BANDSCAN THREAD

Antenna

Raidió Rí-Rá is returning on FM next Monday (13th March) for a just one week stint on air:

Baile Átha Cliath / Dublin 105.2 fm

Corcaigh / Cork 106.7 fm

Luimneach / Limerick 105.5 fm

Gaillimh / Galway 87.9 fm

Declan A Walsh

The Sound of Ireland is returning to FM in Dublin this Saturday (11th March) for a one week stint. It will be on 94.3 FM. As per above, Raidió Rí-Rá will be on 105.2 FM for most of that period (last year The Sound of Ireland was on that frequency). Some refer to it as "Paddy FM". It is effectively a station closely linked to Christmas FM. It will of course be also available online for all of Ireland.

https://thesoundofireland.com/

Infoanon

Crystal clear well modulated signal on 1575 AM in Dublin today , broadcasting recordings of Energy 103.

As it happens Energy closed suddenly on March 11th 1988 with Q102 acquiring it's transmission equipment.

DublinsABC

ABC 80's Radio Memories this Sunday is "K.I.T.S. April 27th 1988 - This is a recording of Brian James on the air for the Monaghan-based pirate station K.I.T.S. We join the show at 4.20pm. " Enjoy Tune-in on 93.3 FM / liveradio.ie/Tune-in Radio/Alexa and https://kathy.torontocast.com:4365/stream With thanks to Radiowaves Ireland

TheBMG

Notice 1440am and 99.5FM running in parallel this afternoon (Dublin QTH)

Declan A Walsh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120369485#Comment_120369485

Over the last few weekends, particularly on Sundays, Energy Power AM has been streamed on 99.5FM as well as its main transmitter 1440kh (208 metres) am.

Antenna

 Rí-Rá is finishing tonight, currently on in 4 cities for the past week as above.

RDS =" Ri-Ra "

PI Code = 20C6

dxhound2005

The Dundalk station is back on 1494 kHz 23 March, long time since I heard them there. ID Kiss AM.

Fairly strong on the North West 2 SDR. The other North West is offline for me at present.

DublinsABC

ABC 80's Radio Memories this Sunday is "Bray Local Broadcasting August 14th 1981 -This recording was made during a visit by a DX Archive touring party in August 1981. Joe Bollard (pictured during this recording) is the presenter of ‘Morning Mixture’, recorded off 828kHz.

Ken Baird, one of the tour party, later wrote: “Joe [was] blind and was helped by a young lad [who] fetched the music for him. Joe cued up the records himself, putting the stylus under a little strain. It was amazing to watch.” Enjoy Tune-in on 93.3 FM / liveradio.ie / Tune-in Radio / Alexa and https://kathy.torontocast.com:4365/stream With thanks to Radiowaves Ireland / Gary Hogg / DX Archive 

Ger Roe

Joe is a great community broadcaster, either locally for the Bray area, or for the national blind community. He did great work on air for both 'communities', over many years, but he is a particularly known for his radio work in Bray. This will be worth a listen.

dxhound2005

The Dundalk station has been coming and going on 1512 kHz for a few days. Saturday 25 March playing continuous Drum and Bass type music, with no ID's. Can be heard fairly well on the North West SDR. No harmonics from this transmitter, unlike the one which used to operate up until March 2022.

Donuthead

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120400659#Comment_120400659

Is RTE 252 still putting out harmonics?

I do recall a post by you stating that you were receiving harmonics from the national broadcaster on 252 kHz.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120270369#Comment_120270369

For the life of me, and I have tried, I cannot hear any harmonics from 252 kHz and I am practically beside it.

After all, if the state broadcaster is causing problems with "Harmonics" then they need to be held accountable, don't ya think?

You need to check your antenna!

dxhound2005

It has been noted further afield at least in the past, as per this forum.

https://klubnl.pl/rsgb_lf_group-archives/cgi-bin/namazu.cgi?query=%2Bfrom%3Aroelof%40ndb.demon.nl&idxname=rsgb_lf_group&sort=date%3Alate&whence=360

"Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:07:14 +0200 (CEST)

Hello Alan, Gary, The harmonic of RTE 252 on 504 kHz has been reported all over Westen Europe on all kind of antennas as does not seem to be an antenna or receiver anomaly. Best regards, Roelof Bakke"

Also I have a post on Boards in 2021 advising the owner of the Carlow SDR that his receiver had a strong harmonic on 504. I recall a post from him on Swling.com complaining that a receiver was faulty because it was getting "breakthrough" from RTE on 756 kHz.

I often wondered whether it is my equipment, but it does seem not to be unique to me. The Dundalk station on 1512 is still on, and very weak but audible on the North West SDR.

Donuthead

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120401794#Comment_120401794

That is one old story now tbh.

However, my whole point is that on the 21st of February, you wrote

"252 has not reduced power. S9 +60 signal as always with me, and putting out +40 harmonic on 504 kHz, and weaker on 756 mixing with BBC Radio Four."

So I checked myself, and no harmonics were received here by me at all on 504 or 756 kHz on that date, which was using a receiver connected to an amplified outdoor mini whip, yet you are what, say 63km away from the transmitter and you have a +40 Db harmonic on 504 kHz.

Bizarre!

Do you still have the harmonics from 252?

(I just realised this is the Bandscan thread, sorry mods. :) )

Antenna

Just to clarify my previous post here, the temporary Irish station Ri-Ra are operating every weekend to May (as well as the recent several days continuous operation). THey are transmitting a different RDS PI Code (20C6) to the other past multi-area temporary stations. Other such stations, including the two most recent ones XMAS and then C. H. 80s used PI Code = 20C4

BTW on other bands I'm getting American operators on 11m, one frequency with operators easily heard is 27.025 MHz AM. This happening frequently recently during daytime, fading out at night. They using big amplifiers of course :)

dxhound2005

27.385 LSB and 27.555 USB are the main calling channels. You will hear some oddball characters on 27.385. 10 and 11 metres is back big time, massive signals from USA and elsewhere this last few months. But there was a big disturbance on the sun that wiped out everything on HF for a lot of the past week. In general there will be no DX at night.

Declan A Walsh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120404032#Comment_120404032

Thanks in particular re Rí-Rá. I was wondering why they were back again on 105.2 FM over the weekend!

Here is what I picked up on the airwaves as regards "free radio" around Dublin over the weekend. All were oldies stations except for the first one.

FM:

91.6 - Dance music - presumably relay of Phever FM - only on Friday

92.0 - Retro FM - only on Sunday

93.3 - ABC 80s

98.4 - The Network 90s - I think

MW:

1440 kh - Energy Power AM

dxhound2005

I mentioned 11 Metres, which is a name given to the CB Band on 27 MHz. What I knew as the 11 Metre Band back in the day before CB was known in Ireland, was the International Broadcast Band on 25 MHz. I haven't heard anything there for a long long time until today. BBC Hausa service, 25800 kHz from the Vatican transmitter site from 3 pm to 3.30 pm Irish time.

It went off abruptly at 3.30 in the middle of some speech. I remember Radio France International using it way back. It is another indication that the Sunspot Cycle is now favouring the high frequencies. I came across it today while just tuning round, very strong signal, and the internet confirms all the details.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PqTLsA3KNo

"11 meters is often defined as 25-28 MHz / 25000-28000 kHz or 26-28 MHz / 26000-28000 kHz. It is rarely used to refer to the basically never-used 11 meter shortwave broadcast band roughly defined internationally as 25670 kHz to 26100 kHz or 25.67 MHz to 26.1 MHz." (from the HF Undergound site).

DublinsABC

ABC 80's Radio Memories this Sunday at 18.00 BST is "Castle K Radio May 10th 1984 -Castle K Radio from the Castleknock area in Dublin. This recording was taken from 96.8MHz FM and commences at 9.10pm. ” Enjoy Tune-in on 93.3 FM / liveradio.ie / Tune-in Radio / Alexa and https://kathy.torontocast.com:4365/stream With thanks to Radiowaves Ireland / DX Archive

DublinsABC

ABC 80's Radio Memories this Sunday at 18.00 BST is " North Dublin Community Radio November 9th 1986 100 FM - Starting at 9am, it’s the debut outing for Early Call with Dave & Tony." Enjoy Tune-in on 93.3 FM / liveradio.ie / Tune-in Radio / Alexa and https://kathy.torontocast.com:4365/stream With thanks to Radiowaves Ireland / DX Archive

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120401941#Comment_120401941

I wasn't going to return to this topic, but we are losing 252 and in my case 504 soon. There is a weak harmonic on the North West 2 SDR, which has 40 over 9 on 252. The other North West which is 20 over has no harmonic. But one of the Carlow SDR's is also 40 over and has no harmonic, so nothing conclusive there. Back in 2017 it was the Carlow SDR owner who noted the signal on 503 (a mistake). Mistakes too in my reply calling it a spurious signal, and second and third instead of first and second. But the link there says that every transmitter is putting out harmonics. Page 3.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/105678532#Comment_105678532

Also this on Swling.com which was him hearing the harmonic on 756 on a Tecsun portable.

Go to MW and I can reduce the level of attenuation on the Malahit and where I can hear the local LW transmitter 252 kHz on the PL-990x on 756 kHz MW which is BBC R4, Medium Wave I can not hear any bleed over from 252 kHz anywhere on the Malahit on MW.

Probably unrelated, but there was this from a SDR listener who provided a graphic, along with the message. Before the 252 announcement. BDMR is a SDR in Scotland.

For some weeks now I have observed what I think is a technical problem with the 252kHz transmitter. If you observe the signal on the BDMR waterfall display it appears the transmitter is radiating short intermittent bursts (random timing and duration) of broadband noise visible from 220-290kHz. If you listen to the audio on 252 there is no audible effect. But if you listen to (say) 270kHz the bursts are clearly audible. Unless this is from Algeria I can’t think what else it might be other than the RTE transmitter.

I accept that it probably my equipment. But that would need a technical explanation how the signal is produced by the circuitry of the receiver or an active antenna. I know that image signals come from the circuitry of simple receivers. I used to hear them on old wireless sets especially above the 49 mb.

https://www.radioremembered.org/imgfreq.htm

It will all be history soon.

dxhound2005

The Dundalk station is on as Kiss AM on 1512 kHz Saturday 08 April. Oldies and jingles, but no announcements. S9 +60 in Dundalk, and very weak on the North West 2 SDR. No trace of any harmonic on 3024.

dxhound2005

CB band and 10 Meters was quiet today, but I heard a very strong signal on 27550, North of England accent. I knew there is no propagation from GB as strong as that, so I assumed he was close by in Ireland. Turns out he is in Thailand, right on the Laos border. 10,000 kilometres away, and around 10 pm for him, 4 pm for me. This is a video made about a year ago of him talking to England.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEOOFhrKaao&t=771s

DublinsABC

ABC 80's Radio Memories this Sunday at 18.00 BST is "Capitol Radio June 20th 1982 -These are overnight test transmissions from Capitol Radio, the short-lived Dublin station based in Dundrum, broadcasting on 97.7MHz. The recording is exactly as broadcast on June 20th 1982 and the tests are voiced by Terry Holland. " Enjoy Tune-in on 93.3 FM / liveradio.ie / Tune-in Radio / Alexa and https://kathy.torontocast.com:4365/stream With thanks to Radiowaves Ireland / ‘Anoraks Ireland’ Digitisation Project.

Ger Roe

I heard an unidentified AM signal on 1206Khz yesterday (Saturday) while driving in the Sandyford area. No ident given for the short time I was listening (around 15:00hrs) and it was playing instrumental 'jazz lounge' type music. It was off air when I got a chance to tune in again at 20:30hrs. A poster on another thread has said that it is Dublin based 'Radio Daniella'.

Good to hear of some MW activity - Energy 1440 was also on.

Donuthead

Daniella was relaying an internet station called Jazz 24 at that time yesterday. It was due back on air later yesterday evening with live programming although I can't say if it did return.

Declan A Walsh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120483808#Comment_120483808

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120483963#Comment_120483963

I heard Radio Daniella last night with its jazz relay. I take it that is this a brand new entrant to the pirate scene, but I would imagine that whoever is behind it is not a new player. Am I right?

Edit:

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120483009#Comment_120483009

I forgot about this post on another thread. It looks like it has been around a bit longer than I thought. How long?

marcbrophy

Hey all, I'm looking for a website that I think was posted in this thread in the past.

I can't explain it to google to get any proper results, but maybe someone here can understand my gibberish :)

It's a site that has an interface, where you can scan through channels on am and sw frequencies and tune in to radio stations.

But this is done through aerials at people's houses that they have connected to the internet, so people can do these scans.

So basically, you connect to peoples aerials remotely and listen to what stations they can pick up locally!

I'm sure it's obvious to someone, but I've forgotten what it was called :)

JDxtra

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120491051#Comment_120491051

This - http://kiwisdr.com/public ?

Declan A Walsh

I found out a bit more about Radio Daniella on this site:

https://mb.boardhost.com/FreeRadioForum/msg/1680985414.html

It was on 1233kh last month and it looks like it can be picked up outside Ireland. It also mentioned that it had someone on associated with Short Wave. Interesting one for the serious anoraks.

Incidentally, I picked up 1206kh near Dundrum last night (an ordinary Monday night no less!) with a relay of Zee100 from New York. I did not stay with it too long for my own sanity!