The future of RTE Radio 1 LW

Who says the station even has to cater for Ireland ? many radio stations have relay transmitters in other countries at least on SW,

The Dublin FM band is quiet crowded and MW could give a station the ability to be able to transmit or not depending on the availability of spectrum. + it can be nationwide also and not restricted like FM , FM needs many transmitters or nationwide coverage.

burnsey1987

Deleted User wrote: »

Who says the station even has to cater for Ireland ? many radio stations have relay transmitters in other countries at least on SW,

The Dublin FM band is quiet crowded and MW could give a station the ability to be able to transmit or not depending on the availability of spectrum. + it can be nationwide also and not restricted like FM , FM needs many transmitters or nationwide coverage.

Certain stations don't need to be on FM in the first place. News/sport/talk and the like. BBC 5 Live for example, has been on DAB but only in the last few years, was never on FM. Newstalk? Why is it on FM taking up spectrum that could be used by local and niche stations? By the nature of its content it does not require high quality audio. Why can't they just go on MW?

The Parish Priest.

burnsey1987 wrote: »

Certain stations don't need to be on FM in the first place. News/sport/talk and the like. BBC 5 Live for example, has been on DAB but only in the last few years, was never on FM. Newstalk? Why is it on FM taking up spectrum that could be used by local and niche stations? By the nature of its content it does not require high quality audio. Why can't they just go on MW?

MW has been pretty much irrelevant in this country since the late 1980s so the likes of Communicorp wouldn't touch it with a barge pole

Former Former

burnsey1987 wrote: »

Certain stations don't need to be on FM in the first place. News/sport/talk and the like. BBC 5 Live for example, has been on DAB but only in the last few years, was never on FM. Newstalk? Why is it on FM taking up spectrum that could be used by local and niche stations? By the nature of its content it does not require high quality audio. Why can't they just go on MW?

Because no one listens to MW any more. BBC5 has been around for 30 years at this stage, it started when MW was still a viable proposition.

Leaving FM would be absolute suicide, it's simply never going to happen.

I wouldn't say never, with good signal MW works perfectly fine, I can listen to Absolute, BBC R Wales etc perfectly fine for the majority of the day. Some fading of course. A transmitter like the old RTE MW station was clear as a bell and worked perfectly fine for talk radio and it also gave RTE the ability to switch content between the two transmitters.

But that was a good point Burnsey, certain stations like talk don't need to be on FM.

I don't see why people would not tune to MW stations, once the stations are advertised people will listen if they're interested in the station to begin with.

dxhound2005

Has RTE increased the power on 252? It is very strong on the Dutch receiver, almost completely overpowering Algeria, at 1.30 pm 14 April. Maybe the Dutch have changed their antenna direction to favour Ireland?

It should be very easy for anyone in GB to hear, if they turn their radio to the correct position.

burnsey1987

Former Former wrote: »

Because no one listens to MW any more. BBC5 has been around for 30 years at this stage, it started when MW was still a viable proposition.

Leaving FM would be absolute suicide, it's simply never going to happen.

1994, when Radio 1 had enough nationwide FM coverage to justify vacating MW

It's sounding clear as a bell on this Northampton SDR.

http://kiwisdr.aprsinfo.com:8073/

Other links

http://sdr.hu/

http://websdr.org/

Can be heard in Asendorf Germany but noisy, perhaps due to the antenna setup.

http://jnlb0dg4phlqpnun.myfritz.net:8073/

A lot of the SDR's only cover the Amateur radio bands.

burnsey1987

burnsey1987 wrote: »

1994, when Radio 1 had enough nationwide FM coverage to justify vacating MW

But back then there was not as many FM stations as there is now and a lot of them have to be relatively low power as a result and we only have a few nationwide stations here which in my opinion we could do with more.

Again MW can greatly free up FM spectrum without having to build a DAB network with many more transmitters than MW requires.

dxhound2005

burnsey1987 wrote: »

1994, when Radio 1 had enough nationwide FM coverage to justify vacating MW

Radio 5 started in August 1990 on 909 and 693, and was rebranded as 5 Live in 1994. 909 and 693 were Radio 2 frequencies before Radio 5.

Former Former

It's an interesting philosophical discussion but no commercial operator is going to pour money down a black hole by trying to resurrect MW, it is completely obsolete and it is never coming back.

Sam Russell

Former Former wrote: »

It's an interesting philosophical discussion but no commercial operator is going to pour money down a black hole by trying to resurrect MW, it is completely obsolete and it is never coming back.

Let us hope there is no extreme national emergency where radio is the only means of broadcasting to the nation. A single MW transmitter would do the job - how many VHF ones would be required to reach the whole nation?

The Parish Priest.

Sam Russell wrote: »

Let us hope there is no extreme national emergency where radio is the only means of broadcasting to the nation. A single MW transmitter would do the job - how many VHF ones would be required to reach the whole nation?

Bertie Aherns Government would have been better off sending every house in the country a pocket multi band radio rather than those iodine pils :D:D

Former Former

Former Former wrote: »

It's an interesting philosophical discussion but no commercial operator is going to pour money down a black hole by trying to resurrect MW, it is completely obsolete and it is never coming back.

MW is not obsolete and works pretty well. In the US and many parts of the world MW has significant amounts of audiences as we would too if it had been supported and there was more than one station.

The Parish Priest.

The Parish Priest. wrote: »

Bertie Aherns Government would have been better off sending every house in the country a pocket multi band radio rather than those iodine pils :D:D

Indeed he would, the Government may need to do it yet if sh1t kicks off with North Korea. It's only a question of when the next man made or natural disaster happens, not if.

Everyone should have a good multiband radio with at least 9 or 10 SW bands, they're cheap and 20 foot of wire out the window attached to a tree can bring in stations on SW amazingly far away and you can pick up some interesting stations too and discussions and news you'd never here on Irish censored radio.

Former Former

Sam Russell wrote: »

Let us hope there is no extreme national emergency where radio is the only means of broadcasting to the nation. A single MW transmitter would do the job - how many VHF ones would be required to reach the whole nation?

That is a reason not to dismantle the transmitter. It's not a reason why any commercial station would want to broadcast on it.

Former Former

Former Former wrote: »

That is a reason not to dismantle the transmitter. It's not a reason why any commercial station would want to broadcast on it.

Why wouldn't they though if they wanted national coverage ? They will not get that on FM, or it would be rather difficult.

Unless there is another reason they don't want anyone using the transmitter. Or perhaps no one will get a license to broadcast on MW, could be another issue.

kazoo106

Algeria was obviously causing a problem too in the UK in the first week of Atlantic 252 back in September 1989 - page 8 of the PDF in the link of the final Anoraks UK weekly report mentions a 2kHz tone (Algeria was at that time on 252 while Atlantic were on 254)
http://www.dxarchive.com/pdf/auk/auk_issues_276-278_inc_final_september_1989.pdf

dxhound2005

kazoo106 wrote: »

Algeria was obviously causing a problem too in the UK in the first week of Atlantic 252 back in September 1989 - page 8 of the PDF in the link of the final Anoraks UK weekly report mentions a 2kHz tone (Algeria was at that time on 252 while Atlantic were on 254)
http://www.dxarchive.com/pdf/auk/auk_issues_276-278_inc_final_september_1989.pdf

Atlantic was never on 254 but there was a low power pirate from Ireland previously on 254 for a brief time. But Algeria was on 254 when Atlantic started on 252, which would account for the hetrodyne. The 1991 and previous years' World Radio TV Handbooks lists Algeria on 254, but 1992 onwards has them on 252.

Former Former

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Why wouldn't they though if they wanted national coverage ? They will not get that on FM, or it would be rather difficult.

Unless there is another reason they don't want anyone using the transmitter. Or perhaps no one will get a license to broadcast on MW, could be another issue.

Because no one listens to MW any more. They'd have national coverage and no audience. It really is that simple.

No one listens to it in Ireland because there are simply no Irish MW stations to listen to, ok apart from one low power religious station which I'm sure some people listen to otherwise it wouldn't exist.

The Parish Priest.

Does anyone remember when they did a celebrity big brother type thing for telethon on lw 252 ?

kazoo106

Atlantic were on 254 for the first good few months, changed to 252 around the same time as BBC moved from 200 to 198

The Parish Priest.

Today was going to be the day that RTE longwave 252 was going to close down had it not been for the ofcom restrictions preventing them getting on dab+ last year.

I don't understand that if Mw/Lw works and you need one transmitter why they need to invest in several DAB transmitters. If it's not broke don't fix it.

dxhound2005

One transmitter would be enough if it was very high power. But there are complaints on this thread from parts of Ireland who cannot get good reception on 252. e.g.

252 LW is an unintelligible mess of Clarkstown and Algeria in North Cork tonight. RTE TX is 220km away and the Algerian TX is 1970km away


So something does need to be fixed which would cost extra money for higher power or a new transmitter.

And when there was a MW service there were local transmitters for Radio 1 in Cork and for 2FM in Dublin (729 and 612 kHz).

Overspill reception of domestic radio like RTE into Britain happens across lots of borders, but that does not make RTE an international broadcaster. If the BBC don't even try to cover all of Britain with one transmitter on 198 or any MW frequency, I can't see how RTE would manage it from Ireland.

252 is a 500 Kw transmitter isn't it ? and we all know it's running at a fraction of the power.

[Deleted User]

[Deleted User] wrote: »

252 is a 500 Kw transmitter isn't it ? and we all know it's running at a fraction of the power.

300 but suspected to be running at 150.

burnsey1987

Did someone turn up the output in Clarkstown/Summerhill? It's a lot clearer and much louder than usual in Limerick tonight. Either that or Algeria 3 have dialed down their power as it's barely noticeable below RTE.

Also getting Romania on 153 (very weak signal, voices barely audible but music okay and minimal interference), Europe 1 on 183 (intelligible but lots of interference that I can't seem to null out), BBC4 (okay-ish signal, lots of crackling), Monte Carlo on 216 (good strong and clear signal) and Luxembourg on 234 (signal as per BBC4 but more crackling). Anyone picking up anything else?

marno21

252 is clear here in Castletroy but I can still get Algeria below it reasonably clear. It'd start to annoy you after a few minutes. Plenty of dirty electrical noise too.