DAB+ in Cork

Scotty66

Wow! How did I miss this? From Radio Today ie: 

"A new small-scale digital radio multiplex is set to launch in Cork this August for a trial period of 12 months. Under a licence from ComReg, the experiment will be operated by éirdab and have the facility to provide around 20 radio stations. éirdab’s aim is to provide a digital platform that welcomes new, interesting and innovative stations with ethnic, lifestyle, and specialist music formats using the same small scale DAB+ technology from Viamux that was implemented in Dublin last year by State broadcaster RTÉ".

Sounds like things are moving again with DAB. This will be interesting. 8RADIO is already on board…anyone know of any others?

end of the road

it's quite a surprise alright. hopefully the trial will be a success. it will be interesting to see what stations join it.

AwaitYourReply

end of the road wrote: »

it's quite a surprise alright. hopefully the trial will be a success. it will be interesting to see what stations join it.

Nova have made no secret of their wish to extend to other areas outside of Dublin in the last year or so. I would expect Nova to join the 12 month DAB+ trial in order to get a strong foot-hold in Cork. I wonder will any stations from outside the Republic want to establish a base here in such a pilot scheme. The radio scene in Cork needs more variety as there can be little difference between Cork's 96FM and Cork's RedFM at certain times in the schedule especially between 09:00am and 12Noon (Mon-Fri).

EdgeCase

My concern with DAB+ rolling out is that it is so slow that there'll end up being no awareness and no uptake at all.

Also it seems a lot of Irish cars still don't come with DAB tuners. I know my 2016 Toyota had, but I've seen high spec 2017 models that don't.

Things are rapidly moving / moved online and towards Spotify, Apple Music, Google Music, Tidal, podcasts .. you name it..

Scotty66

The Cork multiplex is now on the air. Can someone post which stations are on there? I can't hear because I'm outside the area. :-(

EdgeCase

Just “test” and “RadMaria” and yet more UCB Ireland.
Seems to be a much called Eirdab and nothing is streaming also. Just silence.

Not very promising looking in terms of choice of new stations.

Antenna

No mention of the DAB channel this MUX is on using in this thread, but its DAB channel 11A ( 216.928 MHz centre frequency ), direct channel entry on a receiver (instead of a scan) would allow quicker tuning it in, especially in marginal signal areas where the radio/aerial might have to be moved about to try get it properly.

digitalise

A bit more info about the Cork DAB mux on Radio Today.

JDxtra

Fairly poor lineup from the start, I thought other BAI licensed stations might join the platform.

Disappointing also to see that the licensing process for new operators takes five months.

EdgeCase

They need more stations.

It's good to see the platform live, but that line up isn't very compelling listening.

Why are there so many religious stations on air anyway?
Cork : Life FM, Spirit now Maria and UCB ?

I thought the BAI was supposed to encourage a diverse range of stations?

digitalise

JDxtra wrote: »

Fairly poor lineup from the start, I thought other BAI licensed stations might join the platform.

Why would they? They'd just end up putting out the same old stuff they already do on FM. Now if one of them was brave enough to put something else out that would be a different story.  Then they might start chipping away at RTE's digital audience down here.