The Future of Longwave 252kHz (RTE Radio 1)

end of the road

internet radio is not at the moment, a viable replacement for terrestrial radio including lw. no amount of ranting, insulting, bully boy posting, or similar will change the reality.

Fuzzy Clam

end of the road wrote:

internet radio is not at the moment, a viable replacement for terrestrial radio including lw. no amount of ranting, insulting, bully boy posting, or similar will change the reality.

We're not talking about most people here. We're taking about a hand full of people in Britain and a few in Ireland many who have access to the internet.

Fuzzy Clam

Logue no2 wrote:

Whoever this poster was, they are not part of the save RTÉ LW campaign. It's clearly a deliberate hoax by someone who is motivated enough to want to undermine the campaign. I would love to know what IP address this was posted from.

Its taken you 220 posts to figure this out?
Donald Trump has nothing on you

end of the road

Fuzzy Clam wrote: »

We're not talking about most people here. We're taking about a hand full of people in Britain and a few in Ireland many who have access to the internet.

yes, and the reality is internet isn't going to replace terrestrial radio any time soon.

Logue no2

end of the road wrote: »

yes, and the reality is internet isn't going to replace terrestrial radio any time soon.

That's very true. And it's not just LW supporters saying that.

L1011 wrote: »

Until there is an ability to deliver audio streams to every car on a crawling M50 (or equivalent) without taking down mobile networks, FM will still need to exist. High enough quality assuming the station have a sensible processing setup for relatively cheap transmission hardware both in capital and running costs.

Graham

end of the road wrote: »

yes, and the reality is internet isn't going to replace terrestrial radio any time soon.

Logue no2 wrote: »

That's very true. And it's not just LW supporters saying that.

Did RTÉ suggest they were replacing all terrestrial radio? I understood it was only LW that was going.

Banjoxed

Logue no2 wrote: »

That's very true. And it's not just LW supporters saying that.

Broadcast technology is difficult to monetise so the low hanging fruit of LW252 for the Irish in Britain clearly has to go according to that mindset.

former total

Why are people treating FM and LW as a single "terrestrial radio" entity? They are vastly different things.

No-one is arguing for the abolition of terrestrial radio. Just LW.

It's just deliberate muddying of the waters.

Fuzzy Clam

Correct. FM will be around for a long time.


I've just realised that EOTR has posted something that's accurate for the first time ever.

end of the road

Fuzzy Clam wrote: »

Correct. FM will be around for a long time.


I've just realised that EOTR has posted something that's accurate for the first time ever.

first time? everything i have posted in this thread has been accurate. and best of all, i haven't needed to resort to attacking posters, aggression, bullying, and other similar nonsense unlike your good self.

Nody

Mod:
Ok people; this thread is generating numerous claims/reported posts at an almost hourly rate (from both sides of the argument) currently. We've taken a light approach on modding in this thread to let people argue it as there's quite a bit of passion on the topic rather than lock it but the number of personal attacks and passive aggressive tone really need to be tuned down a few notches or this thread will end up locked. Hence going forward please focus on the topic rather than the poster(s) of said topic or we'll have to reconsider the overall stance on this thread.

Fuzzy Clam

The difference between 500 and 300 KW is only about 2 dB. Hardly noticeable.
The cost saving with the newer transmitter is quite significant.
But running the new tx at only 150 KW, and less at night, is a bit ridiculous given that it has to battle with Algeria.
But this is RTE. They've never known how to do AM right.
Radio 2 in Dublin had an Optimod but never sounded as good as the pirates who had the same Optimod.
Radio 2 from Athlone was probably no more than 60% modulation. Very basic processing.

hullaballoo

Moderator:

Can we please keep things civil? I am not going to start thread banning people now but Fuzzy Clam and end of the road, if you could disengage each other, that would be appreciated. Fair to say you've both made your points.

Preferably, we could stick to the topic proposed by the OP rather than getting up each others' noses.

05eaftqbrs9jlh

lertsnim wrote:

People can learn, even old people. It is insulting to them when people suggest otherwise.

Well my own grandmother isn't particularly technologically adept. I'm obviously not saying that ALL elderly people are adverse to listening to podcasts. I even suggested that many people my age have no interest in coming to grips with that either.

Deleted User wrote:

Don't underestimate your grandmother! I know 80 year olds and older who are well able to Facetime, download movies, read newspapers, etc. Where there's a will, there's a way.

I know several older people who can too, but I know many self-confessed "technophobes" of all ages too.

I think the point is that all sorts of people access radio this way. Maybe a survey would help to determine the usefulness of providing it. A lot more money is misspent in far worse ways than this.

StreetLight

RTÉ is now being reported to have ditched plans to axe the Long Wave service:

http://www.independent.ie/business/media/rte-ditches-plans-to-axe-longwave-252-radio-service-35096216.html

Greenman

StreetLight wrote: »

RTÉ is now being reported to have ditched plans to axe the Long Wave service:

http://www.independent.ie/business/media/rte-ditches-plans-to-axe-longwave-252-radio-service-35096216.html

Axed I wouldn't say so but on review ala long finger.


All they have to do is bring it up to 261.


Can the audio be boosted? say sounding like Manx.

savelongwave

Were LW252 to move up to 261kHz they would not have to share as previously with a powerful station across a sea path. Its likely they could broadcast at the full power of 300kW 24/7. This of course would have to be cleared with the International Telecommunications Union, Germany (261) inactive and the stations allocated adjacent channels ie R. Algiers and Slovakia. For R. Algiers the move up to 261 would solve interference from LW252 while I feel Slovakia is on reduced power and so distant that RTE on 261 would not be a problem.

Hyland x

Why was there no campaign to save 2fms AM network in 2004? Was nobody in NI and GB upset about being no longer able to hear the broadcasting giants Tubridy, G Ryan, Gogan, O.Callaghan and Fanning ?

thesandeman

Hyland x wrote: »

Why was there no campaign to save 2fms AM network in 2004? Was nobody in NI and GB upset about being no longer able to hear the broadcasting giants Tubridy, G Ryan, Gogan, O.Callaghan and Fanning ?

Maybe they assumed Ray would be there as well.

Antenna

Saw a letter in the Sunday Independent yesterday from a RTE LW listener in England, so the issue is still getting publicity.

Hyland x wrote: »

Why was there no campaign to save 2fms AM network in 2004? Was nobody in NI and GB upset about being no longer able to hear the broadcasting giants Tubridy, G Ryan, Gogan, O.Callaghan and Fanning ?

Long distance listeners would already have mostly been weaned off 612/1278. The power was reduced (well before switch-off) such that it became unusable for many long distance listeners. (Its easy to put the blame on increasing noise levels, more interference etc for deteriorating reception when actually its transmitter power being reduced!) Modulation was very low at times as well (I'd expect deliberate rather than accidental). I recall someone who lived there saying that at one time 612 was a relatively good listenable signal into London at night time - this certainly wasn't the case towards the end of it.

Stasi 2.0

Listeners would have had less reason to be upset at the loss of a (mostly) music based service when similar/better services were in most cases available locally on FM

Speech based services like RTE Radio 1 (and BBC Radio 4) are a different story.

Fuzzy Clam

Antenna wrote:

Long distance listeners would already have mostly been weaned off 612/1278. The power was reduced (well before switch-off) such that it became unusable for many long distance listeners. (Its easy to put the blame on increasing noise levels, more interference etc for deteriorating reception when actually its transmitter power being reduced!) Modulation was very low at times as well (I'd expect deliberate rather than accidental). I recall someone who lived there saying that at one time 612 was a relatively good listenable signal into London at night time - this certainly wasn't the case towards the end of it.

Not sure about 1278 but I reckon 612 was on half power in its last year. Very few would have being listening to it anyway.
Not that many listened to 2FM anyway but the last time I heard anybody listening to 612 was on a building site in Athlone and only because the radios FM aerial had broken off.

Fuzzy Clam

Fuzzy Clam wrote: »

Not sure about 1278 but I reckon 612 was on half power in its last year.

Yep, there's an old website doing the rounds which contains photos of the insides of the Athlone building from a visit in November 2003. They mentioned that one half of the Continental TX was offline at the time.

Antenna

An American visitor interested in DX reporting he was surprised to hear Algeria in the background of RTE on 252 at night on a visit to somewhere in Co. Tipp that was not very far from the transmitter:

go to 'IRELAND' on this page:
http://www.w4uvh.net/dxld1646.txt

Doesn't say where in Co. Tipperary the listener was though (its a county with a long distance north to south)

If he took a trip down to southern areas of Co. Cork it is a case of (at night-time) RTE usually being heard in the background of Algeria rather than vice-versa!

Has RTE ever replied to the newspaper letters etc calling for a move of its LW to the clear 261 kHz for the remainder of its life?

I'm in Swords and even I can hear Algeria at night!

Pokemon Battle

It only has 150 days left ffs

The Parish Priest.

Looks like a few turned up at the protest https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C6ynijWWwAQoYd8.jpg:small

The Parish Priest.

One thing that annoyed me recently was Jim Jennings, head of RTE Radio used an example of the currys pc world website not having any longwave radios as a reason to close 252:rolleyes:

dxhound2005

He was wrong there. I was able to find three cheap FM MW LW radios on the site straight away and there are probably more.

turbocab

Algeria coming in loud and clear now on 252khz longwave,in Dublin, rte staying on this channel is a total waste of time