RTE and Atlantic 252

Jason_

On September 1st it will be 25 years since Atlantic 252 launched, I wonder will RTE do anything to mark the event ? I have always found it a bit strange that RTE never take any credit for the fact that they put the UKs most successful Commercial radio station of the 90s on air.

Losty Dublin

Jason_ wrote: »

On September 1st it will be 25 years since Atlantic 252 launched, I wonder will RTE do anything to mark the event ? I have always found it a bit strange that RTE never take any credit for the fact that they put the UKs most successful Commercial radio station of the 90s on air.

Don't get me wrong. Atlantic was good but c'mon....

As to your point about RTE marking the occasion, I can't really see it getting anything more than a mention from one of Alf McCarthy, John Creedon or Ronan Collins on their shows.

Longwave Listener

When Atlantic 252 suddenly changed to a loop tape message advertising an new sports station Teamtalk, I phoned the RTE Information office to enquire what was going on, The woman who took my call said she had never heard of Atlantic 252 or Longwave and that they had no information about "foreign" stations. I have resented renewing my tv licence ever since.

L1011

Losty Dublin wrote: »

Don't get me wrong. Atlantic was good but c'mon....

For prolonged periods it was, though. Outside of London in particular. When the national commercial competition is a poor mw station with known reception issues and Classic FM....

Losty Dublin

MYOB wrote: »

For prolonged periods it was, though. Outside of London in particular. When the national commercial competition is a poor mw station with known reception issues and Classic FM....

Yes it did well and it had a crazy listenership in the north of England in the early 90's but that was in a very different market place and at a time when there was little else to compete with.

Atlantic was export radio done on the cheap and it was expected by its backers to be a rebirth of Luxembourg and hence a cash cow.It was before an ageing BBC Radio 1 began to reform, commercial stations in the UK were handcuffed in comparison to today, MW and LW were still the preferred mediums to listen to radio for most of the UK and Ireland and even music television wasn't that widespread.

Once all of this was tackled and the UK market loosened up, Atlantic was doomed and like it's big brother on 208, it never really recovered to progress.

EddieMurray

I'd like to think there was some kind of reunion to remember Atlantic 252 (cant believe its been 25 years already) on a recent trip to Trim, County Meath, i decided to pop by Summerhill Road to Mornington House to see the former home of the long wave giant and also the RTE owned Clarkestown transmitter, i was kind of dissapointed that nowhere there was something somewhere to say that it was once the home of Atlantic 252, of course it may mean nothing to a lot of people but surely for a small place like Trim, Atlantic 252 must have been a huge deal for the area in its day!

mike65

It was so big people were dreaming Starship and Bryan Adams for weeks on end in and around Trim.

I understand the signal was picked up particularly well on cheese graters and soup ladles

Declan A Walsh

Some of the better known presenters in Ireland who went through Atlantic 252 at one stage or another in their career include: Rick O'Shea, Dusty Rhodes, Enda Caldwell, Derek Flood, Al Dunne, Mark Byrne, Brian McColl (Nails Mahoney), Steve Hayes (Hollywood Haze), Charlie Wolf, Liam Coburn (Batman Gomez) and Henry Condon (Henry Owen). Early presenters included: Jeff Graham, who went on to be PD of Radio Luxembourg, and Paul Kavanagh, who went on to be Chief Executive of Riviera Radio, and Gary King, who went straight to BBC Radio 1 at the time.

It was an important training ground for broadcasting talent, for both the U.K. and Ireland.

As RTE was co-owner of Atlantic 252, it would be nice to mark it some way. Maybe RTE Gold could do something for a start.

ford fiesta

Will anyone be relaying hours of past programmes on a frequency in Dublin? Like they did with Nova end of last year.

Jason_

They never kept the same presenters for very long at Atlantic 252.

Calina

I have a reception postcard from Atlantic 252 because I used to listen to the test broadcasts and wrote in. I was a bit younger than I am now.

The first track played the day they launched was Sewing the Seeds of Love by Tears for Fears. I loved that radio station.

Losty Dublin

Jason_ wrote: »

They never kept the same presenters for very long at Atlantic 252.

Partially because they hadn't got a reputation of paying their talent that well but part of it was down to the fact that their staff were often poached by other stations.

Declan A Walsh

Calina wrote: »

I have a reception postcard from Atlantic 252 because I used to listen to the test broadcasts and wrote in. I was a bit younger than I am now.

The first track played the day they launched was Sewing the Seeds of Love by Tears for Fears. I loved that radio station.

Sowing the Seeds of Love was a song I associated with Atlantic 252 in their early days - the days when the station was actually on in the background in some shops!

The first couple of years was my favourite period of Atlantic 252. They actually had classic rock shows on Sundays... the kind of stuff you would now hear on Radio Nova. The presenters of those shows were Paul Kavanagh, Al Dunne and Mary Ellen O'Brien.

Going Forward

Jason_ wrote: »

On September 1st it will be 25 years since Atlantic 252 launched, I wonder will RTE do anything to mark the event ? I have always found it a bit strange that RTE never take any credit for the fact that they put the UKs most successful Commercial radio station of the 90s on air.

Now I feel old!!!

If memory serves, it wasn't dressed up as anything other than a pop station (with no news worth talking of and absolutely no reference to its geographical status), just in the ether, silly names Dusty Roads, Robbin Banks, etc.

Paved the way for idiot stations like Beat who dumb down everything.

Jason_

Going Forward wrote: »

Now I feel old!!!

If memory serves, it wasn't dressed up as anything other than a pop station (with no news worth talking of and absolutely no reference to its geographical status), just in the ether, silly names Dusty Roads, Robbin Banks, etc.

Paved the way for idiot stations like Beat who dumb down everything.

Charlie wolf used to mention the location of the station and speak some Irish.

AnonoBoy

Always hated Atlantic 252.

If they put them out of business why would RTE even mention them?

Silly expectation to have to be honest.

Jason_

RTE didn't "put them out of business"

lertsnim

I used to listen to it all the time. Granted there was nothing else to listen to in those days.

JoeA3

I listened in occasionally but I hated the LW audio-quality (it sounded like it was being broadcast from a phone box) and the phoney UK/mid-Atlantic accents on most of the DJ's.

AnonoBoy

Jason_ wrote: »

RTE didn't "put them out of business"

Sorry. I meant pull the plug on them rather than put them out of business. Bad choice of words.

Surely though if they were going to mark anything they would have marked the ten year anniversary of its closure in 2011? Didn't hear much about it back then so I would hardly expect anything to happen now.

Going Forward

Jason_ wrote: »

Charlie wolf used to mention the location of the station and speak some Irish.

My memory is worse than what i thought!!

Marcusm

Jason_ wrote: »

On September 1st it will be 25 years since Atlantic 252 launched, I wonder will RTE do anything to mark the event ? I have always found it a bit strange that RTE never take any credit for the fact that they put the UKs most successful Commercial radio station of the 90s on air.

They owned 50% of it for a short while then that was reduced to 20%. CLT/Radio Luxembourg were the prime movers and post restructuring (maybe 1992), RTE had little to do with the management or operation of the station. Certainly, CLT was the only one continuing to fund its losses.

Stavro Mueller

JoeA3 wrote: »

I listened in occasionally but I hated the LW audio-quality (it sounded like it was being broadcast from a phone box) and the phoney UK/mid-Atlantic accents on most of the DJ's.

Yeah it sounded dire but for a time there was feck all else to listen to. In the aftermath of the pirates closing down, I resorted to listening to Radio Luxembourg at night using my little pocket radio. I can't remember how who was on air on 2fm at the time but it obviously wasn't my cup of tea as a kid.

Uepped

The only presenters on RTE Radio i ever heard mentioning Atlantic 252 were Pat Kenny and Rick O'Shea.

Infoanon

cymbaline wrote: »

Yeah it sounded dire but for a time there was feck all else to listen to. In the aftermath of the pirates closing down, I resorted to listening to Radio Luxembourg at night using my little pocket radio. I can't remember how who was on air on 2fm at the time but it obviously wasn't my cup of tea as a kid.

Audio was good for an AM station, yes highly processed but certainly not thinny.

The station could also be heard on FM in certain parts !

Hissing Sideban

I visited the transmitter site around the time it came on air, even then they were battling with the specially made 500kW Continental transmitter. I went up to deliver some documentation to do with their Optimod 9100 audio processor. (and to have a good look!).
Later they switched to using a French made IDT processor. Also of noteworthy interest, is that for a time in the early 90's they used a system called 'Kahn Powerside' which effectively allowed them to concentrate all the audio power on to one side of the 252 kHz carrier. This was to help counter the distorted audio that results from night time fades, and it did work to a degree, unfortunately it tended to drift out of calibration over time, and the beneficial effect was gradually lost.
When I re- visited the site some years later, after RTE had just started to re use the site, there were many artefacts of Atlantic 252 stored there. Cart machines, advertising posters and even mats with the logo woven into them! Unfortunately, it was all skipped sometime after, despite attempts to buy it!
RTE scrapped the original transmitter after struggling with it for a couple of years, it was not only temperamental, but quite inneficient by more modern standards. The bought a newer digital ready transmitter, and run it at arround 300 kW daytime. Even so , the annual electricity bill is still colossal, something in the order of €100 per hour , (3/4 of a million a year) for the Continental transmitter, and would have been a major factor in the profitability or otherwise in running a high powered long wave station.

Longwave Listener

It's interesting that Atlantic 252's losses in it's final year on air was IR£600k but 2fm's has lost €13 million in the last 3 years but for some reason their is no question of putting 2fm out of its misery.

Stavro Mueller

Longwave Listener wrote: »

It's interesting that Atlantic 252's losses in it's final year on air was IR£600k but 2fm's has lost €13 million in the last 3 years but for some reason their is no question of putting 2fm out of its misery.

Even if Atlantic 252 had continued on for a few years I can't see any reason why it would've survived. It filled a void at a time when the choice of radio stations wasn't what it is now. These days anyone with a decent internet connection and good data packages can listen to internet radio, spotify, YouTube etc. A free to air satellite dish means anyone in the arse end of nowhere can listen to UK radio stations if they so wish.

That 2fm is floundering is another matter entirely :-)

Joe Duffy.

A couple of Atlantic 252 djs have had trouble with the law recently, Magic Marc was sentenced to 4 years in prison last week for domestic violence and Sandy Beech has been charged with child sex abuse