Signal on 87.5Mhz in France

radiospan

This might seem a bit obscure, but when I used to go to France on holiday ten or so years ago, I always remember this strange signal on FM 87.5Mhz. It was a series of beeps that repeated every 4-5 seconds.

I'm not sure if it's still there or not. I could pick it up in most parts of western France anyway. Anyone know what this was, or where I could find out?

Antenna

You were hearing French paging networks which operated just below 87.5FM between 87.3 - 87.5 MHz.

I used to hear them years ago during 'lift conditions or Sp-E', but not in recent times, so they must have been phased out. Some other European countries also used these same 87MHz frequencies for Paging networks (but not Ireland or the UK).

I assume the French 87MHz pager networks died off and were decommissioned after mobile phones really took off ?


Still listed on this old frequency plan for France dated 2001:

http://ukspec.tripod.com/france.html

" Paging, 25 kHz "alphapage biplus ou eurosignal"

87.34 ch A
87.365 ch B
87.39 ch C + POCSAG
87.415 ch D
"

Antenna

Googling further, I read this paging system was switched off in 1997-1998