Are Spirit Radio in serious breach of their licence ?

Ballycommon Mast

Their AM 549 transmitter has been off air for months, considering that they are officially meant to be an AM station with FM relays, shouldn't the non existence of AM be a serious breach of their BAI contract ?

siezetheday

Good point. But the lord moves in mysterious ways and seems to hold sway with the god-fearing commission, weren't they quick to banjax the upper CB band to accommodate church broadcasts without any consultation?

Losty Dublin

Spirit weren't meant to have a large scale FM transmission network. Initially they got one on the proviso that they use it until they get onto AM. https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/spirit-radio-secures-christian-licence-26265883.html FM was meant to add coverage, but in effect it's been the de facto network from day one.

They were supposed to have used 100KW from sites in Athlone, Waterford and Donegal as well but as of now only a maximum of 25kw from Carrickroe ever made it on air, weeks after their launch. I say made it on air with a pinch of salt given it's penchant for really long holiday and career breaks.

Given the cost of running an AM and their hand to mouth existence I can't say Spirt are in a rush to return it to air. However it was a integral part of the broadcast licence and they are clearly taking the piss here in not even bothering....

Dipole Keith

The BAI very lacks, I’ve stopped listening to Spirit radio there’s to much begging for money on it, I find myself tuning into Radio Maria & UCB Ireland.

Insidethetent

From the spirit radio website today:

On FM & Medium Wave

Spirit Radio launched in 2011. We are now broadcasting on FM in all the main cities and most of the major towns across Ireland.

Our 549 Medium Wave signal reaches Northern Ireland and parts of England and Scotland.

FM seems to be the main platform for Republic of Ireland while MW serves another jurisdiction. Is this a correct interpretation?

Losty Dublin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118422489#Comment_118422489

If it is you'd expect that the OFCOM licence holders in Northern Ireland wouldn't be happiest, would you?

Ballycommon Mast

In theory, Would it be possible for Spirit to share the LW 252 mast with RTE by diplexing from it on a MW frequently ?

Dipole Keith

In all honesty does anyone care that Spirit are not on AM apart from a few anoraks on here. I wouldn’t even say the station got a phone call to say it’s off.

California Dreamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058225979/are-spirit-radio-in-serious-breach-of-their-licence

You should take on this one man crusade to have their license revoked.

Declan A Walsh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118425023#Comment_118425023

They might just do that, but that will be after they close their user account and start up with yet another one.😗

California Dreamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118425988#Comment_118425988

I was trying to figure out who was out latest member who has ONLY discovered the radio forum on boards and joined up with so much knowledge and opinion........

Insidethetent

Kinda lame to attack the OP for asking a question, remember there was a competitive process for this licence with winner and loser(s). As usual, broadcast applicants say anything needed to secure a licence and do whatever the hell they want afterwards. Shame on the IRTC/BAI/BCI/Whatever for allowing yet another fiasco.

0% enforcement, 0% public consultation, 100% gullibility, 100% regulatory capture.

Losty Dublin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118434920#Comment_118434920

There was but one station who had a licence entirely revoked for breaches of their licence; Ger Madden's Radio Limerick back in and around 1999. IFIRR he had an AM rig on at one stage and wanted to broadcast legally with it, not that a licence ever stopped him from not doing anything 🤓

There have been been other cases whereby stations or their franchise areas morphed from their initial incarnations; this is a topic that perhaps warrants a thread of its own.

Suffice to say, there doesn't seem to be the same level of enforcement here that you'd see in the UK with OFCOM. Again, it may well be a topic worthy of it's own thread.

Radio558

Spirit radio 549am is back on air.it has been off air since October

Declan A Walsh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118490876#Comment_118490876

I'm just curious about how many people would have listened normally to Spirit on AM prior to the problems with the transmitter. Or to put in another way.....how many listeners noticed it was out of action? Apart from those involved with the station of course!

Antenna

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118422603#Comment_118422603

Are Downtown etc really going to be bothered about Spirit Radio availability on AM in northern Ireland?

The listenership would be a very small fraction of the listenership of RTE radio stations and Today FM across the border in Northern Ireland?

Antenna

Any news about the current status of Spirit's AM transmission (549kHz) which has been off-air for over a month??

In theory, the AM is their primary transmission, with the city/large town FM transmitters referred to as 'supplemental' transmitters, however in practice the other way round.

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119290671#Comment_119290671

It's possible that nobody cares. Fewer and fewer are listening to AM, also AM transmissions are costly, so I am guessing Spirit radio has a financial problem as well.

Spirit's AM transmitter has always been on and off air, but this time they seem to be off air for a very long time, - possibly for good?

Declan A Walsh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119292157#Comment_119292157

Surely that is an issue then as per the thread title. Imagine (I know it would not happen but...) that a station was licensed for both FM and AM and that it's FM transmitters were non-functioning. I reckon there might be an issue made of that, or maybe I am wrong there!

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119292854#Comment_119292854

I am no expert on this, but I'd suggest the station isn't licensed for both FM and AM but rather for a certain geography in first instance.

Whether it's a breach of licensing laws if they are only making use of FM and not AM or not covering a certain area on AM is also beyond my understanding. I am only guessing that since AM covers a large portion of Northern Ireland, it's out of the jurisdiction of the Republic of Ireland? - at least what coverage area is concerned? The transmitter is in the republic, though.

Ger Roe

From the BAI contract announcement on June 25th 2012:

"The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (“BAI”) has signed a sound broadcasting contract with Spirit Radio Limited (trading as Spirit Radio) for the provision of a quasi-national Christian and religious radio service on the AM band with low-power FM transmitter stations."

Details here:

https://www.bai.ie/en/bai-signs-contract-with-spirit-radio/

Insidethetent

Their jingles don't mention AM, just 'On FM and Online'.

kazoo106

There was an ESB powercut in Carrickroe on 13/06 at lunchtime - the AM TX was on before the power cut. It did not come back on when the power was restored at 16:55.

Perhaps a fault - perhaps no one noticed

Antenna

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119325601#Comment_119325601

Is the above date (13th June) correct? It had been off the air for several days before that (early in June) - reported in https://mediumwave.info/news/ and elsewhere.

Unless it briefly had come back on but had went off again on the above date ?

BTW

Newspaper report from July 2006 where this planned new service being advertised by the then BCI for applicants for a primarily quasi-national AM service with "supplemental" low-power FM transmitters:

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/churches-moving-to-launch-new-radio-station-26376612.html

Mickey Mike

As of today 04/09/22 the AM 549TX is off, I usually get a faint enough signal here in Kerry but now totally gone. Wouldn't it be better if they set themselves up on Saorview DTT radio channels, just like Radio Maria and UCB Ireland. Long wave and Medium wave are long gone. Spirit recommends that we use the online service.

kazoo106

549 Back on and signal seems as before

Declan A Walsh

Technically, they are no longer "in serious breach of their licence" so.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119570156#Comment_119570156

I've not listened to UCB in years. Thought it was long gone

leath_dub

Wrong thread

Declan A Walsh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119583645#Comment_119583645

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119583915#Comment_119583915

UCB is available on the Virgin Media digital tv platform, believe it or not - channel 918. I'm surprised that Spirit Radio is not available on that platform. All the other nationwide stations are.

Anyway: I wonder how many people would listen to Spirit Radio on AM?

Tow

It is expensive to run a powerful AM TX these days. Is their output power published/known?

Losty Dublin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119584363#Comment_119584363

Very very expensive.

A unit of electricity is used for every kilowatt of signal of transmission that you put out each hour. However, that is before you allow for inefficiency in generation of your signal. At best AM has 33% efficiency so your rig needs 3 units a kilowatt an hour.

In Spirits case their right has a 25kw output and goes out 24/7/365, not including any other electronics on site; receivers, processors, monitoring etc. You can do the sums from here.

Tow

A 'modern' solid-state AM TX can be around 80% efficient. Harris have a range which are effectively lots of small transistor amplifiers which are switched on and off to modulate the signal.

Still, it would be like burning 5 euro notes to heat a house. I can't find up-to-date commercial electricity rates on line. But at 30c a KWh you would be looking at €82k just to power a 25KW TX for a year.

Master Anorak

AFAIK this licence was renewed within the past 18 months so it's a wonder why the AM part of it wasn't dropped considering that spirit have only ever done the most token effort at AM

Tow

It appears their license is for a national AM radio station, which is allowed to have low powered FM transmitters.

Is 25KW even powerful enough to cover the country properly? It would make more sense to transmit on Freedab, except BAI would not be happy.

dxhound2005

This question was posted on the Ydun site 07 September.

549 khz Ireland – are they using the harris dx 25 or tram 50kw.

Does any person know?"

I wouldnd't be surprised if they are using 50. Good signals on all the Irish Kiwi SDR's and many in Scotland and England.

Tow

Years ago you would get official lists of public radio/tv TX transmitters. Now in the days of the internet that appears to have gone, or maybe disappeared into the noise.

TheBMG

Are you looking for a frequency list? If so frequencyfinder.org.uk is very handy and quite up to date

tinytobe

Regarding Spirit Radio, just wondering, why do they have two frequencies in Dublin, both from the same transmitter site? ( Three Rock )

One is 89.9 which appears to be the stronger one, and 92.1 which seems the weaker one?

Maybe somebody can enlighten me?

Antenna

The 92.1 you are receiving is Drogheda, see below, this is a list of Spirit radio FM frequencies (20 frequencies) , in order of frequency. Only two sites share the same frequency (in the case of 90.1) :

87.6 Mullingar 

87.7 Letterkenny 

88.0 Tralee 

89.8 Limerick

89.9 Dublin 

90.1 Waterford AND Bray/Greystones  

90.3 Ennis 

90.4 Dundalk 

90.5 Carlow 

90.6 Athlone 

90.9 Cork 

91.2 Killarney 

91.7 Galway 

92.1 Drogheda 

92.2 Newbridge/Naas 

92.4 Navan 

93.1 Kilkenny 

93.4 Sligo 

94.5 Wexford 

95.8 MHz Clonmel

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119610831#Comment_119610831

Then I was mistaken. I thought that the 92.1 would be from Three Rock as well. By the way, the 89.9 is clear and strong in Drogheda.

Glaceon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119610856#Comment_119610856

Indoor reception of the Dublin stations can be a bit awkward in Drogheda and you lose them almost entirely even in a car around the Bullring and St Mary's Bridge. LMFM (obviously), Today FM, Spirit and Newstalk are the easiest to get.

Mickey Mike

88.0 Tralee is discontinued, I've no idea why.

Mickey Mike

What's more, its a crap signal, on both FM and the appalling AM, always cutting in and out as you drive around, no listening pleasure at all. A launch on Saorview will be a pleasure.

Master Anorak

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613755#Comment_119613755

Probably just on a career break like 549 frequently is

thesandeman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119614339#Comment_119614339

I hope it's not a 50 inch TV you have in the car 😲

I only tune into the station every now & then when I'm in the car but I was listening today & noticed the track skipping a lot anytime they play a song. Has anyone else noticed this?

Antenna

Their 549kHz AM currently off the air again ... maybe just a short outage? we will see...

Mickey Mike

That TX is only a joke, even driving on the M6 its hard to make out what's been broadcast. Its only servicing Co, Monahan and boarder regions.

Tow

They probably got the electric bill.

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119744170#Comment_119744170

Just wondering are they off air on 549 kHz permanently? Is it the high cost of electricity to maintain the AM transmitter?