End of Shipping Forecast on long wave radio could leave sailors high and dry
IT HAS kept sailors safe for 90 years, becoming as much a part of national consciousness as cricket, cups of tea and The Archers.
However, the days of hearing the shipping forecast while out at sea may be numbered due to the expected demise of long wave technology. Peter Jefferson, who read the Ship
ping Forecast on Radio 4 for 40 years, said the “very old” long wave transmitters could soon be retired.
As a result, anyone more than 12 miles from the coastline would be unable to hear the shipping forecast on long wave, ending a Radio 4 tradition dating back to 1924.
Speaking at the Radio Times Festival in Hampton Court, Mr Jefferson said the soothing tones of the Shipping Fore
cast would then be left to its many fans who choose to listen to it from their homes in lieu of a “sleeping pill”.
“Long wave reaches much further than FM, it’s as simple as that,” he said. “So FM would be totally useless for shipping beyond 12 miles from land.”
He added: “The long wave will be retired because it’s very old and costs a lot to maintain, I think its days are numbered now.
“It’s a matter of whether they can find another way of transmitting the shipping forecast to reach as far as it needs to.”
The technology required to broadcast long wave radio is now fast falling out of date.
The valves used in the transmission system, based at Droitwich in Worcestershire, are no longer made – the BBC is said to have once bought up the world’s entire stock of 10 in order to make it last as long as possible.
A spokesman for the BBC said: “As we have said before, we expect to continue broadcasting on long wave for many years and the shipping forecast is quite safe.”
The service currently reaches as far as south-east Iceland, and is occasion- ally picked up as far as 3,000 miles away. The forecast, which airs four times a day, is also listened to by a large audience on dry land, with the vast majority choosing to tune in for pleasure rather than professional necessity.
“We all like regularity in our lives to some extent, to have a soothing voice talking to you as you are about to be overtaken by sleep at the same time, with the same words; it’s the pattern of the words,” said Mr Jefferson. “A lot of people find it soothing even if they don’t understand what it means.”
The veteran announcer, who retired in 2009, also raised questions over changes in the service, which see it left to a single person to put out.
When a member of the audience said that she found new announcers “highly irritating”, and criticised their emphasis on particular words, Mr Jefferson said: “I do have views, yes.” His book, And Now The Shipping
is out now.