Friday, December 10, 2010

Greenland closes SW and MW on Feb 11 2011

On February 11 2011 at 8 AM local time all medium wave stations carrying KNR (Radio Greenland) - Upernavik (810 kHz), Uummannaq (900 kHz), Qeqertarsuaq (650 kHz), Nuuk (570 kHz) og Simiutaq (720 kHz) - will be switched off for good, and the transmitters will be dismantled. On the same day the relays of KNR newscasts twice daily via Tasiilaq 3815 kHz will also cease.

The decision has been taken by the Ministry of Housing, Infrastructure and Transport in the Government of Greenland.

After February 11 2011 KNR will only be available via Low Power FM-radio in inhabited areas of Greenland. Thus no coverage of the waste country outside the towns and villages - and KNR will no longer be available for the fishermen at sea nor the Inuit population in Canada.

The decision was made because the transmitters were getting old and too costly to maintain. Besides - very few people are using the MW transmissions.

Weather forecasts will be available for fishermen and others via VHF coastal radio.

At a point it was considered replacing the aging MW transmitters with one or two new SW AM-transmitters near Nuuk, but it was estimated that it would cost 4 million DKK (535.000 euro) to establish such a new SW operation. It was also felt that few listeners would invest in a SW receiver and the quality would be 'doubtful' - suffering from 'atmospheric phenomena'. So these plans were given up.

Full report (in Danish) here:
http://www.radionyt.com/artikel/default.asp?id=18070

Best 73s
Stig Hartvig Nielsen
(via mwdx yg)

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