array) was severely degraded while the repairs took place.

Even a helicopter option is going to be fairly difficult.
To get it vertical again and strengthened will be a major undertaking.

I wish the Arqiva lads well with that one.

Does Radio 5 have some directional radiation pattern which requires both masts - I would imagine it does as it is a coastal site?