Dutch Public Broadcasting has announced that it will end the use of the mediumwave transmitter on 648 kHz as from today. This transmitter, at Orfordness in the UK and previously used by the BBC World Service, has been used since 4 August for the news and information network Radio 1 following the fires at two main FM transmitting stations in the Netherlands that severely affected FM reception. Now that signals from Lopik, serving the most densely populated part of the country, are back to normal or near-normal, it has been decided to end this emergency service.
The power of the FM transmissions from Lopik is still at 50 percent. There is still no definitive cause of the fire on 15 July, and investigations continue. It is hoped that the transmissions can be back on full power by the end of next week, once the installation of fire-prevention equipment is completed.
There are still problems in parts of the north where - due to the tight beam of the antenna - reception of 648 is weaker anyway, and engineers are still looking at temporary solutions, as it could be up to a year before the tower at Hoogersmilde is back in service.
(Source: NPO/NOS/MediaMagazine.nl via Media Network Weblog)
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