What are radio frequency ranges given for stations in Ireland?

Amik

Been living here a while now but no one has been able to explain to me why radio station frequencies are given in ranges here (e.g. 96.1 - 98.3) instead of a single frequncy. What is the reason for that? Something atmospheric because we're on the ocean?

Victor

There are multiple transmitters (to get around mountains, horizon, etc.) for each station - they can't all transmit on the same frequency, as they would interfere with each other.

coylemj

Have you never heard the jingle before the news on all of the national BBC radio stations? When introducing the news bulletin on the hour, every presenter prefixes the announcement with the station name and frequency range e.g. '88 to 91 FM BBC Radio 2, it's two o'clock and over to so and so with the news'. Every presenter says it in the same style so it must be displayed on the wall in every studio or maybe it flashes up on the presenter's screen as a standard announcement to be read verbatim.

You may be used to local radio stations which have just the one transmitter similar to the Dublin stations such as 98FM, FM104 etc. Stations which broadcast to a wider area need multiple transmitters and to avoid interference, have to use a different frequency at each transmitter.

Where possible they get the frequencies assigned within a set range so that people can find the station easily knowing that only that station broadcasts within that range, this happens in the UK with the nationwide BBC stations (as outlined above) and more or less is the case in Ireland with the RTE stations, other stations tend to be scattered around the place.

The RDS system ensures that car radios retune as you travel around the country when listening to a national radio station like RTE or Today FM or a local station covering a rural part of the country with more than one transmitter like EastCoast FM or Midlands 103 so it's not an issue for most people.

sligojoek

I spend a lot of time on the road between Sligo and Bundoran. The car radio homes in perfectly on 2FM and BBC radio2 . But when I'm at home using a dial tune radio the two channels sometimes interfere with each other.