WORLDWIDE DX CLUB Weekly Top News

P1 and P2 programs primarily aimed at Norwegian listeners in Northern
Europe and at sea. To supply the fishing fleet with updated weather
reports, NRK will launch a 24- hour satellite weather channel."
This still leaves a few MW txs in Norway but these are not easy to hear in
Europe let alone other parts of the world. Here are the coverage maps of
153, 630 and 675 kHz. [already linked in DXLD]
630 kHz Vigra 100 kW
153 kHz Ingoy
675 kHz Rost 20 kW
A BIT OF BACKGROUND By Bernt Erfjord.
Ingoy Kringkaster (The Ingoy tx station) is equipped with a new 100 kW
Telefunken tx remotely controlled from Norway's AM control center at
Kvitsoy. The antenna mast is among the tallest manmade constructions in
Europe, and definitely the tallest on Norwegian soil. It is a 362 meter
high steel construction. Including stays it weighs more than 300 tons.
Surrounding the mast, 44 km of copper cables have been spread to form the
best possible earthing. The station has its own 600 kW generator to
provide sufficient power to both the station and all the homes on Ingoy
during power failures from the mainland. In rough winters this is not
uncommon. The total cost of Ingoy Kringkaster is estimated around 25
million NOK (2.75 million USD).
Ingoy Kringkaster, like the rest of the Norwegian AM txs carries the NRK
Europakanalen programme. This is a mixture of domestic channels P1, P2 and
P3, a daily hour of Radio Norway International, and some exclusive weather
forecasts. Apart from Kvitsoy, the other AM'ers in addition to
Europakanalen relay regional programmes from their area. Ingoy Kringkaster
will include programmes from NRK Finnmark in Vadso. The old mediumwave tx
in Vadso on 702 kHz (20 kW) was closed by the end of 2000.
Ingoy is located at 71 06'N, 23 50'E. It is almost as far north as North
Cape, which is 65 km to the east of Ingoy. Ingoy was an important trading
port in the 16th century and is home to the world's northernmost manned
lighthouse, Fruholmen Fyr. This is also an important meteorological
station. It holds the Norwegian record with 257 days in a year with gale
force winds or stronger.
Ingoy is part of Masoy Kommune (Community of Masoy). The total population
of Ingoy is only 40-50 persons. Up to WWII, Ingoy had its own coastal
radio station, Ingoy Radio, located not far from the current LW-site.
Ingoy Radio was destroyed during the war and not repaired.
The building of a new high powered AM-station in northern Norway is the
result of decades of lobbying from pressure groups. The 1978 Geneva freq
plan brought changes to the usage of medium and longwave in Norway. Until
then a few highpowered txs and a large number of low powered fillers were
used to cover the country. By the mid-70's the network of VHF-transmitters
basically had replaced AM for domestic broadcasting, and the new freq plan
eliminated all the AM fillers and boosted power of a few remaining
allocations, which were primarily intended for reaching remote parts of
the country, neighbouring countries and the oceans surrounding the
country.
The first superpower station was built, Kvitsoy with its 1.2 megawatt tx
on 1314 kHz. Then NRK decided not to pursue their usage of AM, and
gradually closed 216 kHz in Oslo and 153 kHz in Tromso without replacing
them with the proposed new high power plants. Pressure for a better radio
coverage of the Arctic oceans where Norwegian fishery is still an
important industry have never ended, and eventually NRK, together with the
Ministry of Fisheries, entered a long term agreement with Norwegian txion
facilities provider Norkring to rent txion time on a new longwave tx in