RTE forced to add 50m to 170m mast because of Windfarms

Sponge Bob

RTE told the examiner they would increase Mullaghanish from 170m to 220 m becuase of large scale windfarm interference.

Furthermore they are having to chase the developers in many cases as the developers do not want to help those affected.

http://www.examiner.ie/irishexaminer/pages/story.aspx-qqqg=opinion-qqqm=opinion-qqqa=general-qqqid=31505-qqqx=1.asp

30 April 2007

Windfarms interfering with RTÉ reception

WINDFARMS provide energy, may be environmentally-friendly and welcome — until they interfere with your television reception.


RTÉ is in no doubt that reception difficulties are being caused by windfarms located in elevated parts of Cork and Kerry.

RTÉ also has plans to raise its transmission mast at Mullaghanish, near Ballyvourney, by 50 metres in an effort to improve reception. With more windfarms being planned, however, it looks as if problems will continue with both TV and radio signals.

The Rockchapel area of north Cork, for instance, will soon have more than 60 wind turbines, while more turbines are also in the pipeline for the Clonkeen and Kilgarvan areas, in Kerry.

Some windfarm developers act responsibly and consult RTÉ about interference in advance of construction, according to Mick Kehoe, executive director of RTÉ Transmission Network Ltd. But, he added, other developers ‘completely ignore’ the impact they can have on communities for TV and radio reception.

“Unfortunately, unless there is a co-ordinated effort, television and, to a lesser extent radio reception in the areas around Rockchapel and down across to Kilgarvan, will be seriously damaged by the development of wind farms,” he said in a letter replying to Minister of State for the Environment Batt O’Keeffe.

At present they were aware of 13 developments in these areas, but there were many more in the wider region.

“Only a few of these have been built and television reception has already been seriously impacted,” Mr Kehoe said. He said the Taurbeg windfarm had caused the majority of difficulties in the Rockchapel area by blocking out the signal from Mullaghanish, but the developer had acted to mitigate the problem to an extent by installing Sky satellite packages in a number of homes.

In the Kilgarvan area, he said they had a low-power transmission site and were able to re-engineer the system, with some support from a windfarm developer. That mitigated the problem, but not everyone was satisfied.

Mr Kehoe said: “despite our best efforts, we are not making meaningful progress in relation to some current developments,’ he went on.

“It will take a co-ordinated approach and the enforcement of a formal requirement on windfarm developers, or similar, to address the issue of interference with television and radio transmissions at an early stage of the planning and development process. It is our view that this can be best addressed by the planning departments of the various county councils, but it will need neighbouring counties like Cork and Kerry to work together,” he stated.

RTÉ Transmission Network will shortly be submitting a planning application to increase the height of the Mullaghanish mast from 170 metres to 220 metres. That should help reduce the impact of some windfarms and also allow for the transmission of digital terrestrial television, which is not as open to interference from windfarms. It is hoped to have the mast raised by the end of 2008.

Meanwhile, RTÉ is contacting every windfarm developer whose details can be unearthed, county council planning departments, ComReg and community groups.

Also, Minister O’Keeffe has promised to take up the issue with Environment Minister Dick Roche. He also said he would be asking councils in Cork and Kerry to ensure windfarm developers complied with planning regulations guidelines.

Organisations in affected areas have been campaigning for improvements to the situation, pointing out that the areas with poor reception already suffer from many other disadvantages.

Siobhan Griffin, of the Kerry County Community and Voluntary Forum, said the situation was most unsatisfactory. Some of the areas affected by poor reception had large numbers of older people, who had little social interaction and for whom television was very important.

As more windfarms are constructed in the years ahead, in line with Government and EU policies, more problems with reception will inevitably arise in different parts of the country.

Some experts are saying that satellite is the only real solution.

slicedpanman

On a related note;
If I were to put up a couple of wind turbines for domestic power generation and as long as they are not in the line of sight between the aerial and the transmitter... will I be grand?

Ulsterman 1690

AFaIK how much of a problem (if any) windmill blades cause to TV reception is determined by several factors including
1) Material used to make the windmill blades
2) Angle of the blades in relation to incoming TV signals
3) Direction in relation to recieving aerials
4) height
5) Distance from transmitter
6) Distance from recieving antennae

Its something I wouldnt claim to be that well up on (Indeed as its only started to be recognised as a problem in the last few years there probably arent many people who are) From what I have seen though the majority of windmill sites dont cause any problems and where there are problems they can be resolved (or at least mitigated) by careful design and good liason between the engineering teams from the windfarm and broadcasters.

As for raising the height of the Mullanghanish mast Its not a bad idea although I dont understand why it wasnt looked into years ago for two reasons.
Firstly maybe if Mullanghanish were higher then fewer relays would be required to service its target area Secondly when TG4 (and TV3) began transmission on UHF (previously all TV from that site was on VHF) Investigations should have been made into whether the mast was high enough for UHF transmission.

It would be interesting to see how immune DTT and DAB are to windfarm interference. While DTT was intended to have a high degree of immunity to ghosting the engineering teams devising it were mainly concerned with ghosting due to STATIC objects (e.g. buildings) Ive heard mixed reports on how well it copes with ghosting from MOVING objects (e.g. planes and presumably windmills)

Some experts are saying that satellite is the only real solution.

1) Another reason why Irish channels should be FTV (or ideally FTA)
2) Just wait until some g0*$*1*€ in the planning office rules in favour of a windfarm but against the dishes

Sponge Bob

A lot of this can be blamed squarely on gobs%^*&(s in planning offices and their unwillingness to enforce their own conditions.

lawhec

Just out of curiousity, is there any county in the world that uses satellite television exclusively (cable excepted) to broadcast their national network on with no terrestial transmitters?

Ulsterman 1690

I am not aware of any internationally recognised countries which do so
But there are a few satellite-only channels representing regional governments and/or political organisations with seperatist ambitions.

There are also several countries where the terrestrial network only covers a fraction of the territory and they rely on satellite for the rest.

As I mentioned in another thread some people reckon the reason many countries bother with DTT is because overdependence on satellite could leave them vunerable in times of war or other crisis.