Former RTE Medium wave sites

realistic anorak

What is the current status of all the former Medium Wave sites owend by RTE ? How much money would the maintenance of masts of that size be costing them per annum ?

Athlone has had one of its towers demolished. The remaining tower is being used for microwave services. Comreg's website shows that 3 are using it. The transmitter hall, with the three MW transmitters, is still intact as far as I know.

Tullamore is still being fully maintained, according to a poster on here recently. Not sure about 729 kHz from Cork.

The old 2FM 1278 kHz sites in Dublin and Cork were dismantled.

watty

Where was the Dublin MW site?
Was it the one used in 1930s?
Up till WWII, often Dublin, Cork and Athlone had different programs and were different frequencies. With WII, the transmitters ran as a SFN with the UK adding additional ones in England, synchronised with same feed. A secret UK /Ireland deal to stop Luftwaffe using Irish TX for navigation.

Antenna

Karsini wrote: »

Tullamore is still being fully maintained, according to a poster on here recently. Not sure about 729 kHz from Cork.

The old 2FM 1278 kHz sites in Dublin and Cork were dismantled.

Cork - both 729 and 1278 were diplexed into the same mast.

The mast and building is still there but transmitters are said be scrapped.

I noticed the red aviation warning lights were off during nightime on the mast some weeks ago - that was after recent lightning in the area which I assume struck and put the lights supply out.

realistic anorak

It's crazy that a mast like Cork is still costing RTE money, that site was even surplus to requirement for years before it went off air. If clarkstown closes too is it not time for RTE to put out a demolition tender for the majority of AM masts ?

watty

That would be really really stupid
Even stupider than closing AM which is ONLY universal reception (forget Mobile which is poorest coverage and can only support about 1% of peak broadcast listeners) and needed in any emergency / disaster situation.

RTE should be legally obliged to have MW and LW transmissions. As should all Europeans. The Austrian and Swiss close down is totally short sighted cash saving.

Antenna

realistic anorak wrote: »

It's crazy that a mast like Cork is still costing RTE money, ?

there are mobile and tetra telecommunications operators also using part of the site. What income they have from this and how it compares with total cost of maintaining the site I do not know.

Antenna

For those interested a few pictures attached of the former RnaG MW site in Connemara Co. Galway - taken in 2012 ...
this transmitter was closed sometime in the early 2000s (with some improvement of FM coverage for all RTE radio channels in the area). It was at the low end of the band on 540kHz and originally listed as 2000 watts (could be heard a long way during daytime on a sensitive receiver) but was gradually reduced way down in power (and reduced modulation) leading up to final switch-off. It was the last of the three MW transmitters of RnaG in the west of Ireland to close

They replaced the original mast with a smaller one some time after switch-off, I assume they were hoping this could be made available to telecommunications operators.
The original mast was 300 feet/91.4 metres tall according to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_structures_in_Ireland

Note the transmitter building (with the large hole smashed in the wall!) had been completely cleared of absolutely everything, even light switches etc!

Antenna

A few more pictures continued for the last post, note the old bilingual warning sign (had been on original fencing surrounding mast base - note the whole mast was 'live' when transmitting) on the ground!

Antenna

A few pictures now of the Cork MW site, which transmitted RTE Radio 1 (and also RTE's local radio optout until that had closed) on 729kHz and RTE 2FM on 1278kHz (1278 went QRT for good in 2004 followed by 729 in 2008)

Note these pictures were taken in June 2011

Antenna

And continued from the last post more pictures taken in 2011 of the former Cork MW transmission site