RTÉ DTT Tests: Mullaghanish

The Cush

Is the new mast switched on yet?

There was an FM Radio 1 (90.00MHz) outage one morning last week about 10.30-11.00 approx indicating work is still ongoing I assume.

More Music

Work is ongoing.

There won't be a day when the new mast switched on. The various operators/systems will be phased in.

Band II (FM radio) antennas are being commissioned shortly. This may cause outages to radio services.

Stinicker

More Music wrote: »

Work is ongoing.

There won't be a day when the new mast switched on. The various operators/systems will be phased in.

Band II (FM radio) antennas are being commissioned shortly. This may cause outages to radio services.

Anyone know if they will be using Mullaghanish to transmit DAB (Digital Radio)?

The Cush

More Music wrote: »

Work is ongoing.

There won't be a day when the new mast switched on. The various operators/systems will be phased in.

Band II (FM radio) antennas are being commissioned shortly. This may cause outages to radio services.

Thanks for that More Music, the specific question I should have asked - is digital and analogue TV transmitting from the new mast yet?

mossym

guys, anyone spot anything different from mullaghanish in last couple of days? I had a signal up till two days ago, and now cannot pick up anything, i am a good bit north of Mullaghanish so i'm just wondering did they drop power or something?

dunleas

mossym wrote: »

guys, anyone spot anything different from mullaghanish in last couple of days? I had a signal up till two days ago, and now cannot pick up anything, i am a good bit north of Mullaghanish so i'm just wondering did they drop power or something?

no problems with Mullaghanish & Spur all firing well (near Watergrasshill)

mossym

dunleas wrote: »

no problems with Mullaghanish & Spur all firing well (near Watergrasshill)

cheers, not sure what happened so. i was picking it up fine with an indoor aerial. borrowed a high gain antenna off a guy at work and got it working with that fine, but didn't mount it properly in attic as it was a loaner. ordered an identical aerial to the one that was working.

while waiting for it to arrive, lost the signals tuesday evening. figured the loaner aerial in the attic had slipped. but new one arrived and installed it properly and still nothing.

going to have to brea out the indoor one and see if i can get anything with that

The Cush

It may have been transmitting at a higher power, the reason I say this is I can normally receive a variable 50-80% signal from Woodcock Hill DTT side on my Mullaghanish aerial but for a period of time up to a few days ago Woodcock Hill was not receiveable but returned "as normal" about Tue. Initally thought it was down to the good weather.

Whenever Mullaghanish DTT is off or on reduced power Woodcock Hill comes in much stronger eventhough its higher up the band.

More Music posted above that the new mast has new UHF antennas installed so they were probably testing. Mullaghanish's increased ERP is restricted until ASO, don't know what transmitters it would be interfering with.

mossym

The Cush wrote: »

It may have been transmitting at a higher power, the reason I say this is I can normally receive a variable 50-80% signal from Woodcock Hill DTT side on my Mullaghanish aerial but for a period of time up to a few days ago Woodcock Hill was not receiveable but returned "as normal" about Tue. Initally thought it was down to the good weather.

Whenever Mullaghanish DTT is off or on reduced power Woodcock Hill comes in much stronger eventhough its higher up the band.

hope that's not the case. i can pick up nothing from Maghera or Woodcock, both of which are 20km from me. if i was only getting mullaghanish due to them broadcasting at higher level for a few days them i'm pretty much screwed again, no DTT for me

dunleas

mossym wrote: »

hope that's not the case. i can pick up nothing from Maghera or Woodcock, both of which are 20km from me. if i was only getting mullaghanish due to them broadcasting at higher level for a few days them i'm pretty much screwed again, no DTT for me

mossyn you definitely need to revert back to your powered and take it from there. I have a one for all in the attic since last year it works well. The brand new high gain is lying beside it gathering dust not a dicky bird from it when I tried it back then. Must stick it on in the near future to see if things have improved.

mossym

dunleas wrote: »

mossyn you definitely need to revert back to your powered and take it from there. I have a one for all in the attic since last year it works well. The brand new high gain is lying beside it gathering dust not a dicky bird from it when I tried it back then. Must stick it on in the near future to see if things have improved.

yeah think that is the first step. If i get it on that it makes aligning the high gain easier as the channels are already tuned in and i can use them to get best alignment. I'm just hoping now that they haven't dropped the power and i'm back in a black hole. Killaloe is an awful area for reception, we have a UHF repeater above the town because of the poor signal levels in the area

dunleas

mossym wrote: »

yeah think that is the first step. If i get it on that it makes aligning the high gain easier as the channels are already tuned in and i can use them to get best alignment. I'm just hoping now that they haven't dropped the power and i'm back in a black hole. Killaloe is an awful area for reception, we have a UHF repeater above the town because of the poor signal levels in the area

well if nothing else it will give you piece of mind that nothing externally has changed. I have the best of both worlds at the moment i.e. picking up Spur & Mulla even though the indoor one for all is faced towards Spur discovered Spur by accident at xmas when Mulla was buried by snow.

pa990

i've no reception from mulla either.. They must have lowered the power out put.

dunleas

pa990 wrote: »

i've no reception from mulla either.. They must have lowered the power out put.

where are you located?

John mac

Just been checking. :- signal 30% Quality 18 %

thats from about 8 miles away with clear line of sight,

used to have 100%.

dunleas

John mac wrote: »

Just been checking. :- signal 30% Quality 18 %

thats from about 8 miles away with clear line of sight,

used to have 100%.

yes just rang home. Mullaghanish gone about two hours ago. Spur Hill is fine.

John mac

Back up now. signal 80% Quality 95%

dunleas

All good here as well:)

mossym

fingers crossed for when i get home so...i was happy out i could pick it up..

mossym

Typical. Came home, changed nothing, did a rescan and voilà all the channels there. Didn't even have to move aerial. Thanks all for the help though. Good thing is I now have my aerial permemantly mounted and channels working

The Cush

mossym wrote: »

did a rescan and voilà all the channels there. Didn't even have to move aerial. Thanks all for the help though. Good thing is I now have my aerial permemantly mounted and channels working

May be on higher power or transmitting from the new taller mast or both. My weaker Woodcock Hill DTT has gone again.

mossym

The Cush wrote: »

May be on higher power or transmitting from the new taller mast or both. My weaker Woodcock Hill DTT has gone again.

yeah, my guess is they upped the power again.

I know it's a trial, and they can do whatever they want, but not knowing if this will be the final output power or not is a bit frustrating. I've set up the gear to pipe this signal all over the house, and if they decide to drop the power level again it's a waste of time.

i did hear that if it went live they would pump up the power as they would be less worried about analog interference then, any truth in that?

The Cush

mossym wrote: »

i did hear that if it went live they would pump up the power as they would be less worried about analog interference then, any truth in that?

The RTÉNL rollout schedule indicates that power output will be 40kW from the new mast and antennas up from 20kW with final power output of 200kW at ASO.

jimmyjim11

I get good signal in the morning but as the day goes on the picture starts breaking up

some days no signal

some times signal stays on all day very rarely do

jimmyjim11

just did a rescan picking up DAB radio stations again Pulse gold etc

Voyager II

Was just watching the RTE News channel and the tv updated it self 'one new channel added' its was a new radio channel. TV is a panasonic. Nice feature did not know it had it. I wonder if all the mpeg4 tuners have it?

The Cush

Voyager II wrote: »

Was just watching the RTE News channel and the tv updated it self 'one new channel added' its was a new radio channel. TV is a panasonic. Nice feature did not know it had it. I wonder if all the mpeg4 tuners have it?

Nothing new added on my Sony, just did a rescan of Mullaghanish. Still picking up 16 channels.

Does anyone know if Ch 24 was active again recently, found the six TV channels from this frequency stored in the 800's with epg data and no audio or video? Previously deleted them after the last series of tests on Chs 24, 25 and 28.

dunleas

The Cush wrote: »

Nothing new added on my Sony, just did a rescan of Mullaghanish. Still picking up 16 channels.

Does anyone know if Ch 24 was active again recently, found the six TV channels from this frequency stored in the 800's with epg data and no audio or video? Previously deleted them after the last series of tests on Chs 24, 25 and 28.

I have those stored as well, as far as I recall they were active about two weeks ago for a day or so.

Antenna

All 6 national FM radios are currently off from Mullaghanish since some time this morning, I presume due to the replacement mast work.



UPDATE: noted back on 12:30

John mac

was reported on Today FM there would be intermittent outages today and tomorrow.