BBC goes silent on 198 kHz Long Wave

BBC stops – BBC Radio 4 has ended its broadcast on 198 kHz Long Wave, shutting down the long-running Droitwich service and marking the end of an over-century era in the band.

This morning, the BBC quietly pulled the plug on a frequency that many people barely know exists—yet for some radio enthusiasts, it feels like losing a familiar voice from another age.

BBC Radio 4 has stopped broadcasting on 198 kHz Long Wave. The station’s main transmitter at Droitwich is no longer carrying the live service; for now. it broadcasts a recorded message telling listeners the service has ended. That announcement is expected to be temporary, with the transmitter likely turned off soon.

Long Wave is not a band most American readers encounter, largely because it’s not allocated in their region. It covers 153 to 279 kHz. and it traces back to the earliest days of high-power broadcasting in the 1920s—when lower frequencies could carry signals across enormous distances. The BBC’s main long wave transmission site is Droitwich. and this shutdown comes down to a practical problem: there are no more spares for its high-power transmitter tubes.

For many listeners, the change won’t feel personal. The source of the switch-off, however, is part of a wider retreat from older transmission bands. Medium Wave—AM, as most people know it—has also been leaving the airwaves. Increased interference from switch mode electronics and the availability of higher-quality alternatives have chipped away at audiences over time. The long wave shutdown in 2026 may not inconvenience many people. but it lands like a bookmark on a technical and cultural chapter that’s hard to replace.

The long-running BBC Long Wave story stretches back to the mid-1920s. The early broadcasts were on a 1600 metre wavelength, or 187.5 kHz. International agreements later shifted the band to 193 kHz, then to 200 KHz (or 1500 metres) in 1934. It held at that frequency until 1988, when BBC services moved down 2 KHz to 198 kHz. Those transmissions were atomic-controlled, and the signal was therefore usable as a frequency standard.

Programming on the band began with station names tied to the era’s dial culture: first the BBC National Service, then the Light Programme—still familiar to anyone who has seen it on older radio dials—and finally the more modern Radio 4.

Some of the BBC’s most enduring Long Wave associations never stayed confined to the band. The Shipping Forecast. a weather bulletin for deep-sea fishermen that became cult listening on land. is now also carried on FM and digital services. And there’s even a tale that may be apocryphal: that British nuclear submarine captains once used the Shipping Forecast’s presence or absence as a way to judge whether nuclear war had occurred.

That sense of Long Wave reaching beyond its own technical purpose—the idea that a single signal could carry meaning—shows up in stories that now read like nostalgia. but were once simply someone’s day. In an Oxfordshire farmhouse. not far short of fifty years ago. a young child who would later become a Hackaday writer heard a radio show like nothing before. It was among the earliest airings of the original Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy radio series. broadcast on a 1970s ITT radio tuned to BBC Radio 4 on what was then 200 kHz Long Wave.

For today’s listeners, Droitwich is already speaking in an end-of-service voice. For the people who built their evenings. their equipment. and their knowledge around Long Wave. the recorded message doesn’t just mark a scheduling change—it marks the moment the band goes silent. So long, Droitwich, and thanks for all the fish.

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