Radio 4

[jaffasdad]

A couple of months ago, I watched a prisoner of war film (set in Poland I think) where the prisoners constructed a radio out of a soap dish, a fork and an old shoelace(or some similar items) and could receive news from Blighty. In order to listen to Radio 4 in France, why do I seem to need a Sky dish, tuner, tripod, etc, etc. ?? I don't like the World Service as the plummy accents make the content even more boring than it probably is. I know I can get R4 LW in the North but this is lost after about 100 miles. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[JTS]

Hi Ron.

A radio with shortwave, I have listened to R4 in France on my car radio with Shortwave. I have also received it on LW where it broadcasts on two frequencies. The better the quality the radio the better the recetion.Good luck JTS.

 

[Lutz]

It is relatively easy to cobble something up to receive longwave and medium wave broadcasts, just like what you were referring to in the film you saw, and as you say, BBC Radio 4 does transmit on longwave (198kHz). With something more sophisticated you can pick up these transmissions a lot further away than 100 miles, especially after dark. However, you'll need a fairly good, i.e. big, aerial so one can begin to ask the question whether the effort would be much less than a cheap sat dish and receiver. If you connect that to the input of any portable radio you'd even have the advantage of being able to pick up a lot more radio stations than just Radio 4.