Goodbye BBC Radio 4 on Long Wave (198 kHz) !
On the occasion of the closure of longwave broadcasting by BBC Radio 4 at 198 kHz, an IQ-wideband recording from 26/27-06-2026 is available under this link https://www.cohiradia.org/de/archiv/detail/?id=166 on the COHIRADIA page. The file contains the last 150 minutes, including the anthem closing the program at 02:00 UTC.
The recording was made by Walter Barteczek with a STEMLAB125-14 SDR in Neunkirchen-Seelscheid (Germany). It contains the complete LW band between 95 and 345kHz from 21:20 – 00:55 UTC. The files can be downloaded in standard IQ-wav-format, either for digital playback with major SDR-software (HDSDR, SDRUno, SDR#, …) or for analogue playback on historical radio receivers when using the equipment described in COHIRADIA https://www.cohiradia.org/de/.
There will be a second and probably a third recording available by the end of the week, made at different locations. Interested radio amateurs and collectors are cordially invited to visit the growing archive of COHIRADIA with many freely available records of complete AM-bands. Tuning through some of them allows to witness also the last hours of other traditional stations like RTL and Kalundborg on LW as well as Absolute Radio and RAI Radio1 on MW.
Remark: The files, though having the extension ‘wav’, are no audio files and cannot be played back with standard audio players. Use HDSDR, SDRUno, SDR# or similar tools.
Hermann Scharfetter (2026-06-29)