According to Radiowaves, Freedom FM will use 105.2 in Dublin.
I am currently not in Dublin. In my entry it says "Free 105.2" not "Freedom". The only frequency at Three Rock in my notes seems to be 92.1, but the power is rather low. Just 0.5 kW. Should only cover Dublin, but not more. The 87.7 in Cork is also 0.5 kW.
deleted
Deserves its own thread, great radio station so many great memories of listening to it in my youth
106.7 in Cork, 105.5 in Limerick and 87.9 are the standard frequencies in those cities. 87.7 was used last Christmas for North Cork
In my probably inaccurate records, it states the 106,7 in Cork with "8radio.com" and broadcasting with 1kW. Limerick is also mentioned with "8radio.com" on 105.5, however no kW power is mentioned. The 87,7 is mentioned in Galway with 1kW also as "8radio.com".
Freedom will use: Dublin 105.2 | Cork 106.7 | Galway 87.9 | Limerick 105.5
Correct , All systems go, Roll on the 18th
However, the frequencies won't go very far, or let's say the signal isn't the strongest, but it covers the cities and a bit around these cities.
107.6 strong blank carrier last few days (one of the Newstalk frequencies I assume).
If it were possible for Freedom to use 92.1, it would be almost the same frequency of when Freedom FM was a pirate - 92.0 - (for a number of years until the May 2003 closures).
Spirit Radio is on 92.2 in north Kildare so 92.1 for a Dublin-wide station nowadays would suffer since that came on.
Spirit Radio FM Frequencies: Dublin 89.9 | Cork 90.9 | Limerick 89.8 | Galway 91.7 | Waterford 90.1 | Newbridge/Naas 92.2 | Navan 92.4 | Letterkenny 87.7 | Drogheda 92.1 | Killarney 91.2 | Bray/Greystones 90.1 | Dundalk 90.4 | Clonmel 95.8 | Kilkenny 93.1 | Carlow 90.5 | Athlone 90.6 | Ennis 90.3 | Tralee 88.0 | Sligo 93.4 | Wexford 94.5
Almost all Spirit's FM frequencies are spread across the RTE R1/2fm/RnaG sub-bands - (though a transmitter introduced earlier this year - Clonmel - is on 95.8)
I didn't have the 92.2 down in my notes. The 92.1 is indeed coordinated in Dublin, however the question is, whether it's feasible to use it. Or more, why Spirit uses the 89,9. Probably because it's coordinated for 5kW, and thus the stronger signal.
All the other frequencies for Freedom seem to be 1kW. I would suggest that between Galway and Limerick you would have a continuous signal, with maybe a few outages. Down from Limerick to Cork, most likely not.
Newstalk 107.6 has audio again.
RetroNow have moved to 94.3.
Liffey Sound FM (Lucan) on 96.4 has been operating without RDS for some months.
Xmas FM 2021 (much earlier than usual this year).
Dublin City and County - 105.2
Cork City and surrounds - 106.7
Limerick city and county - 105.5
Waterford City - 105.9
Galway City - 87.9
Kilkenny - 104.3
Wicklow Town - 106.6
South East - 103.8
Kildare - 88.1
Bray/North Wicklow - 99.5
Longford and surrounds - 101.6
Cavan - 99.4
Mid Kerry (Tralee/Killarney) - 105.0
Clare/Co. Limerick - 105.2
NE Donegal/Letterkenny - 105.7
Sligo - 95.0
North Cork/SE Limerick - 87.7
Louth - 105.2
Plus new ones for this year
Port Laoise - 105.0
North Tipp - 105.2 (not sure here as this is the same frequency used in Clare).
(BAI have N Cork down as 87.9 and Galway down as 87.7 but these were the other way around before and there has been mistakes in their documents before. 87.9 would be difficult in N Cork due to Spirit in Castleisland on 88.0).
Is there a FreeDAB MUX operational in Cork, and if so - what services are currently on it?
The Dublin MUX is not on at the moment.
I briefly heard dance music on 94.3 over the weekend. I wondered what it was. Presumably, it moved off 105.2 because of the imminent arrival of Freedom FM with its temporary license. It must be a month or more since Charity Radio or All80s has been relayed by the "oldies collective" on 94.3 FM. Maybe, RetroNow should stay on this vacated frequency.
FreeDAB was on yesterday in Dublin but is not on today.
Freedom FM now testing across Dublin on 105.2.
Same in Cork on 106.7 and Limerick on 105.5. 106.7 has fantastic range going well into North Cork.
105.2 getting well into Kildare as well, test loop of only a few songs for the moment.
Very aggressive audio processing on 105.2, on par with 98FM and FM104 in loudness although sounds very like an Omnia unit as opposed to an Optimod.
FreeDAB in Dublin on block 5D with the following services...
Angel Vintage
Gorgeous Radio
Kream DAB
Purveyors Radio
London Music Radio
Shine 879
Black Culture
BKLR Radio
Wild Country
Flex UK
Tomorrow Radio
Sami Swoi Radio
Dublin's ABC
Ambition Radio
Release Radio
Spektrum Radio
An improved signal for Ice Radio on 102.5 out my direction.
Getting what sounds like a relay of All 80s on 94.3. Not sure if it is the usual broadcast source. Seems to be mono. Clashing with RetroNow.
As mentioned elsewhere Freedom FM launched their FM service at midday today with live programming from Greg Browne and a mini posse on hand in studio for hollering and hooting duties :)
Thus far the signal is unbelievable but what they are doing with it is making the difference. Loud audio, processing that's exciting but not too aggressive, modulation is controlled and the stereo separation is clear and doing an excellent job. It's a good example in how getting the audio bit right makes all the difference.
All in all things look and sound good for them over the next 30 days.
I picked up All80s yesterday evening on 94.3 FM - and here's me saying in an earlier post that it looked like that crowd were gone and that RetroNow should stay on this frequency! Around Nutgrove, there was undoubtedly interference. On the M50 between Dundrum and Lucan, it sounded okay today. However, later on the M2 in Co. Meath, RetroNow was coming in loud and clear on 94.3FM.
BBC Radio Scotland 94.7 very strong in Dundalk, including on the car radio. 250 KW from Sandale.
Freedom (on 105.2 at least) certainly are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in terms of processing. It’s showing as having the loudest de-modulated audio of any station on the dial at the moment. I’ve seen some pirates in recent times push it in a similar way using software based MPX encoding, I presume Freedom are using some fresh piece of hardware to achieve this.
Here’s an unedited audio sample recorded over FM (105.2) in Dublin this afternoon…
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gap3zcg9l4voeqo/Freedom%201052.wav?dl=0
Audio sounds very clean, great stereo separation and fresh sounding - at least to my ears! For dance music, a little extra thump in the bass frequencies would be nice – but this is a pop/general music station so they’ve to configure the processor to suit a wide variety of genres.
RDS with song information is working well, right on cue - although for me there does appear to be some minor issue with RadioText+ (car radio is only decoding this intermittently).
You can tell this station is a labour of love, well done to them.
It sounds very like an Omnia unit.
The audio does jump out at you but I find it's very tiring to listen to for anything longer than about 20 minutes - that's not just them though, FM104 and 98FM are equally very difficult to listen to for longer periods since they bumped up their processing in recent months (well, FM104 has always gone balls to the wall over the years but 98FM did sound very nice for many years).
106.7 sounds fantastic in Cork too.. very loud and works very well as you leave the city as noise is drowned out by the loud processing.
RadioText+ works fantastically on the Cork outlet too.. no issues on my Kia head unit.
Yes have to agree it sounds very Omnia, and they do alot of over IP stuff that would accommodate a multi city.
I listened for a good while on Saturday in the car and enjoyed the audio but found it thin at times and I didn't feel that bare metal processer warmth, that said i am still getting used to the speakers in the new car and was fairly hungover.
Freedom on 105.2 is a fairly good signal in Dundalk. For a while last night I was getting Heart North Wales on 107.2 from Arfon. Listed on Wiki as 2.5 KW but on Frequency Finder 18.75, which is more likely.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arfon_transmitting_station
