Re: [HCDX] A question about the power of European tx'ers
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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
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