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Old 06-02-2007, 21:55
Adam792
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According to FM List (http://www.fmlist.org) a lot of radio in countries like Russia and Ukraine is on the frequencies between 65.8 and 74MHz.

Do stations broadcast with stereo?

Has anyone on here ever had/seen a radio that can tune these frequencies?

Has anyone on here ever received one of these stations in the UK via Sporadic E?

I had a Sony Walkman cassette player a few years ago and IIRC, if I changed the settings somewhere, the FM band changed to the frequencies I've mentioned above. I never received anything though.
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Old 06-02-2007, 22:57
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IIRC all these OIRT stations are mono only and use unusual tuning intervals / bandwidths.

I think most of them are now duplicated on 88-108 band as a migration plan was implemented some years ago. I suspect that the OIRT stations are kept running as a service to those that have old radios and can't afford to buy a new one. Some parts of the Ukraine are extremely poor.

Radios that tune this band are, of course, all mostly in their countries of origin, so are not widely found in Western Europe. For any western travellers to these destinations, a non-OIRT band radio will work fine.
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Old 07-02-2007, 19:36
smorris
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Originally Posted by UNcabled
IIRC all these OIRT stations are mono only and use unusual tuning intervals / bandwidths.
A small minority do still use stereo in Russia - there was a totally different system developed during the Soviet era, but many of them now use the standard 88-108 stereo system. There is no RDS - and RDS is not always used on the standard FM band anyway because they have a different alphabet, which RDS can't cope with.

The tuning interval is 30kHz, starting at 65.90 and going up to about 74-ish. I believe the bandwidth is a bit narrower than the standard FM band, so the sound quality probably isn't quite as good.

Standard FM has now totally replaced the old "UKV" band (as they call it) in most of Eastern Europe, presumably because of the difficulty of finding new radios that tune to it, but Russia and a small number of other countries are still licencing new stations on it.

Moscow's UKV band is still packed, and there are a few UKV only stations. In rural areas of Russia it's still might be the only FM service available, but in cities most stuff is carried on normal FM.
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Old 07-02-2007, 19:56
Adam792
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Yes, I know the Czech Republic definitely don't use it now.

I heard somewhere that they were the first country to do so.

They should develop RDS in Cyrillic letters. Although, some stations just use the Western alphabet for RDS. When I was in Bulgaria; The RDS for Pадио Хоризонт (BNR 1) was just "HORIZONT".

Last edited by Adam792 : 07-02-2007 at 20:03.
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Old 07-02-2007, 19:57
Nick_G
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I have heard stations in this band via Es in the past using a Realistic scanner. Wide FM mode gave excellent sound quality, narrow FM obviously distorted the sound but resolved a lot more stations.

There were two Technics models, the ST-600L and ST-610L that were made for the Eastern European market and covered the OIRT band. eBay is probably the only way of getting hold of them.

Of course, bear in mind that in the UK 99% of the time you won't hear any FM stations on them at all!

Nick, Whitchurch, Hampshire.

Last edited by Nick_G : 07-02-2007 at 19:59. Reason: add info
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Old 07-02-2007, 21:18
Juan Carlos Ara
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Taken from : http://blogs.rnw.nl/medianetwork/?p=7228

Hungary ends broadcasts in the OIRT FM band, starts new minorities programme.

Tibor Gaál reports from Hungary: On 1 February, 2007, the first channel of Hungarian Radio, Kossuth Rádió, ended its broadcast on the OIRT FM band (66-73 MHz; popularly known as Eastern FM). At the same time a new radio network for minorities, called MR-4 began broadcasting at 0700-1900 UTC on mediumwave. Two new digital channels also launched on satellite. One channel will broadcasts MR-4, the second transmits Parliamentary Sessions live.

The OIRT FM band was introduced during the mid 1960s by Soviet initiation. The former socialist countries of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Mongolia and the Soviet Union used this band for radio broadcasting instead of the CCIR FM (87-108 MHz) band. However, the OIRT FM band was never used by the former Yugoslavia. One or two TV channels were located on the CCIR FM band at that time, but this band was empty in Budapest.The mediumwave frequencies and transmitters of MR-4 are as follows:

1188 kHz Marcali
1188 kHz Szolnok
873 kHz Lakihegy
873 kHz Pécs

MR-4 on satellite: Hot Bird 3: 13 degrees east; transponder: 72; frequency: 12,14944 GHz; polarisation: Vertical; dual Mono, CH1 (L) Nemzetiségek Rádiója
Parliamentary sessions: Hot Bird 3: 13 degrees east; transponder: 72; frequency: 12,14944 GHz; polarisation: Vertical; dual Mono, CH2 (R) Parlamenti közvetítés (Parliamentary session)
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Old 07-02-2007, 21:33
Andrew Rogers
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As has been posted above, some of the stations in the OIRT band were/are in stereo, using a system called "polar modulation". I don't know how much is left in that band now.
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Old 07-02-2007, 22:35
markfarn
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I have an OIRT tuner (covers Mw & Lw also) from Poland - A DIORA - digital frequency green LED readout - PLL tuning at 10khz steps on FM and stereo. A Polish friend gave it me as a souvenir when I visited some years back. As I remember its from about 1988 .
I have heard Polish stations on the OIRT band occasionally but not any more - all shut down and they use 88-108 now. I keep meaning to connect it in the summer times and look for Russian/ Ukrain/Belarus stations out of amusement.
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Old 08-02-2007, 18:41
smorris
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Moscow UKV Bandscan:

66.02 Love Radio
66.44 Radio Rossii
66.86 Radio Maximum 103.7
67.22 Radio Mayak
68.00 Avtoradio
68.30 Radio Svoboda (UKV only)
68.84 Radio Yunost' (UKV only)
69.26 Radio RSN
69.80 Radio Evropa Plus
70.19 Radio Ul'tra (UKV only)
70.64 (to be licenced)
71.30 Russkoe Radio
72.14 Radio Orfey (UKV only)
72.92 Retro Radio
73.40 Radio 7
73.82 Ekho Moskvy'
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Old 11-02-2007, 01:35
Mr. X
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Might be worth keeping an ear out in London if you've got a radio that tunes these channels. Rumours abound of Polish pirates appearing in the 66-74 band and Poles listening on the Eastern European radios they've brought over...
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Old 11-02-2007, 01:51
Dr.Phlox
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Originally Posted by Stockport Road
Might be worth keeping an ear out in London if you've got a radio that tunes these channels. Rumours abound of Polish pirates appearing in the 66-74 band and Poles listening on the Eastern European radios they've brought over...
Da Boris! I vill keep an earsky out for them!

DP
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Old 11-02-2007, 12:42
smorris
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Originally Posted by Stockport Road
Might be worth keeping an ear out in London if you've got a radio that tunes these channels. Rumours abound of Polish pirates appearing in the 66-74 band and Poles listening on the Eastern European radios they've brought over...
I would have thought that was unlikely, since the 66-74 band was phased out completely in Poland years ago. Russian or Ukrainian would certainly be possible though.
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Old 11-02-2007, 20:47
redcar1
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My Sony ICF2001D covers 76-87.5MHz in addition to the normal FM up to 108MHz, which I believe is the Japanese FM band using the same standard as our FM for mono and stereo. I've never received anything on it, of course!
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Old 06-06-2010, 19:22
amstereofan
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This is an old thread but just to say I've recenly bought a FM tuner from Hungary called a Videoton RT7300 and this has dual FM bands of 66 - 74 Mhz and the normal 87.5 - 108 Mhz

Also my portable SW radio a Tecsun PL310 covers 64 - 108 Mhz and I can confirm quite a few countries use this band even now as this years Sporadic E season shows

Some are stereo also but not many
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Old 08-06-2010, 08:19
A.N.Other
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I can confirm from 2 Kiev taxis that not only is the OIRT band still in use but the stations are also using RDS. Latin alphabet only. But in 2010 ads are using Latin URLs (not seen any Cyrillic URLs so they lag Arabic websites in this).
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Old 08-06-2010, 12:28
amstereofan
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I can confirm from 2 Kiev taxis that not only is the OIRT band still in use but the stations are also using RDS. Latin alphabet only. But in 2010 ads are using Latin URLs (not seen any Cyrillic URLs so they lag Arabic websites in this).
So there are OIRT car radios with RDS ?!

What make ?
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Old 30-12-2016, 00:40
Chris_Hulse1
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I have a Degen radio which tunes the OIRT band,i also have an FM transmitter that works from 65.0Mhz upwards,i have never heard anything in this band though.
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Old 30-12-2016, 06:28
hanssolo
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I have a Degen radio which tunes the OIRT band,i also have an FM transmitter that works from 65.0Mhz upwards,i have never heard anything in this band though.
Back in 2009 there was a DRM+ test on band 1 65Mhz in Paris. Although a success there are no DRM+ sets (although this year new DAB/DRM chipsets have been released).
Brazil was also thinking of expanding FM below 88Mhz.
But the main problem with VHF band 1 is unpredictable long distance propagation which can sometimes makes reception bad.
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Old 30-12-2016, 14:19
Vectorsum
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The main problem on VHF Band I is actually man-made interference. The ITU recently updated P.372 "Radio Noise" reaffirming the 27.7 dB/decade rolloff of QRM with frequency below about 300 MHz. Taking Band I as centred on roughly 70 MHz and Band III on 200 MHz, this means that man-made noise is nearly 13 dB worse on Band I.

It's not a like-for-like comparison as you would be unlikely to use DAB/+ in Band I and would rather use DRM+ which is better tuned to the propagation characteristics, but if you were to do so that would mean that a DAB/+ site which covered around 40km on Band III would only cover 17km on Band I for an equivalent threshold S/(N+I) performance.

This assumes that you're using only a single site, if you were now to try to establish an SFN on Band I the situation would be much worse, as the better long-distance propagation characteristics on Band I would mean you would be importing interference over a much wider region to add to the (N+I) component.

The average frequency reuse for Band II FM transmissions is somewhere in the mid twenties, about 25 IIRC; by contrast you'd be lucky to be able to re-use a 100 kHz Band I DRM+ block more than 5-6 times within the British Isles without seriously degrading performance at the edge of the MCA.

Of course for FM transmissions in the OIRT band, you don't care about all this, and just jack up the power until coverage is acceptable at the edge of whichever area it is you wish to serve.
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Old 30-12-2016, 14:39
Chris_Hulse1
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BBC TV must have suffered badly in Band 1 days.
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Old 30-12-2016, 15:22
Les Wires
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These signals are received regularly during Sporadic E (Es) openings on the 4 metre amateur band. Although they create interference they are an indication of an opening.
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Old 30-12-2016, 15:22
Vectorsum
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Back when it was a broadcaster and had a brain, the Beeb used carefully chosen transmitter sites and highly-directional antenna patterns with minima in the direction of co-channel coverage areas to get the most out of Band I. Here's an example for Melvaig (warning, pdf) on Channel 4/61.75 MHz vision in the Northwest Highlands, serving the Minch and Outer Hebrides. The antenna pattern on page 7 shows protection for Sandale in Cumbria, hundreds of miles to the south in North England.
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