upc tower mullingar

jpsr

When i was in my teens i always visited at the time, the CMI (Now upc) mast up the dublin road on a hill in mullingar, were there was a huge mast with a couple of 1.2 channel master dishes, some smaller dishes and a few aerials, were it was distributed around the town. A few years ago the land was sold and houses built there and the mast was took down. Does anyone know where it was moved to as i cannot find it anywhere in town.

Solair

They probably use a fibre link into the main UPC network. The microwave links are not necessary anymore.

mickeyboymel

AFAIK The town was fed from somewhere up near the General Hospital in latter years, not sure where though....however since 18th May this year the Mullingar Network is now fully digital and linked by fibre.

jpsr

I wonder was it fed from the roof of the hospital as they have a lot of equipment on top.
When you say linked by fibre what do you mean.
Where would there mast with satellites be
As there is still people recieving cable theough the actual cable were is that linked to , it was linked direct to there mast.
And for people who are not in cabled spots, but can still get upc have like square mesh dishes on the roof , were does that signal come from.
Sorry for all the questions, im satellite mad and just wanted to have a look at there mast with them all om board.

djimi

Find a house which has the mesh dish on the roof and follow the line of sight of the dish and youll find the mast!

jpsr

djimi wrote: »

Find a house which has the mesh dish on the roof and follow the line of sight of the dish and youll find the mast!

I did that and its hard to follow a straight line as the roads bend and i lose direction, but there is 1 that looks near that direction, but its not what i was expection , its like a phone mast, is was expecting a mast with satellites.Would there be satellites at this mast or what would it look like.

djimi

Im not sure actually. Ill take a look later when I go home and look at the one my house used to point at and Ill see if I can describe it to you!

mickeyboymel

jpsr wrote: »

I wonder was it fed from the roof of the hospital as they have a lot of equipment on top.
When you say linked by fibre what do you mean.
Where would there mast with satellites be
As there is still people recieving cable theough the actual cable were is that linked to , it was linked direct to there mast.
And for people who are not in cabled spots, but can still get upc have like square mesh dishes on the roof , were does that signal come from.
Sorry for all the questions, im satellite mad and just wanted to have a look at there mast with them all om board.

Here is my limited understanding of how it works, Watty or some of the lads could explain it much better:


All the Coax Cable is linked to the new local Nodes, which are the White Cabinets that have been placed near the entrances estates and areas which have been upgraded. These nodes are connected together by fiber to a headend which in turn is linked by fibre optic to whereever in the country the central feed for UPC distribution is.

Prior to this the coax was all directly linked to the local headend which was then fed by MMDS microlink, which only requires a repeater mast hence no need for satellite dishes and aerials etc.

The square MMDS dishes are fed from a local microwave transmitter, yes similar to a phone mast and again no need for satellite dishes or aerials as this too is fed by bouncing microwave links from wherever the central feed is.I'm not entirely sure where in the Mullingar area this is but I think it may be out somewhere between Killucan & Mullingar.

The only place you might see a mast with all the dishes etc on it is whereever this central distribution centre is? Watty will know!!!:)

jpsr

You are right mickey i think it is between killucan and mullingar. Ardleigh in mullingar and a few other estates only use these aerials. I followed it out the rochfortbridge road and i seen a few other country houses with these aerials pointing in the same direction, so the 2 masts i thought was them are not. I was thinking there is a few masts on a hill on the left side on the way to killucan, maybe they have a new mast there. There are parts of mullingar that cant have these aerials for upc and rely on analouge cable, which does make me think it is out near killucan, because on the east of the town going up the dublin road there is a hill which would make reception maybe impossible. In every cable estate they would need one aerial that would get a signal from the mast, but there is no reception for these aerials in parts of the town. How would that work.

mickeyboymel

The analog cable serivice is also fed off fibre too at this stage from the headend.

The rebuild effectively broke all the areas into smaller rings all linked to their own local nodes,which in turn are linked back to the headend by fibre, insted of one large coax ring covering the entire town with inline amplifiers etc. This was why they needed to dig trenches in the roads acroass town, to lay the fibre which connect the nodes.

What prevents some estates being able to be fully triple play enabled is the absence of the local nodes which require fibre being laid to that point, and then the existing coax used to the final drop to the houses. In these estates, the cable is routed back to the headend by coax only.So there is only analog and a basic limited digital service available.

In the likes of Ardleigh, it's totally MMDS as there was never cable laid in the first place when the houses were being built, so each house requires its own square aerial.

jpsr

My mother upgraded her analouge to digital today , so i got to ask the installer a few questions.

I was right in saying that there headend was on the roof of the hospital, until a few months ago, before that when CMI where operating there mast was up the dublin road , which had satellites and aerials.

As said before now any cabled aereas are fibre and they run hole way along the motorway to dublin.

The aerials that recieve upc are getting there signal from the sleive bloom mountains in birr co offaly, which gets its signal from the main mast in dublin.

I always wanted to know this, but i liked the old way of distributing cable,where the mast is full of satellites etc.

Anyone know where upc have there main mast in dublin where they would have there satellites etc installed.