Medium wave radio

[KAM]

OK, I know this must sound unbelievably primitive. Throw stones at me, I don't care.

There are parts of the country that still don't (and probably never will) have DAB reception. When I'm in an area like that and I want to listen to Radio 5 I go looking for medium wave. R5 is broadcast on two frequencies, 693kHz and 909kHz, to cover the UK. Neither one covers the country adequately on its own.

Has anyone tried finding 909 on MW? I can find 693, but for several hundred kiloHertz from about eight hundred-and-something up to twelve hundred-and-something (working from my weakened memory) there's just a big black hole. There is no 909 or any of the other nearby frequencies. Is this a mainland continental thing and is there any setting to convert to a UK spread of frequencies?

[nealeb]

Hadn't tried MW before so I went out to the car to try it (and to play with keyless entry as per another thread). 909KHz was fine on my radio, and gave better reception than 693 (around 20.30 in deepest Hampshire). There was a French station on something like 990 or thereabouts that was reasonably audible as well, although subject to the usual MW fading effect. So depending on where you are in the country, it does sound like your radio or some strange setting as mine is working as well as I would expect. I tend to use DAB myself, mainly home counties and as far north as Manchester, and it's fine there. Not sure what will happen when I go down to the south-west or holiday in Scotland, where sometimes I've been reduced to R4 on LW to get something that I'm happy to listen to.

[KAM]

Hi

Thanks for the response. It wasn't the quality of reception I was referring to but the ability to make a selection.
There's a scrollable list of MW frequencies including 693 and others going up in 9kHz intervals as expected up to 810kHz. Then the next frequency is (I think) 1215kHz. There is no 819, 828, ... 909 ... 990 etc to choose from.
I live in an area where 909 is the strongly preferred Radio 5 frequency so it's not signal strength (or lack of) that affects this. I'm sure these missing frequencies must be related to a setting in the Fatherland.
I'll just have to search in Google, the second-most informative site on the web (after this one, of course!)

[Blackmore Spur]

Loyal medium wave radio 5 listener; can see 909 and 693 without any problem... Wouldn't be without it on long drives; 909 works best for me in the South of England and I switch to 693 when I journey North of Watford Gap. Not sure what I will do if and when analogue radio signal is finally switched off

[nealeb]

Ah, slightly expanded fault description! I was exploring a bit yesterday anyway as I haven't played with the radio much except for assigning a few favourites to the touchpad numbered "buttons". What seemed to happen, though, was that when I selected "Waveband" via the MMI, the radio did a quick scan and picked out a list of frequencies where it had heard something. When I was testing, I just flicked between a few of them. In Hampshire in the evening, that meant that there were a few higher-frequency stations around although my impression was that there were rather more at the lower end. Propagation conditions, lack of actual stations - who knows? But certainly the higher frequencies were working fine. But it does suggest that what I saw was the result of an automatic scan. I didn't think to try setting frequencies manually but perhaps that is what is needed, if for some reason your car is not detecting 909KHz when it does its scan?

I did try LW, and after a quick scan it found the expected R4 plus a couple of French stations I listen to from time to time and a few others of dubious signal strength. But this might all be another case of the "I know you are very clever, car, and do the right thing most of the time but now just tell me where the 'do what I say' button is!"

[KAM]

@nealeb
Thank you for this. We arrived at the same solution independently! On the way to work this morning I investigated from scratch all over again. Selected "Waveband", Selected "MW" and got the list of frequencies. However it was only when I scrolled up the list (down the frequency range towards the five hundreds) that eventually at the top of the list I came to the prompt "Update station list". Looking for 909 in the past I don't think I'd ever ventured as low as 7 ... 8 ... 6 ... 5 ... etc. Why would I? Somehow I just assumed like an old-fashioned 'wireless' you tuned in to what you wanted and if there was nothing but Radio Tirana there with lots of noise and whoosh, well that was what you got.
Anyway, for the first time since getting the car two montsh ago I did an "Update station list" and sure enough a few minutes later there was 909 among a selection of others.

So it appears Audi really do know what's best for us. We can only listen to what they feel is suitable. I haven't yet investigated if I can tie one of the programmable buttons to 909 (when available) and another to 693 (when available) and then be able to select either whenever I want rather whenever Audi wants.

Anyway, thanks to all for their comments. Reassuring to know I'm not the only MW listener left alive.

(I heard some comedian on the radio recently saying that "when Lord Reith died, all BBC Radio broadcasting at the time was silent for a minute in memory of the great man - a tradition which DAB radio continues regularly to this day.")

[nealeb]

I haven't yet investigated if I can tie one of the programmable buttons to 909 (when available) and another to 693 (when available) and then be able to select either whenever I want rather whenever Audi wants.

I'm sure that you can - on the way out of the MW frequency selection page I went via "Memory" and at the top of the list there was a "Where do you want to store 909KHz?" or somesuch prompt. Stick it in slot 1-6 and that should be OK.

[Goatistuta]

It's quite simple really. Scanning frequencies will only show those above a certain strength and 909 is below that threshold where you live. You can always choose the manual tune option rather than scan which will allow you to select any frequency you wish and store it on the desired preset.

[KAM]

Actually, I think it was me that quite simple. :(
I'd just never scrolled far enough down the frequency list to find the "Update station list" before. There's plenty of 909 signal strength in my area, but obviously the last time this had been done prior to delivery had been in another part of the cosmos with nothing between 8xx and 12xx.