The future of RTE Radio 1 LW

Algeria Radio Chane3 is back on 252 again with its usual power of 1500kw and 750kw night time, so it just means its back to interference for the few people in Britain who try to listen. It may have been off air for refurbishment, also Chane1 is on 153kHz at a whopping 2000kw.

They are looking after it well anyway, its just a matter of time when RTE will try to shut it down permanently again, its going on nearly 10 years now.

You can listen better on the internet, I'm sure the new elderly in Britain have a better chance of using new technology now, I'm almost an elderly man myself and know all the ins and outs of receiving radio.

RTL from Luxembourg is finishing up on 234 LW in just over 24 hours time...

I'm just wondering how long more will RTE 252 continue? I feel RTE and BBC (LW) could shut shut down roughly the same time, mid 20s or end of the decade.

My money is on Poland (225) being the last man standing purely for geo-political reasons.

I do know that (a couple of years back) that the parliament coverage is broadcast on LW but not on FM, maybe that has changed now.

Also, Polski Radio 1 is broadcasting content aimed at Ukraine & Belarus via the LW transmitter.

RTE Radio1 252 LW is dying a slow death, RTE are occasionally dropping the power output, can anybody hear it now? Chaine 3 is coming in quiet strong at times, UK listeners haven't a hope in understanding what's been broadcasted.

You would have to be in the UK to know that. As I posted a year ago, it is coming in strong on SDR's in the UK, so there is no reason to think it would not be the same on any receiver local to those.

The only thing I'd say there is that those who host SDRs are more likely to have the correct aerials for their equipment. I doubt an average LW radio with a ferrite core aerial would work that well.

It is of course impossible to do this with an omnidirectional aerial for a vehicle, sea vessel etc., outside of homes is where most LW use would be.

Also nulling is little or no use in other locations where the two are nearer 180 degrees apart than 90 degrees apart. You might null out the unwanted (Algeria), yet the wanted signal ends up being significantly degraded in strength and more prone to distortion/other interference. This is the case in southern areas of Ireland

Algeria/skywave will have least impact during long summer days as per the reception quoted.

RTE Radio 1 on LW, 252 kHz seems down again today. Algeria is loud and clear.

Thanks for that. However they've had downtime a bit often lately. What's the reason for this repeated maintenance work?

It wouldn't specifically be RTÉ that would formally request a frequency change here, it would be the relevant government department making such a request to the ITU, presumably Comreg.

As to 252 kHz undergoing semi-regular bouts of "essential maintenance", there's two theories in my mind concerning this.

(1) Deliberate " planned obsolescence" into making listeners move to other platforms to continue listening whilst trying their best to accommodate various political pressures, especially those that demand the 252 kHz service to be retain at all costs.

(2) Genuine maintenance needs. While there are some quips concerning as to how well maintained the current transmitter must be by now, It's always possible that either the transmitter in question has actually developed a certain fault that whilst not critical could prove costly to fully fix and 2RN don't feel it's a priority given the unknown length of how long left the service will run, or that there is a fault somewhere along the chain at the transmitter site that requires semi-regular attention - while the TX is around 15 years old other elements have been there since the late 1980's and may be showing signs of fatigue e.g. radiating mast, feeders.

And of course, it could be a combination of both of the above.

Final point - when it comes to a potential frequency change aside from any formal request to the ITU, it would require physical changes at the TX site. Despite what some may think, the mast itself wouldn't necessarily need to be extended or decapitated, but the tuning to match the radiating mast would certainly require modifying to match the new frequency in question, which I'm reliably told that for a high-powered site like Clarkstown isn't a trivial matter (though less complex that it used to be).

Outside of Ireland, it is possible looking at the link below that the suggested shutdown of 198 kHz broadcasting BBC Radio 4 has been given at least a further one year stay of execution (the LW TXs for the service are supposedly having their costs covered by the UK electrical companies), though it leaves the fate of the MW fillers uncertain...

https://www.edfenergy.com/for-home/energywise/RTS-planned-shutdown