Longwave Survey

Dom Phil Cobe

It was announced before christmas that the Department of Foreign Affairs was going to fund "a research survey to understand the community in the UK who listen to RTE on 252 longwave" Has this survey started yet ?

watty

If it's like any other Civil Service survey, they'll have decided what it's to find.

Watch the documentary on how it works. "Yes Minister".

Dom Phil Cobe

watty wrote: »

If it's like any other Civil Service survey, they'll have decided what it's to find.

Watch the documentary on how it works. "Yes Minister".

in fairness to the department, Minister Charlie Flanagan has tweeted a few times that he is against the closure of Longwave 252. The plan to close lw is all the RTE executive boards idea.

formerly scottish paddy

To be replaced by DAB+ in UK: http://listen2digital.co.uk/stations/

Elmo

watty wrote: »

If it's like any other Civil Service survey, they'll have decided what it's to find.

We saw it with the DCENR's report into DSO which basically said they did a wonderful job and it was a huge success.

in fairness to the department, Minister Charlie Flanagan has tweeted a few times that he is against the closure of Longwave 252. The plan to close lw is all the RTE executive boards idea.

Yes, Minister. Perhaps a photo shot at RTÉ in the meantime minster something for the Diaspora perhaps.

Dom Phil Cobe

RTE no longer advertise the waveband splits for sports coverage. This week cheltenham is being carried on lw 252 from 1pm yet this is not published by rte anywhere.

Sam Russell

Dom Phil Cobe wrote: »

RTE no longer advertise the waveband splits for sports coverage. This week cheltenham is being carried on lw 252 from 1pm yet this is not published by rte anywhere.

Actually, they did say it was carried on 'RTE 1 Digital' which I think used to be 'RTE 1 Digital and longwave'.

But then again, in recent times they are mentioning that new service 'RTE News Now' which has been absent from any mention since its launch so many years ago.

An Ciarraioch

Sam Russell wrote: »

Actually, they did say it was carried on 'RTE 1 Digital' which I think used to be 'RTE 1 Digital and longwave'.

But then again, in recent times they are mentioning that new service 'RTE News Now' which has been absent from any mention since its launch so many years ago.

Also, the amount of publicity for their digital radio stations, compared with the BBC equivalents, is negligible.

Morning Ireland did mention on several occasions that Cheltenham was being carried on 252.

munchkin_utd

formerly scottish paddy wrote: »

To be replaced by DAB+ in UK: http://listen2digital.co.uk/stations/

they have only applied, and I see no word they have been offered the multiplex

The offcom site says no decision till the coming summer :
http://media.ofcom.org.uk/news/2015/dab-mux-apps/

Nokia 2630

very oddly Fr Brian D'Arcy actually said that in five years time all the 252 longwave listeners will be dead so all RTE have to do is leave the closure until 2020.

Elmo

Nokia 2630 wrote: »

very oddly Fr Brian D'Arcy actually said that in five years time all the 252 longwave listeners will be dead so all RTE have to do is leave the closure until 2020.

Majority will be, he's probably right.

Nokia 2630

formerly scottish paddy wrote: »

To be replaced by DAB+ in UK

The licence has just been awarded to the other crowd so no RTE on uk dab.

Antenna

Dom Phil Cobe wrote: »

It was announced before christmas that the Department of Foreign Affairs was going to fund "a research survey to understand the community in the UK who listen to RTE on 252 longwave" Has this survey started yet ?

Does the survey include Northern Ireland ? - Where there are significant areas of poor/no reception of FM RTE Radio 1

Nokia 2630

Antenna wrote: »

Does the survey include Northern Ireland ? - Where there are significant areas of poor/no reception of FM RTE Radio 1

Don't think so, 99.9% of the bad press concentrated on elderly irish in Britain.

munchkin_utd

Nokia 2630 wrote: »

very oddly Fr Brian D'Arcy actually said that in five years time all the 252 longwave listeners will be dead so all RTE have to do is leave the closure until 2020.

not far off the truth and was half thinking it myself, in that RTE are closing it now just maybe a little prematurely.

BTW, I see the RTE orchestras gets €14,557,000 of a grant for somthing which is not directly related to their core function of broadcasting, which puts into perspective the decision to cut a broadcasting cost of a mere (relatively speaking) €250k per year to a demographic which is "temporary" seeing as indeed their numbers will dwindle to an insignificant number over the coming years.

Nokia 2630

I am pretty sceptical at the idea that people who moved to England 50-60 years ago have been non stop listening to RTE radio ever since.

An Ciarraioch

Nokia 2630 wrote: »

I am pretty sceptical at the idea that people who moved to England 50-60 years ago have been non stop listening to RTE radio ever since.

My own uncle has been living in Birmingham since '57, and still tunes in every morning - mind you, he still calls it "Raidió Éireann"!

Elmo

An Ciarraioch wrote: »

My own uncle has been living in Birmingham since '57, and still tunes in every morning - mind you, he still calls it "Raidió Éireann"!

Older people tend to stick to brands lol lots still call it Teilifís Éireann, and many could never get their head around Network 2.

munchkin_utd

munchkin_utd wrote: »

they have only applied, and I see no word they have been offered the multiplex

The offcom site says no decision till the coming summer :
http://media.ofcom.org.uk/news/2015/dab-mux-apps/

the decision has come surprisingly quickly, and RTE will not be coming to DAB in the UK after all (unless they sneak in on free space on the winning bid, which had proposed less channels than the RTE bid)

DAB stations cannot be accessed through traditional radios. Under the RTE linked proposals, the Listen2Digital consortium would have received permission to operate the UK's second national commercial DAB multiplex.

RTE Radio 1 would have been one of the stations available on the frequency, which would in turn be available to over 80pc of the British population.

However, a rival bid submitted by the Sound Digital consortium won the licence, granted by communications regulator Ofcom. UTV Media is part of the Sound Digital group and will now launch four new radio stations on the service in 2016.
<snip>
RTE is now "exploring all our options in the UK." he said.

In December RTE said it will continue to broadcast into the UK via longwave until 2017.

http://www.independent.ie/business/media/rte-loses-out-to-utv-in-uk-digital-radio-bid-31100387.html

Sam Russell

munchkin_utd wrote: »

the decision has come surprisingly quickly, and RTE will not be coming to DAB in the UK after all (unless they sneak in on free space on the winning bid, which had proposed less channels than the RTE bid)



http://www.independent.ie/business/media/rte-loses-out-to-utv-in-uk-digital-radio-bid-31100387.html

General Election?

munchkin_utd

from http://www.sounddigital.co.uk/

Sound Digital’s line-up of 15 services leaves capacity for additional content providers to join the network prior to launch. Sound Digital is in discussions with a number of parties interested in accessing this capacity and intends to issue a further advertisement for expressions of interest shortly.

so far from ruled out that RTE might come yet on DAB.

watty

DAB even in UK is much poorer usability and coverage than FM. It's a tech inflicted on people to support ego of Ofcom and give National stations an unfair advantage over local and regional stations.

No form of Digital radio has decent usability, even if enough fill in relays were added.

munchkin_utd

watty wrote: »

DAB even in UK is much poorer usability and coverage than FM. It's a tech inflicted on people to support ego of Ofcom and give National stations an unfair advantage over local and regional stations.

No form of Digital radio has decent usability, even if enough fill in relays were added.

still, the majority of irish people in the UK would live in built up areas, and the old and infirmed wouldnt be on the road all that much, so DAB would be spot on for them.

watty

munchkin_utd wrote: »

still, the majority of irish people in the UK would live in built up areas, and the old and infirmed wouldnt be on the road all that much, so DAB would be spot on for them.

How?

Poor extra channels
Terrible usability
Horrific battery life
Missing most FM stations (or very awkward to tune). Most DAB sets with FM have only awkward presets and too few for FM.
Missing all AM stations. Almost no DAB set has LW or MW.
Have to buy a new radio, any DAB set below £40 appears to be junk and most of the dearer ones not much good.

Already majority DAB sets in UK are used on VHF/FM ALL of the time.

x4 price for lower quality.

Even some built up areas will have patchy indoor coverage. It's not 1955, we can't expect people to fit outdoor aerials for DAB (Band III).

The extra compression of DAB and compression artefacts of MP2 or AAC (DAB+) at used bit rates dramatically reduce intelligibility for harder of hearing!

DAB and Digital Radio offers no advantage over a MW/LW/VHF-FM set.

Most are rubbish audio quality compared to older AM/FM radio or any radio in a HiFi.

L1011

Nokia 2630 wrote: »

The licence has just been awarded to the other crowd so no RTE on uk dab.

I would expect some of their proposed stations to fail to appear so don't rule RTE out

watty

L1011 wrote: »

I would expect some of their proposed stations to fail to appear so don't rule RTE out

It's a pointless system, with significantly poorer coverage and quality than FM and even UK FM is poorer coverage than Five Live MW and R4LW!

RTE would be wasting money paying for National DAB in UK. Could cost as much as AM. They could EVEN take out UK 279KHz licence (unused) and have lower power TX inside UK.

As predicted, any DAB+ will be slightly LOWER quality than DAB, to cheaply fit in extra "content".

The UK should have extended FM band instead (since 1985!), 68MHz to 88MHz and 176MHz to 196MHz would have tripled FM capacity and a £5 adapter running for months on a pair of AA cells would add it to existing FM radios.

This is what all Europe should be doing. Digital TV is Good, Digital radio of any kind other than on Digital TV is pointless. Meanwhile due to greed governments are crippling Digital TV. None of the TV spectrum should have been sold. There will not be enough TV spectrum for any advances (real 3D or 4K etc) or more channels or Local TV.

John Joe Jones

Nokia 2630 wrote: »

very oddly Fr Brian D'Arcy actually said that in five years time all the 252 longwave listeners will be dead so all RTE have to do is leave the closure until 2020.

https://fbcdn-photos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/v/t1.0-0/1395127_654730464644550_5539757013682902438_n.jpg?efg=eyJpIjoiYiJ9&oh=ca61fc018614a8072afb2a80603e92e7&oe=56016374&__gda__=1442668213_12343e6cc36165b7a018f25cc9c91059

John Joe Jones

Details announced today - http://www.independent.ie/breaking-news/irish-news/concerns-over-rte-longwave-future-31355854.html

John Joe Jones

http://t.co/jwXFyWv2RK