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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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Gerry Wicklow

It's impossible to explain to someone today the excitement and reward you get from throwing a load of junk bits together and it actually does something. OK quite often it was just releasing the magic smoke but hey that's how we learned. We were recycling long before the word was invented

These days if you suggested that chances are the answer you get is "why? I can get on one Amazon or Ebay."
/rant

[Deleted User]

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

Add to that the ones who need AA to fix a puncture.
How many times have we seen people on here after paying €1000's for some super duper TV and expect it to just have all the channels. Aerial? Dish? Wah?

They aren't interested, they would have to google how to change a tyre.

[Deleted User]

The education system in Ireland is just atrocious, severely outdated, the only change they and of course Parents want is to remove religion but not care about the crap they are thought or not thought these days.

This whole build up to big exams is ridiculous an School Children should be continually assessed throughout their time in School and this should account for all the points they need but this points system is another farce, at the end of the day, Students can go to college as mature students at 23 and not have to worry about all this school crap.

Schools could teach building simple electronic circuits, an Amplifier, hook up a speaker and connect the phone and hey presto, you don't have to spend 300 Euro's on a bluetooth speaker!

Or make a simple FM transmitter, connect up phone and play music all around the house! :-) Something exciting and interesting.

I built a Subwoofer at the age of 17 with my Brother, he did the Wood Work, it had a 150 watt MOSFET Amplifier Kit I got from Maplin, made the low pass filter from the circuit diagram I got off a magazine and put it together on stripboard, no printed PCB, I had to think in my head how to put it on stripboard straight from the circuit diagram.

I got the transformer from old stuff I had lying around and built a split rail Power supply for 50-0-50 volts again on strip board, used a bridge rectifier from something else I had lying around and got 2 big filter capacitors from Maplin, my Brother made the Box,again from the magazine and tuned it with the correct length of pvc pipe, I was never good at wood work. Got 2 x 8 inch speakers, it was a vented enclosure and we put it all together in the Box connected it to the stereo and holy crap, it shook the house and the neighbours and it could be herd 15 doors down the road, it rattled the windows even in the neighbours house, it cause a stir around the neighbourhood I can tell you, it was mental. But it was a lot of fun.

Those were the days, sure it's good fun playing with a Raspberry Pi or building a PC and loading all the software but it's just not the same as building something like a Subwoofer from scratch, from nothing and listening to it shake a block of 4 houses

building PCs and messing with Raspberry pis is just too easy.

At the age of 15 I was repairing CRT tv's and stereos for People in the Neighbourhood, the house was full of old TV's and Stereos with just a multi meter and service manual for the tv's. I got some TV's from a local repair shop that were wheat they called, uneconomical to repair, I repaired them and sold them!

I think tablets and internet have ruined the potential of so many Young people to achieve more, to do more interesting stuff with their lives because it seems all they want to do now is play computer games and stuff their faces in screens.

It is really sad. And Schools could spark so much more. Programming is fine but we need people with soldering skills, technical engineers.

Colleges might teach some electronics but this should be done at school level. Basic soldering on strip board building stuff and seeing it work. amazing.

Younger folk today don't know how important radio communication still is today and will be in the future and worst of all is that most of them don't know that their mobiles are smart radios, without the radio the phone would be useless. a

Johnboy1951

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

Add to that the ones who need AA to fix a puncture.
How many times have we seen people on here after paying €1000's for some super duper TV and expect it to just have all the channels. Aerial? Dish? Wah?

Makes me wonder how many are about who fixed punctures at home with rudimentary tools ..... I have memories of doing so and besides my hands being black the air was blue!

Gerry Wicklow

Add to that the ones who need AA to fix a puncture.
How many times have we seen people on here after paying €1000's for some super duper TV and expect it to just have all the channels. Aerial? Dish? Wah?

Johnboy1951

I would have thought it obvious that schools, for decades, have concentrated on schooling and not education.
Their now primary purpose is to prepare students for examinations and not for life.

Why is not every student taught how to correctly use common tools like hammer, screwdriver etc and how one needs to marry the correct screwdriver head with the slot/socket in the screw head?

The numbers of people reaching adulthood with no clue how to assemble basic pieces is a reflection on our schooling system ...... I refuse to term it education system!

Do you know of people who have to call someone in to hang a picture or some other simple job?
Oh yeah ..... now they use some sticky stuff to hang the pics so that skill is no longer needed.
Same applies to ham radio and a myriad of other things.

Who needs those skills (in the eyes of our schooling system) when more modern methods are employed, and the school is there to prepare students to pass exams and get a job in the modern economy?

[Deleted User]

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Does Joe Soap have any idea what USB or LSB is or how to tune to 3760kHz - I think we know the answer to that.

Most people probably don't know what SSB is however, this is why we have schools to teach people.

In some countries they have Ham Radio as a subject because in some countries there are more natural disasters and it's crucial they know how to communicate.

In other countries even in Europe they run ham Radio classes from the local schools and there are many Children or teenagers, and many School Kids go to these classes to learn about the hobby and can talk on the radio to other Hams without a licence via the club license. I have talked to a few school Clubs in Europe.

Why would anyone bother ? because it teaches people about radio and without this invention we would not have WiFi or Mobile Phones. It teaches People how to use a radio, about regulations, about antennas and science.

Seriously, I don't know why many more schools in Ireland don't do this to show there is more to life than Raspberry Pis and Games consoles. Most of it costs nothing or very little and there's a lot of Hams who would only be too delighted to teach younger folk about the hobby and will happily volunteer their nights such is the passion most Hams have about the hobby.

In fact, you could teach how a Raspbetty PI and Ham radio can work together to communicate via the various digital modes out there and how just a simple 20 meter long wire can communicate around most of the planet depending on conditions. They could build this antenna themselves, and imagine the look on their faces when they make a contact with an antenna they built themselves!

we don't teach our School Kids much interesting stuff and real science.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Joe Soap turns a dial on his radio and hears stuff. Joe Soap has no idea how to erect any sort of HF aerial. Actually Joe Soap thinks radio aerials are a thing which went out decades ago and it "just works", even the era of putting an aerial up to listen in the car is long gone.

This is why you teach people, if the Government sent around cheap portable radios with instructions, get a long wire, wrap it around the telescopic antenna and get the antenna outside as high as you can, all very very simple basic stuff, better than sending iodine tablets that will have no effect in the event of Nuclear accident or especially a Nuclear War.

Ger Roe

Deleted User wrote: »

When we drove to wales nearly 2 years ago the Outlander has a pretty good LW/MW radio. It was really good to be able to get RTE1 over our entire trip around Wales to Birmingham City and a bit outside Birmingham to Drayton Manor theme park.

The signal was much stronger than most of the MW signals I heard and to think the transmitter is only working at around 100 Kw from it's what 300 - 500 Kw design ?

1 Transmitter with such vast coverage with the ability to get information to many millions of people on a cheap radio point to point with no form of network in between shouldn't in my opinion shouldn't be dismissed just because it's the oldest form of communication, it just works and works well.

Regarding the 567 Khz transmitter, I think it would be a mistake if this was ripped up and the mast torn down, I wonder did RTE ever try to lease this transmitter or ignore anyone who came near them to use it because RTE said no one wants MW and that was their justification for shutting it down so to have it re-open by another commercial company would have made RTE look bad perhaps ?

They did try to find uses for the closed MW transmitters and were open to proposals. I f I remember correctly one early proposal was to use the national coverage signal to communicate with smart electricity meters - some sort of pulse to calibrate them, or instruct them to send data back to base (not too clear on the actual application)...... in the end there was basically no interest, or no viable interest in using the service. At the time RTE would have been only too glad to rent out, if someone could find a use.

[Deleted User]

When we drove to wales nearly 2 years ago the Outlander has a pretty good LW/MW radio. It was really good to be able to get RTE1 over our entire trip around Wales to Birmingham City and a bit outside Birmingham to Drayton Manor theme park.

The signal was much stronger than most of the MW signals I heard and to think the transmitter is only working at around 100 Kw from it's what 300 - 500 Kw design ?

1 Transmitter with such vast coverage with the ability to get information to many millions of people on a cheap radio point to point with no form of network in between shouldn't in my opinion shouldn't be dismissed just because it's the oldest form of communication, it just works and works well.

Regarding the 567 Khz transmitter, I think it would be a mistake if this was ripped up and the mast torn down, I wonder did RTE ever try to lease this transmitter or ignore anyone who came near them to use it because RTE said no one wants MW and that was their justification for shutting it down so to have it re-open by another commercial company would have made RTE look bad perhaps ?

marno21

I live in Cork and listen to longwave on a ~10 year old Lidl handheld radio with longwave. I only use it for BBC R4 on 198, however, it's only usable when USB charging isn't being done nearby. There's too much interference from the transformers when charging any devices. 252 works quite well here, but I have no use for it when I have line of sight to three FM RTE Radio 1 transmitters.

No LW in the car so I occasionally listen to R4 on 756 from Redruth in Cornwall. However, it's not a particularly strong signal and prone to interference so not very reliable.

Most people I know my age don't know what AM/MW/LW is, let alone what you can get on it.

Hotblack Desiato

I have a nice little Sony FM/MW/LW which runs for quite a long time off three AA cells. I bought it nearly 25 years ago now :eek: before I took my first motorcycle trip around France, I could pick up 198kHz well enough about "2/3rds down" but not right down in the south even at night. Should've got an SW receiver which could run off 12V, really...

I haven't bothered to listen to LW or MW on it for years because of the lack of what is out there. I'd have to question how many people today have a radio which can receive LW (or even MW in some cases) and have any idea how to tune to it or why they would want to.

0lddog

Deleted User wrote: »

......We'd have to rely on Cell towers, but will everyone have the means to listen to RTE via apps ? ......

You think all the country has 3G / LTE reception ?

:D:D

0lddog

marclt wrote: »

How many people on here now have access to a LW receiver and if you do, does it work well? .....

Yup, have a couple, all have LW.

LW works very well

FM comes and goes needs aerial to be twisted around from time to time and no good down in some of the sheds.

MW isnt great

I suspect I live in a different country to some on here

Hotblack Desiato

Deleted User wrote: »

There was even a time where an Northern Irish Ham was able to relay communications to the radio operator of a transatlantic flight because they could not communicate with the Tower.

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/how-a-radio-ham-in-a-castlederg-shed-saved-hundreds-of-lives-on-a-us-flight-28922956.html

That's a load of rubbish tbh as 121.5MHz is continually monitored worldwide.
Boston residents shouldn't have been chit-chatting on 121.5 (or any other ATC frequency) about a storm, so what was he actually listening to?
I doubt the facts remotely resemble what was reported there.
Yep - "transponder" - that's radar, nothing to do with WT
No corresponding incident found on the usual aviation websites

Ah - dxhound you only beat me to it by about a week

When The LW252 Mast is torn down and the site bulldozed to the ground along with the old 567 Khz site we better be sure we can rely on FM, Because if one FM transmitter site goes down that will be many thousands in the dark.

You're not wrong there, we should keep one or the other going for national security never mind pensioners in the UK. MW would be better because many radios no longer have LW

IF everyone had a radio capable of SSB reception then there's an Emergency frequency on 3760 Khz on the 80 Meter Ham band as part of .

Does Joe Soap have any idea what USB or LSB is or how to tune to 3760kHz - I think we know the answer to that.

Any Radio Amateur with a proper Antenna for that band should be able to cover most of the Island with just 100 watts of RF power, anyone with a SSB capable portable radio should be able to pick that signal up with just 20-40 feet of wire thrown up in a tree or even thrown over a fence roof of house etc.

Joe Soap turns a dial on his radio and hears stuff. Joe Soap has no idea how to erect any sort of HF aerial. Actually Joe Soap thinks radio aerials are a thing which went out decades ago and it "just works", even the era of putting an aerial up to listen in the car is long gone.

Johnboy1951

Ger Roe wrote: »

Way ahead of you Mad Lad. I have seen the disaster movies too and appreciate the value of a ham radio. When this virus situation started, I made this as an emergency radio

I love the bullet holes .... nice shooting

Gerry Wicklow

We've already seen it here in the past, an IT glitch taking down a complete mobile network.
How many infill FM or TV TXs are just relaying the main TX rather than having their own direct feeds? So if, for example, the MT Leinster mast went down would that take out the relays in the south east too?

@Ger Roe does that have a spam filter?

Ger Roe

Way ahead of you Mad Lad. I have seen the disaster movies too and appreciate the value of a ham radio. When this virus situation started, I made this as an emergency radio

[Deleted User]

dxhound2005 wrote: »

That story about the Northern Ireland ham is fake.

https://www.ukradioscanning.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=172

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-foyle-west-20337368

Update 27 November 2012: Further checks have shown United Airlines does not fly from Dublin to Boston. Irish and US aviation authorities also say they have no record of these events.

This information was put to Mr Young, who did not wish to comment.

Thanks for that, what an idiot he was ffs.

dxhound2005

That story about the Northern Ireland ham is fake.

https://www.ukradioscanning.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=172

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-foyle-west-20337368

Update 27 November 2012: Further checks have shown United Airlines does not fly from Dublin to Boston. Irish and US aviation authorities also say they have no record of these events.

This information was put to Mr Young, who did not wish to comment.

[Deleted User]

IF there was a real disaster then they should send everyone proper radios that can receive Shortwave and the Amateur radio bands ( SSB ), if the sh1t hit the bands it will be Radio Hams relaying communications around like in the USA.

There was even a time where an Northern Irish Ham was able to relay communications to the radio operator of a transatlantic flight because they could not communicate with the Tower.

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/how-a-radio-ham-in-a-castlederg-shed-saved-hundreds-of-lives-on-a-us-flight-28922956.html

This is why I love Shortwave so much, you just never know what you're going to hear.

When The LW252 Mast is torn down and the site bulldozed to the ground along with the old 567 Khz site we better be sure we can rely on FM, Because if one FM transmitter site goes down that will be many thousands in the dark. If for instance, Mt, Leinster goes down in a disaster, I won't be receiving any RTE transmissions, however there's nothing to say that this emergency broadcast material can't be relayed through more local FM transmitters, unless the uplink to those transmitters goes down. There's so many things that can happen such as an I.T related issue.

We'd have to rely on Cell towers, but will everyone have the means to listen to RTE via apps ? what if the cell towers are down due to some I.T issue ?

Amateur Radio Operators would be ready and willing to fill in the black spots including myself, but we haven't the means to communicate on the FM broadcast bands nor would we have the power necessary to get out in any meaningful way, FM being more line of sight and all that.

This has actually got me thinking, is there a plan if any RTE transmitter goes down to relay programming via local commercial stations ?

LW and MW with single transmitter has the ability to communicate with most if not all the Island and well beyond.

IF everyone had a radio capable of SSB reception then there's an Emergency frequency on 3760 Khz on the 80 Meter Ham band as part of . Any Radio Amateur with a proper Antenna for that band should be able to cover most of the Island with just 100 watts of RF power, anyone with a SSB capable portable radio should be able to pick that signal up with just 20-40 feet of wire thrown up in a tree or even thrown over a fence roof of house etc.

My 100 watt signal into a 40 meter long wire antenna can be picked up all over the Island on 80m and well beyond + on certain bands can be picked up anywhere on the planet. A few months ago that same 100 Watts got to Sidney on 40 meters.

There's even digital modes on the Amateur radio bands today that can receive very very weak signals where voice communications wouldn't be possible, even with very small antennas communications could be sent and received thousands of Kms away.

Ger Roe

Sam Russell wrote: »

If the state were serious about a proper national warning system, they would issue every household with a low cost battery powered LW/MW/VHF receiver that could receive such broadcasts. It could be kept next to those iodine tablets that Joe Jacob sent out in the case of a Selafield accident. (Of course those tablets have now gone out of date: no word of a new supply).

Some time ago, a glossy brochure was sent to every home outlining what to do in an emergency - basically phone 999 or 112. We do not appear to have any real public policy on what to do in a national emergency - or even what constitutes a national emergency.

LW 252 can reach nearly every part of the island and could be essential to keep the nation informed.

Current emergency - 'Wash your hands for twenty seconds, keep two metres away from everyone, and stay at home!'

I still have the unopened box of Iodine tablets, I consider them a collectors item. There was quite a deal of controversy at the time as to why Joe decided to distribute them and when he was asked to explain his motive, his incoherent rambling only put fuel on the fire and made people more suspicious ... did he know something that we didn't???.

My father kept a note of the expiry date on the box and he called Joe's office when they ran out, asking for a fresh supply (in jest). His 'argument' was that if it was important enough to give them out in the first place, it was important to issue fresh supplies when they became ineffective.

No one ever got back to him....;)

Sam Russell

dowtchaboy wrote: »

I have one of those - and one of this one - the Civil Defence handbook "methods of protection" - more detail but similarly unrealistic about what a nuclear bomb would entail. No mention of what the family would do for the "2 days" they would have to stay in the refuge; no mention of toilet facilities; an assumption that the electric power would be uninterrupted for the radio to stay turned on at all times tuned to Radio Eireann; macho farmers with rolled up sleeves gaily washing red radioactive dust off the roofs of the milking parlour before sending the milk off to the co-op etc.

If the state were serious about a proper national warning system, they would issue every household with a low cost battery powered LW/MW/VHF receiver that could receive such broadcasts. It could be kept next to those iodine tablets that Joe Jacob sent out in the case of a Selafield accident. (Of course those tablets have now gone out of date: no word of a new supply).

Some time ago, a glossy brochure was sent to every home outlining what to do in an emergency - basically phone 999 or 112. We do not appear to have any real public policy on what to do in a national emergency - or even what constitutes a national emergency.

LW 252 can reach nearly every part of the island and could be essential to keep the nation informed.

Current emergency - 'Wash your hands for twenty seconds, keep two metres away from everyone, and stay at home!'

dowtchaboy

kazoo106 wrote: »

Came across an old booklet (obviously from the 60's) concerning outbreak of war. Its called Cosaint Shibhialta Bás and in it the National Alert was to be broadcast on Radio Éireann - wonder how this would work in modern times with a chain of microwave links feeding all the main RTE sites or would 252 be requisitioned?

I have one of those - and one of this one - the Civil Defence handbook "methods of protection" - more detail but similarly unrealistic about what a nuclear bomb would entail. No mention of what the family would do for the "2 days" they would have to stay in the refuge; no mention of toilet facilities; an assumption that the electric power would be uninterrupted for the radio to stay turned on at all times tuned to Radio Eireann; macho farmers with rolled up sleeves gaily washing red radioactive dust off the roofs of the milking parlour before sending the milk off to the co-op etc.

Johnboy1951

marclt wrote: »

How many people on here now have access to a LW receiver and if you do, does it work well?

Yes I have a number of them.

Most have been consigned to long term storage .... read as 'ready for the recycle bin' ....... while others are lying about unused for years.

I don't even know if there is LW or MW on my car radio.

Oh yes, I should add to the list some old car radios in storage also.

Definitely not short of LW receivers ..... just have no use for them these days.

marclt

How many people on here now have access to a LW receiver and if you do, does it work well?

In an emergency, radio is now just one method of alert for key messages.

I was an advocate for 252, but RTÉ have missed the boat in repurposing this infrastructure and providing a meaningful and future proof service for Irish citizens and the diaspora in the UK and Europe.

Rather than setting the starting a discussion, they’ve been dogged by the shutdown campaign which has obviously struck an emotional chord.

Lord Glentoran

0lddog wrote: »

Shocking lack of awareness of rural Ireland shown on this thread

For me, no LW = no Radio 1

The price of everything and the value of nothing people that have infested Official Ireland for generations.

Ger Roe

L1011 wrote: »

There is allegedly an emergency broadcast system using local radio stations. It was "tested" in 2008 - https://www.siliconrepublic.com/enterprise/irish-government-reveals-ability-to-take-over-broadcast-media-for-emergencies

There actually is no such thing. It used INNs news distribution system and required the engineers from each station to manually switch in INN.

INN no longer exists and not every station takes Newstalk news anyway now.

The 2009 Broadcasting Act allows compelling broadcasters to broadcast something but it still requires manual intervention.

I was involved in radio at the time and remember that 'test'. We were told to submit the names of persons that would be on call to be contacted at random and told to go to the studio and fade in a tone that would be transmitted from the INN satellite. No announcements were to be made and no reference was to be made on air as to why a tone was being relayed. If anyone did hear it at that hour of the morning and were to contact the station, we were told to say that it was an engineering test. No mention was to be made of the emergency service aspect on air, before or after the event. As far as I remember the source of the tone was from the Dail broadcast studio, sent on to INN (might be hazy on that). The BCI had monitor staff set up all over the country to log which stations managed to comply in time (tone was only relayed for a short period and had to be on air at each station for at lest a portion of that time).

The call came about 2am one morning (Sunday?) and the tone was duly relayed when the auto music playout was briefly interrupted. I remember contacting the BCI at the time to question the amount of manual intervention required and to ask if the designated manual fader persons could be issued with some form of identification passes to get through any road blocks that might exist should there actually be a national emergency at some time and travel restrictions be imposed. They never replied to me.

I suppose they thought it far fetched at the time, it doesn't seem so far fetched just at the moment. I don't think that even that basic manual system would work now, not sure if any alternative was ever set up for the now defunct INN satellite feed.

Hotblack Desiato

Cosaint Shibhialta means Civil Defence. The name of the booklet was Bás Beatha i.e. Life or Death. Bás Beatha was published in the mid-60s as a reaction to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

https://issuu.com/basbeatha/docs/basbeatha

It's very much in keeping with civil defence thinking in the A-bomb era - if not within a couple of miles of a strike you may well survive

That went out the window in the H-bomb era, where bombs were 50 to 1000 times more powerful, and lethal levels of fallout could blanket an area of hundreds of square miles - so it was obsolete before it was published.

I found our copy hidden behind the gas meter under the stairs in the late 70s, scared the absolute shít out of me and I soon realised that there was nowhere in our house which could be adapted into a viable fallout refuge...

I wonder does anyone on Youtube or whatever have a recording of that alert test. There's lots of recordings of the US emergency alert system, but some states use that several times a year for severe weather events.

L1011

There is allegedly an emergency broadcast system using local radio stations. It was "tested" in 2008 - https://www.siliconrepublic.com/enterprise/irish-government-reveals-ability-to-take-over-broadcast-media-for-emergencies

There actually is no such thing. It used INNs news distribution system and required the engineers from each station to manually switch in INN.

INN no longer exists and not every station takes Newstalk news anyway now.

The 2009 Broadcasting Act allows compelling broadcasters to broadcast something but it still requires manual intervention.

dxhound2005

I think we would know these days if there was a nuclear bomb dropped anywhere close. Or any other calamity which might befall us. The warning is about nuclear radiation (fallout). It might be from the 70's, when portable transistors were more common.

Wireless sets were a bit of a luxury for many, and were generally fixed in position convenient to where the external long wire aerial could be attached. Not something which could easily be moved to the bedside.