ATLANTIC 252 - Longwave Radio

Atlantic 252, the longwave giant, was serving UK & Ireland with the best contemporary pop and dance music for over a decade.
I think I was the only faithful listener of the station in Poland and this is my tribute to its "non-stop rhythm & dance"-era (2000-2001).  

It is obvious that the powerful 500kW longwave transmitter could easily reach continental Europe and was even reported heard even across the Atlantic Ocean itself. There are many memories about A252 in 90s on the web, but not many from the early 2000s. So here I AM.
 
I picked music on 252 kHz here in Poland for the first time around 98 or 1999. This "discovery" was of course by coincidence. That year I bought a portable longwave receiver to follow the launch of the new transmitter for our Polish Radio (which broadcasts on 225 kHz LW). But quickly I turned my attention to what else I could hear with this receiver. I distinctly remember it was a snowy november morning, back in my school days, and one of the very first songs I heard then on Atlantic 252 was "On the radio" by The Corrs. This acoustic pop was perhaps not precisely defining station's later music format, but it turned out to have very a metaphoric title and meaning! (and The Corrs should be a hint - i thought it was a UK station, but the transmitter was in Ireland - the band is irish, as I later found out).

I fell in love with the station around summer 2000 - the times of "The New Atlantic 252" with "NonStop Rhythm and Dance" liner, and continued listening till the end. I got this old radio which you can see above (Taraban 2 by Polish producer - Unitra) specially adjusted, aligned and hooked to a couple meters of wire for the best reception at exactly 252 kHz. The best 24/7 reception was possible during fall and winter, but for the rest of year the signal was sufficient only in the evenings and at night. It was almost completely unaudible during hot summer daytime. I also remember listening to it with interferences from an Algerian and a Russian stations on the same frequency in wintertime.
Longwave radio band provides enough audio quality for speech but is way too poor for music (although the bass is massive in AM modulation), so hearing purely music station amazed me. Broadcasting on such low frequencies has long decades of tradition in Poland - our public 1st Programme of Polish Radio is on 225 kilos, but almost nobody here knew about Atlantic252. Yup, the listening of the distant music station sometimes was a struggle, but a pleasure for the best tracks!

Early 00s was the time when Internet and digital satellite music TV channels began attracting more and more audiences. Young people like my generation then, resigned from listening to the radio - and even if they did, it was only the FM band. I always had to seek for something out of ordinairy, out of easy reach, something exclusive that would even require some effort.
And for me, A252 worked great as both the source of fresh dance music and a development field of my radio hobby.
Polish radio stations played crappy music back then (saving the newest western dance tracks for an evening chart show), so Atlantic252 was a great alternative - it always had fresh tracks. And, from my foreign point of view, it was way ahead with new music and had this prestige-Western-Europe-feel. To the older generation of radio listeners, Radio Luxembourg analogy may come to mind. I was a toddler when "Luxy" was the legend alive, but i'm glad I came across Atlantic 252. And, at its beginnings, ait its birth in 1989 Atlantic 252 was in close cooperation with Radio Luxembourg.

Here is the sound of Atlantic 252 in 2000-2001:

Obviously, the station has influenced my music taste. It was the place where I found out and could listen to Kosheen, which became one of my favourite bands. Because of the heavy rotation on the playlist it was easy to catch up with its music - typically every hour they would play the same tracks, only in a different order (some Brtis I met back then said it was of course station's drawback). Using the playlist below, I can easily retrieve couple of last months, last weeks even, of Atlantic's existence.

Here are all the tracks I associate with Atlantic 252:
(note: if you look for them on youtube or streaming services please pay attention that most of them were released  between 1998-2001. Please disregard the later versions, remakes and remixes)

Aaliyah - More than a woman
All Saints - Black Coffee
Architechs - Body Groove
Artful Dodger - Movin' Too Fast
Artful Dodger - Please don't turn me on
Baha Men - Who Let The Dogs Out (this very remix: Barking Mad Mix aka Artemis Remix)
Basement Jaxx - Where's your heat at
Basstoy - Runnin' (Mark Picchiotti pres. Bass Toy feat. Dana Divine)
Blackstreet Feat. Dr. Dre - No Diggity
Blu Cantrell - Hit 'Em Upstyle
Bubba Sparxxx - Ugly

Daniel Bedingfield - Gotta Get Thru This
Dannii Minogue - Who Do You Love Now
Destiny's Child - Independent Women
Dr. Dre & Knoc-Turn'Al - Bad Intentions
Dr. Dre - Still Dre
Goldtrix presents Andrea Brown - It's Love (Trippin)
Ian Van Dahl - Will I
iiO - Rapture
Ja Rule Featuring Ashanti - Always on Time
Janet Jackson ft. Missy Eliot & Carly Simon - Son Of A Gun
Jennifer Lopez - I'm Real (Murder Remix)
Jam & Spoon - Be angeled
Jennifer Lopez - I'm Real (Murder Remix)
K-Ci And JOJO - Tell Me Its Real (2step Remix)
Kosheen - Catch
Kosheen - Hide U (John Creamer & Stephane K Remix Radio Edit)
Madison Avenue - Don't call me baby
Mary J. Blige - Dance For Me
Mary J. Blige - Family affair
MJ Cole - Sincere
Mr. Pink presents The Program - Love & affection
Nelly Furtado - On the Radio (Remember the Days)
P. Diddy - Bad Boy For Life
Pink - Get This Party Started
PPK - Resurrection
Roni Size - Dirty Beats
Samantha Mumba - Body to body
Shanks & Bigfoot - Sweet Like Chocolate
SisQo - Thong Song (Artful Dodger Remix)
Slam - Lifetimes
Sophie Ellis Bextor - Murder on the dancefloor
Sugababes - Overloaded
The B15 Project Feat. Crissy D And Lady G - Girls Like Us
The Corrs - Radio (Unplugged)
Tweet Feat. Missy Elliott - Oops (Oh My)
Wamdue Project - King of my castle
Wycleff Jean - Perfect Gentelman
Zombie Nation - Kernkraft 400

UPDATE 2020 - If you have visited my page before, you should check some more tracks. Since the first release of this article, I found some more music, which although I actually remember better from other radio stations at that time, they were almost certainly played also on Atlantic 252:

Jean Jacques Smoothie - 2 People
Artful Dodger ft. Craig David - Re Rewind
DJ Tonka - Heartjumpa
X Press 2 Ft. David Byrne - Lazy
Roni Size - Dirty Beats
Pras feat. Mya - Ghetto Superstar
Mary Mary - Shackles (Praise you)
Lucy Pearl - Don't Mess With My Man
Pete Heller - Big love
Phats & Small - Feel Good
Phats & Small - Turn Around
Daft Punk - One more time
Dr. Dre feat Snop Dogg - The Next Episode
Missy Eliott - Get Ur Freak On
Jamiroquai - Little L
Basement Jaxx - Just 1 kiss
Mis-Teeq - Why
Eve & Gwen Stefani - Let me blow ya mind
Gabrielle - Don’t Need the Sun to Shine (to Make Me Smile) (UK Remix)
Girl Next Door, M&S - Salsoul Nugget (If you wanna)
Supermen Lovers - Starlight
Tori Amos - Professional Widow (Armand Van Helden Remix / aka Armand's Star Trunk Funk Mix)
Sonique - Sky (and also: I put a spell on you)
Shaggy - Luv me, luv me
Wideboys - Sambuca
Sweet Female Attitude - Flowers
Blue - All rise
Christina Milian - AM to PM
Karen Ramirez - Lookin' for love
Pink, Christina Aguilera, Lil Kim - Lady Marmalade (Thunderpuss Radio Remix)
Planet Funk - Chase the sun
Roger Sanchez - Another Chance
Afromen - I got high
Chicane Feat. Bryan Adams - Don't Give Up
Britney Spears - I'm slave 4U
Kylie Minogue - Please stay
Lauryn Hill - Everything is everything
Mis-Teeq - One night stand
Alice Deejay - Better off alone
Stardust - Music sounds better with you
Public Domain - Operation Blade (Bass in the Place London)
Stereo MS - Connected
Funkstar Deluxe vs. Bob Marley - Sun is shining
Baby D - Let me be your fantasy (classic cuts)
Orbital - Frenetic [Short Version, 3:38]
Puretone - Addicted to bass
Telepopmusik - Breathe
Armand Van Helden - You Don't Know Me
DJ Pied Piper & The Masters Of Ceremonies - Do You Really Like It?
Five - Let's dance


If you remember more A252 tracks from 2000-2001 let me know down in the comments section.

Faithful 'till the end
Last weeks of December 2001 passed without DJs, only music and some Christmas ads. In December 2001 the name of A252 successor was revealed: TeamTalk, sports talk fomat, BBC R.5Live's competitor.
January 3rd 2002 was doomsday. And as good a the first song heard on 252, I also remember one of the last ones: Nelly Furtado - On the radio (Remember the days).

After 252
Right after station's disappearance some other "music on AM" projects showed up and caught my attention. They include: German mediumwave network MegaRadio and UK's LBH Radio "The Scene" (1386 AM), but any of these and other stations resembled the 252 spirit.
After I installed a satellite dish in 2005, I came accross HINRG/LONRG - non-stop music channel on Eurobird/Astra 28E satellite - not included in Sky Guide. Sometimes HINRG played for hours the entire playlist from Atlantic's 2001! BassToy was the most significant! A coincidence?
Saddly they discontinued HINRG as well couple years later. Sky also had "Pure Dance" channel for couple of years, which - by the low-bitrate sound, music style, and heavy playlist rotation - could possibly be an A252 incarnation:)

Back on longwave, years after Atlantic's demise, Irish public radio RTE1 took over 252 kHz LW. Just for nostalgia I occasionally tune it on the radio to hear the transmitter back on air, with a different programming of course. I don't know how, but it is not that strong as it used to be a decade ago. Maybe it's the transmitter that is old, maybe my receiver isn't so perfectly aligned to 252 anymore or maybe the longwave got polluted with all the noise from the new devices that appeared in my life (to provide new music, for example..).
As far as I am aware, the Irish transmitter will continue operation untill at least 2019.


For those who enjoyed Atlantic 252 more in mid-90s, here's the link for 24/7 stream with music and jingles from 15 years back. The've recently updated the playlist with many past-2001 tracks, so it's not the same. But I think they saved 89-99 playlist for the daytime.
http://tunein.com/radio/Atlantic-252-Tribute-s134499

YouTube has couple of recordings of Atlantic 252 from the Rhythm and Dance times, like these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZXu9ImflMM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL9drQgA2Nk

the older logo

Some links:
The Official Atlantic 252 tribute Site
The ORIGINAL tribute site dedicated to Long Wave Radio Atlantic 252
Atlantic 252 on Wikipedia
Some recordings from the very beginning
Scottish DJ, MYLO recalls A252