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Child Item

The future of RTE Radio 1 LW

The Cush

Announced this morning - http://www.rte.ie/about/en/press-office/press-releases/2014/0923/645685-rte-radio-1-moves-from-longwave-transmission/

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/static/2014/0821/638554-stay-tuned/
http://static.rasset.ie/documents/radio1/rte-radio-1-staytuned.pdf

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dxhound2005

Karsini wrote: »

I wonder is the power output any different now? Must wait and see.

No difference, still 40 dB over S9.

Oscarziggy

Almost wiped out by Algeria tonight at 10:30pm .
Regards

[Deleted User]

I can hear 252 clearly in carlow, 20 Db over but can hear Algeria faintly in the background.

Go to the Netherlands Web Sdr and it's hardly audible in the background.

http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/

252 can hardly be heard on this South West U.K SDR either,wtf RTE, what's the point eah ? really trying to make the point that no one wants LW 252 ? we'll you're going about making sure people are convinced you ass holes !

http://southwest.ddns.net:8073/

Also bear in mind that these SDR receivers usually will have much better antennas than the average radio listener. Now imaging the poor sods listening in high RFI locations in built up areas with indoor antennas ? they don't stand a chance and most people don't understand that the best place for a Radio Antenna is outside up high like the TV antenna !

kazoo106

Complete waste of electricity
Move it back to MW

Listen at spirit on 549 from Monaghan - an S9+ on the SWUK SDR - and thats only running about 15kW

http://southwest.ddns.net:8073/

[Deleted User]

They think it will save money in the long term by making people so annoyed with it that they will automatically find alternative means of listening to RTE Radio 1 and people won't notice when they eventually flip the switch.

marno21

kazoo106 wrote: »

Complete waste of electricity
Move it back to MW

Listen at spirit on 549 from Monaghan - an S9+ on the SWUK SDR - and thats only running about 15kW

http://southwest.ddns.net:8073/

The only reason its clear is 549 is a relatively clear frequency these days - when Deustchlandfunk was on 549 it was obliterated by it.

EDIT: It's being blown out of it at the minute by Slovenia/Algeria(!!)

kazoo106

I'm not suggesting that 549 is clear - but 567 is these days (with the exception of some adjacent channel splatter in London)

[Deleted User]

They didn't do anything to raise the power , it's still 20 db over here in Carlow.

I bet they'll keep announcing "maintenance" then whinge that it's costing too much to maintain and all they'll really do is turn it off for the so called maintenance that probably isn't happening.

Pity no one went to the 252 site to see if they really did any maintenance on the mast.

Oscarziggy

Wonder why it took so long to do ?

A couple of steel girders shoved through the bottom of the mast, some car trolley jacks on the ends of the girders, slacken off some of the guy wires and jack it up !
Pull out the plate , slide in the new one ,drop it back down , tighten the guy wires --- job done !!

Only joking of course ---- easier to use a helicopter at the top....
Regards

[Deleted User]

My guess is they did nothing, why would they if they plan to kill 252 in the shortest time possible and most likely dismantle it , there'd be no reason to keep the mast or transmitter, the Chinese are buying a lot of the old European transmitters and antennas and in some cases take them over at their location, rent them.

RTE should look to at least rent 567 and 252 and make some money. The MW band is still crowded today, and there are quiet a few SW transmitters.

Speaking of SW where used the SW transmitter be ?

burnsey1987

Deleted User wrote: »

My guess is they did nothing, why would they if they plan to kill 252 in the shortest time possible and most likely dismantle it , there'd be no reason to keep the mast or transmitter, the Chinese are buying a lot of the old European transmitters and antennas and in some cases take them over at their location, rent them.

RTE should look to at least rent 567 and 252 and make some money. The MW band is still crowded today, and there are quiet a few SW transmitters.

Speaking of SW where used the SW transmitter be ?

Not sure, but according to short-wave.info, RTE 1 is broadcast from 7.30 to 8 pm Monday to Friday at 125 kW from a transmitter site in Madagascar

[Deleted User]

Where do you see this info ? I've never seen RTE on Short-wave info.

burnsey1987

Deleted User wrote: »

Where do you see this info ? I've never seen RTE on Short-wave info.

http://short-wave.info/index.php?station=RTE%20Radio%201

[Deleted User]

How did you find it though it's not in their main list ?

That's cool, pity only 30 mins, must admit that I never heard RTE on the 49 Meter band but I'll make the point to listen out for it. Right conditions it might be audible.

Cheers !

burnsey1987

Deleted User wrote: »

How did you find it though it's not in their main list ?

That's cool, pity only 30 mins, must admit that I never heard RTE on the 49 Meter band but I'll make the point to listen out for it. Right conditions it might be audible.

Cheers !

I did a search for "any station" in English and it showed up. Had to do a double-take when I saw it...

[Deleted User]

SW has much greater potential for RTE. They could easily lease time on another network transmitter.

The 49 Meter band is ideal in the evening or 16,19 and 22 meters during the day. Multiband radios can be got cheap especially 2nd hand.

Chinese stations blast through 24x7 and sometimes 30 Db over. 500 Kw sure but even if RTE leased time on a U.K SW transmitter it could save them money.

[Deleted User]

19:30 - 20:00 UTC so that's 20:30 - 21:00, let's see if anyone can hear it.

burnsey1987

Deleted User wrote: »

SW has much greater potential for RTE. They could easily lease time on another network transmitter.

The 49 Meter band is ideal in the evening or 16,19 and 22 meters during the day. Multiband radios can be got cheap especially 2nd hand.

Chinese stations blast through 24x7 and sometimes 30 Db over. 500 Kw sure but even if RTE leased time on a U.K SW transmitter it could save them money.

Even if RTE leased capacity on the Radio France or ORF SW transmitters, with the right level of power they could have a decent signal throughout most of Europe

kazoo106

They could lease the audio portion of 162

[Deleted User]

burnsey1987 wrote: »

Even if RTE leased capacity on the Radio France or ORF SW transmitters, with the right level of power they could have a decent signal throughout most of Europe

But they wouldn't need to if MW has that good penetration at the full 500 Kw.

If leasing is the cheaper option then that's the way they should go and then lease their own transmitters, better to get something than to demolish them just so they don't have to be operated again.

I guess the old valve 567 site is too old and they already spent money upgrading the 252 to solid state so it would seem mad to destroy it, though they'd probably sell all the equipment for a quick few quid instead of think longer term and try lease.

If I had the money I would love to operate 567 at full power and play music all day long however licensing is so restrictive in ireland that you must have talk, certain Irish music, cater for the young, etc etc it's ridiculous someone can't operate a radio station in Ireland and play what they want whenever they want without the interfering Government in the way !

[Deleted User]

By the Way RTE transmits from Tuesday to Saturday according to the shortwave-info site for only 30 mins. shown as days 2,3,4,5,6 which I assume to be Tues-Sat ?

5820 Khz 20:00 - 20:30 lets see if we can hear it ? get about 20-30 feet of wire attach to your radio aerial and get it up into a tree.

The 49 Meter band can be quiet crowded at that time though so might have no chance.

[Deleted User]

Deleted User wrote: »

I guess the old valve 567 site is too old and they already spent money upgrading the 252 to solid state so it would seem mad to destroy it, though they'd probably sell all the equipment for a quick few quid instead of think longer term and try lease.

You'd think that but they did major work on the 567 mast just a couple of years before closing it.

At this stage I think RTE were mad to even look at 252 for Radio 1. It was touted that the UK got better reception on 252 but even Atlantic 252 at the full 500kW couldn't reach London. If anything it's worse because of Algeria while 567 was clear. Sounds to me like they should have just upgraded Tullamore to solid state and abandoned LW.

[Deleted User]

Or just change the 252 frequency.

[Deleted User]

Deleted User wrote: »

Or just change the 252 frequency.

That's not as easy as you think, it could take years.

[Deleted User]

Really ?

[Deleted User]

Yes because just changing the frequency would be akin to piracy. Ireland don't have a right to use 261. You'd need to get approval from the ITU and the red tape involved in that would slow things down significantly.

[Deleted User]

Ah Right, then they'd be better of to resurrect 567 or just pump the power back up on 252. Or just lease them and switch to SW though you'd have people complaining they have to get new radios but they are very cheap to buy and you can get plenty of good old radios on Ebay.

Antenna

Karsini wrote: »

Yes because just changing the frequency would be akin to piracy. Ireland don't have a right to use 261. You'd need to get approval from the ITU and the red tape involved in that would slow things down significantly.

261kHz is no longer in use anywhere in Europe. And the nearest user of adjacent 270kHz is too far away to be of concern of use of 261 in Ireland at current power.

Considering the above its suggested that temporary agreement could be made with other counties to use 261 in Ireland?
The temporary agreement could continue being rolled over unless 261 is reactivated elsewhere in Europe (unlikely).

Bear in mind that analogue TV allocations with the ITU were 'protected' until 2015 (despite what some people might have said). However relevant countries could agree amongst themselves to put aside such protections years prior to that date to facilitate digital terrestrial.

One night last week (when RTE's LW was off) I had a tune across LW around midnight and Algeria 252 was the best signal! Its ludicrous that RTE has to be co-channel with it considering current usage of the LW band in Europe.

[Deleted User]

The thing is, RTE obviously don't give a monkeys about 252, there have been reports on here that they have it as low as 60kW at night. Running at 300/100 again would surely help but considering that they won't even do that, I don't think they'd bother trying to move to 261 even if they can get a temporary clearance to do so.

dirty old anorak

Lads lets take off our anoraks for a moment and be realistic, RTE LW has only a couple of hundred listeners in Britian and about 25 listeners in Ireland, it's a waste of money and should have closed years ago, likewise rte dab should be closed down as it only has about 50 listeners in total and all those pointless channels on saorview like news now and +1 should be closed.