RTE using Sky to feed Analogue transmitters?

dowtchaboy

This has to do with Analogue TV - there doesn't seem to be an appropriate forum to post this so....

Last night (Sunday 15th November) in Crosshaven we had some severe gusting and very heavy rain for a while about 8pm onwards.
During this our Satellite reception froze and went off a number of times (Freesat box) so we switched to RTE1 from our local terrestrial transmitter about 2km away in Crosshaven.
To my surprise we were greeted by a static Sky box menu! There was normal reception on RTE Network2 and TG4 (none on TV3 of course but then there never is around here since TV3 never coughed up for a transmitter......) but our RTE1 was gone for the evening, unless we felt like staring at a Sky menu. It is back this morning.
So - does this mean RTE1 (or RTENL) are using Sky as a method of getting signal to transmitters? What happened to proper microwave links?

kierank01

Our sky went out at about the same time, but we didn't check the analogue stations (rebooting the sky box got us back).

I am not hugely surprised about the sky menu on the analogue channel, south coast do/did this all the time.

Mossy Monk

dowtchaboy wrote: »

So - does this mean RTE1 (or RTENL) are using Sky as a method of getting signal to transmitters?

In some cases, yes.

dowtchaboy

Fair dues - I got a speedy reply from RTE Transmission Networks:

Dear db,

We are currently replacing the mast at our Mullaghanish main transmitter site. During construction it has been necessary for us to have periods of reduced power operation for a number of reasons, including meeting our health and safety responsibilities to the contractors on site. Mullaghanish provides the input feed for a number of our television transposers, including the Crosshaven relay, and for technical reasons we have temporarily installed Sky Digital feeds as back-up at some of these sites while this work is ongoing. Unfortunately, the inclement weather yesterday evening appears to have affected our RTÉ One satellite feed at Crosshaven and caused a reset of the receiver which in turn resulted in the Sky Digibox menu being radiated instead. This problem has since been corrected by our engineers this morning.

Please accept our apologies for this disruption to your RTÉ One television service.

Regards,

RTÉ Network Support
/QUOTE]

marclt

dowtchaboy wrote: »

Fair dues - I got a speedy reply from RTE Transmission Networks:

Dear db,

We are currently replacing the mast at our Mullaghanish main transmitter site. During construction it has been necessary for us to have periods of reduced power operation for a number of reasons, including meeting our health and safety responsibilities to the contractors on site. Mullaghanish provides the input feed for a number of our television transposers, including the Crosshaven relay, and for technical reasons we have temporarily installed Sky Digital feeds as back-up at some of these sites while this work is ongoing. Unfortunately, the inclement weather yesterday evening appears to have affected our RTÉ One satellite feed at Crosshaven and caused a reset of the receiver which in turn resulted in the Sky Digibox menu being radiated instead. This problem has since been corrected by our engineers this morning.

Please accept our apologies for this disruption to your RTÉ One television service.

Regards,

RTÉ Network Support
/QUOTE]

It's a shame that they don't have the Aertel transmitter page updated any more. Amazing that RTE1 can be off for over 12 hours (even from a minor site) without quicker action to restore the programme. The shame of it going to a sky screen also! You'd think they'd have a stock of generic digiboxes with cam slots for such malarky that would reset to a specified channel.

Sky must be giving them the box for free... after they've signed up for a sub and card, of course ! ;-)

L1011

Theres no CAMs reliable enough to trust, although there is or was extremely expensive cable headend quality rack units available with "proper" Videoguard CAMs. For temporary use or use in a small relay, these would be overkill pricewise, so digiboxes it is...

mrdtv

MYOB wrote: »

Theres no CAMs reliable enough to trust, although there is or was extremely expensive cable headend quality rack units available with "proper" Videoguard CAMs. For temporary use or use in a small relay, these would be overkill pricewise, so digiboxes it is...

Sorry this is a Mickey Mouse operation. The BBC etc would NEVER do this...

cnocbui

mrdtv wrote: »

Sorry this is a Mickey Mouse operation. The BBC etc would NEVER do this...

The BBC is the most ludicrously over funded public broadcaster on the planet, they can afford not to.

mrdtv

cnocbui wrote: »

The BBC is the most ludicrously over funded public broadcaster on the planet, they can afford not to.

Yes, but viewers would not be left with Sky menu all night (Perfect commercial for pay television, what were RTE NL thinking?)

Mossy Monk

mrdtv wrote: »

what were RTE NL thinking?

Thank God we aren't paying for someone to man every tx in the country 24 hours a day, 365 days a week.

Probably.

mrdtv

Mossy Monk wrote: »

Thank God we aren't paying for someone to man every tx in the country 24 hours a day, 365 days a week.

Probably.

Yes, but whatever happened to the reliability of their microwave/fibre distribution system?

marclt

Thank God for Sky eh!

I guess that as the station was still transmitting a picture there was no way of telling if it had gone down. Still having a blue menu screen doesn't look very good. Must have been a power glitch... no back up power on the boxes!

I'm sure a televes with a cam would suffice - and the channel would revert in case of a power outage!

Mike 1972

marclt wrote: »

dowtchaboy wrote: »

Amazing that RTE1 can be off for over 12 hours (even from a minor site) without quicker action to restore the programme.

I remember an RTE relay in Mayo going off (both channels) for three days (no rebates offered on licence fee that year mind) and Im told one in Kerry had an outge lasting several months onetime :eek:

mrdtv wrote: »

Sorry this is a Mickey Mouse operation. The BBC etc would NEVER do this...

(cough)....Channel Islands.....(cough)

dowtchaboy

mrdtv wrote: »

Sorry this is a Mickey Mouse operation. The BBC etc would NEVER do this...

I must say I'm dead against 'gold-plating' everything unnecessarily - and in favour of innovative solutions especially if it saves us all money. At least RTE did provide a transmitter to cover the black hole here in Crosshaven - unlike TV3. I would have thought a bit of reprogramming applied to a Sky box (or a Dreambox or whatever) should have produced something capable of resetting to a desired channel. Though I suppose as a State organisation you can't chance upsetting Sky and getting legal writs to "cease and desist" from opening their boxes.....

If nobody rang in on the night-then how was it to be fixed?
How far is crosshaven from mullaghanish...which I presume is manned.
They could have sent someone down from there.

mrdtv

Mike 1972 wrote: »

marclt wrote: »

I remember an RTE relay in Mayo going off (both channels) for three days (no rebates offered on licence fee that year mind) and Im told one in Kerry had an outge lasting several months onetime :eek:



(cough)....Channel Islands.....(cough)

Cough again: CI fed by fibre from Plymouth and satellite back up. And straight from PAL to DTT and HDTV next year in October with no low power DTT for ten years or DTT 'trial'. Coughs again...

Mike 1972

The fibre feed is a recent development. Up until fairly recently it was a SABRE array picking up a very weak UHF signal from the mainland with Sky digiboxes as backup when reception got too bad later more recently theve got permission to link on microwave via France.

L1011

mrdtv wrote: »

Sorry this is a Mickey Mouse operation. The BBC etc would NEVER do this...

The BBC aren't encrypted on satellite. But, more importantly, they don't handle their own transmission anyway!

mrdtv

Mike 1972 wrote: »

The fibre feed is a recent development. Up until fairly recently it was a SABRE array picking up a very weak UHF signal from the mainland with Sky digiboxes as backup when reception got too bad later more recently theve got permission to link on microwave via France.

SABRE was a masterpiece in its time: now I wonder if they could use diversity COFDM receivers to pick up the signal off-air from Stockland Hill DSO. These are professionally available. Now Fremont is fibre line fed from Plymouth IIRC.

NUTZZ

Yeh I noticed it just there about 20 mins ago on RTE 1 & 2, my dad came in wondered why there was a sky logo on screen (even though the sky box isn't in his room!) It came up as a broken picture and 'no signal' screen.

purplestar1986

Don't now what's going on but all of our terrestrial channels switched to the sky menu a few times tonight

Sponge Bob

Maghera looks like it is on a sky digibox ( complete with artefacts ) right now

Mayo Exile

Same at Clermont Carn. RTE 1 at the moment seems to be sourced from a Sky digibox. RTE 2 is 14:9 again. Was similar to RTE 1 earlier on in the evening though.

dowtchaboy

uh... maybe there's actually nobody at all in Donnybrook - it's all a front - there's just a stack of Sky boxes feeding the microwave network, and a dog with a stick attached to his tail which is meant to whack the reset buttons if he doesn't see Miriam O'Callaghan at least once of an evening?

mickeyboymel

Same here in the Cairn Hill coverage area round midnight last night during heavy rain the analog channels were tripping out to the Sky no signal message and aspect ratio wrong on RTE's. Diigital seeed fine throughout but could not switch between the two quickly enough to check as message only appeared for a few seconds at a time.

scath

mickeyboymel wrote: »

Same here in the Cairn Hill coverage area round midnight last night during heavy rain the analog channels were tripping out to the Sky no signal message and aspect ratio wrong on RTE's. Diigital seeed fine throughout but could not switch between the two quickly enough to check as message only appeared for a few seconds at a time.

Yea, saw this last night too, only affecting RTÉ 1 & 2, Am in Carrick on Shannon, Leitrim, at the mo, have trial box down there, i noticed in on analogue & same as yerselves sat box was off, we don't have subscription so wouldn't get these. RTÉ1 did mention with transmission page that there would be slight disruption across the network last night while the work on the power levels. So I assume was to do with DTT equiment, perhaps testing interference between DTT and analogue, maybe to do with the 3 muxes? But I guess they tested between transmitter network and broadcast centre and used Sky feed while they were doing the tests. Was looking for technical page on Aertel but could only find stuff about world radio and Dab etc.. Not sure if picking up from Carn Hill or Truskmore...Arond 12:42 I noticed and a minute later on RTÉ2 but they didn't switch it back from 4:2 to widescreen though they did on RTÉ1 back to widescreen

More Music

Relay, community self help or low power fill-ins (TV or Radio) are rarely if ever fed via microwave link.

There could be multiple hops required to get line of sight. That's not very cost effective now is it. We'd be giving out if RTE had spent loadsa money on microwave links feeding 200 people in a blackspot.

These sites are usually fed via off-air signals from the main regional site with Sky Digital backups. Seems like a cost effective way of re-using a resource that they have.

Mullaghanish would have staff on site during the day but this may not always be the case.

BTW, all the main regional sites use Sky Digital as a 3rd backup.

1 - Main microwave link
2 - Off air feeds from nearest regional site
3 - Sky Digital

Antenna

I was told it was off for about 2 hours Sunday night.
attached is a picture of what was transmitted

Crosshaven is the usual RTE transmitter for viewers in the towns of Cobh and Carrigaline which is a large population

They should have put a silence detector on the audio and a system which would switch back to an off-air feed after a couple minutes silence.

A lot of other RTE transposers in the area are currently being fed by satellite too, however there is no NICAM, i suppose NICAM modulators are too expensive to provide.

Mike 1972

TBH with a switchover to a fully digital network just a couple of years away (yeah right) spending money on NICAM encoders probably doesnt make a lot of sense

Antenna

mrdtv wrote: »

The BBC etc would NEVER do this...

BBC/ITv/C4 on satellite does not have 'analogue teletext', so making it less suitable for a backup feed to analogue transmitters. RTE/tv3/Tg4 on Sky does. As pointed out the BBC has actually done so, at least on the Channel Islands, (and I suspect elsewhere for short periods during link breakdowns too) ?

Mike 1972 wrote: »

spending money on NICAM encoders

Admittedly, most people wouldn't even notice if NICAM disappears .

PyeContinental

NICAM stereo sound was a huge improvement in tv enjoyment for me.
No more need for simulcasts on 2FM (remember "The Beatbox"? ) and films were given a new dimension. It was like going from B&W to colour if that's not overstating it!

When in Dublin, I remember when the Three Rock transmitter had NICAM sterreo sound on its channels but the Kippure transmitter did not (or was it the other way around?) I used to get a better picture from Kippure so would watch that but use the sound from Three Rock. My VCR had a feature that would allow you to record the picture from one channel and the sound from another source. I remember when RTE showed Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and being amazed at the sound of the horses clip clopping in from the left in the opening of the film. Anyway, sorry for O/T

L1011

I can remember (just about) watching a movie with a radio on FM3 providing the stereo sound.

I also remember using a VCR that could overlay teletext - for those with no teletext TV. Damn I feel old now.

dowtchaboy

MYOB wrote: »

I can remember (just about) watching a movie with a radio on FM3 providing the stereo sound.

I also remember using a VCR that could overlay teletext - for those with no teletext TV. Damn I feel old now.

I was working in the lab
Late one night

when I heard Mr Baird say
"Come in here, DB, I want you"

or is my memory playing tricks on me......?

Bring back memories of messing about with Squarials (still have some I stored away) and modified British Satellite Broadcasting boxes. The Danish channels were particularly interesting......

Solair

Deleted User wrote: »

If nobody rang in on the night-then how was it to be fixed?
How far is crosshaven from mullaghanish...which I presume is manned.
They could have sent someone down from there.

It's about 110km across not so great West Cork roads.

Although, there must be some RTE NL technicians in Cork City at RTE Cork which is only about 20 mins from Crosshaven.

denat

I'm in South Mayo and receive TG4 on channel23 - don't know what transmitter.

For the last few nights TG4 is obviously coming from a satellite. The sky? interface appears frequently and picture size/format has changed. Quite annoying!

Sponge Bob

It is simple. RTE are on backup sky feeds while they commission their core transmission network . It was mentioned here

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/14502/comms/rte-makes-investment

This will all be sorted by christmas

Galway

TG4 on channel 23 is coming from Castlebar, the aspect is different alright. I get TG4 from Cairn Hill (longford) and Maghera (Clare) main transmitters and the aspect is correct on these main transmitters. Bits of the image like text are getting clipped on the bottom right hand corner of the picture on channel 23 from castlebar.

FREEBBC

Is Sky having a contract with RTÉ to give the transmitter people free sky to get their satellite feeds piping into analogue?

another thing is....

they can give out internet feeds of the irish channels into analogue as their 4th backup

Antenna

Crosshaven

TG4 and then RTE2 as well from Crosshaven were suffering glitching a few days ago (Sunday into Monday) - sound would cut out for fractions of a second continuously (defective satellite receivers?)
However it appears they have reverted to being fed from Mullaghanish for all 3 channels it carries (RTE1,2,Tg4)

radiospan

It would be interesting to know what kind of deal RTE have with Sky for this.

I guess RTE would have to pay to transmit encrypted channels from Sky Digital to everybody FTA.

More Music

Sky don't own the content copyright and RTE are not defeating the encryption.