Long Distance MW Radio Reception

Over the last two and a half years I have been listening to long distance signals, mainly MW, but also FM. I was able to pick up MW stations from Spain, France and Germany with an ordinary Bush stereo unit, but over the last six months I have only been able to receive Spanish signals with the exception of one French station that I have identified as being from Brittany.

I was looking online and I found that there aren't many French or German MW stations listed. Have many of the MW transmitters been turned off? The last signal I received from another French station was last October.

France has turned off a lot of its MW transmitters. Wiki suggests Germany, France, Russia, Poland, Sweden, the Benelux, Austria, Switzerland, and most of the Balkans.

You can see the changes to MW, LW and SW services here - https://mediumwave.info/news.html
It is an awful lot of closures all over Europe, including here in the UK.

It's incredibly sad, but understandable why it's dying out.

I thought France had turned many of the transmitters off. From what I saw on Wiki, German signals had been turned off for some time although I couldn't find an exact date. i was still receiving German stations in 2018.

Thanks for the link

Any North American catches by anyone recently.

I can remember 590 VOCM, 770 WABC, 1010 CFRB, 1050 CHUM, 1130 WBBR being regular catches about 10 years ago.

Capital Radio 194m in the near Lyon - although it was about 1980!!!

Still very possible with fewer AM stations in operation today. I heard it (Gold 1548 in new money) deep into France about 6 years ago. The transmitter near Barnet beams a huge signal towards Central London, but very little in other directions, so it's stronger in Brighton than Stevenage

I had no issues receiving 1548 from London in Bayeux. Also got Radio Solent and R5 Live. World Service also boomed in on 648.

Yes, Solent (999 kHz) was very receivable in N France. A shame they closed the transmitter last month.

A few years ago, Radio Nottingham turned off their 1584kHz transmitter for a few weeks unannounced (as opposed to announcing it which would have drawn protests from people who likely didn't even listen- like happens every time the idea of turning of Radio 4 on 198kHz is mooted) to see how many people would notice or complain, apparently hardly anyone did. So it went off for good not long after.