The future of RTE Radio 1 LW

I've no firm idea about the TX other than it was reported that a new TX was installed sometime in the mid 00's (2007 would be a fair estimate) whose maximum output power was 300kW and was DRM capable - I remember RTÉ certainly doing DRM tests back in the late 00's at night broadcasting three services as a test, one in HE-AAC and the other two in either in HVXC or CLEP audio (those two codecs are now deprecated in the DRM30 standard). Previously the TX setup there was supposed to be two 250kW units that were combined to give the maximum 500kW daytime output.

In terms of outages, while I suspect that RTÉ did at least to some extent use this to see roughly how many were still listening to the LW outlet, going off air for maintenance doesn't necessarily mean that its the transmitter that's getting repaired or refurbished, other parts of the transmission chain right up to the radiating mast could be in need for temporary repairs. When France Inter was transmitting from Allouis on 162/164kHz, it regularly went off each week for a few hours in the early hours of Tuesday mornings for maintenance - now that only a time signal is broadcast on this frequency, this maintenance time has now been shifted to more work-friendly hours in Tuesday mid-mornings.

High powered modern broadcast transmitters usually have a lifespan of around 25-30 years or so, but a longer lifespan can be eeked out if the output is run under at a notably lower power than its maximum rating. The 567 kHz TX at Tullamore ran for about 33 years - according to Irish emigrants in Britain, the power of the TX had definitely been turned down in the last few years of its life, I'd guess it was running closer to 100kW by the time it was announced it was shutting down in 2008. Assuming that the 252 kHz TX at Summerhill has been behaving itself and it still running well without requiring a major refurb to get it back up to running at 300kW again, the fact that's been running at no higher than around 150kW output for a fair few years now should help with the lifespan of its electronics to be useful for a potential resale for another broadcaster that wants to keep their AM service running for at least another 8-10 + years without shelling out for a brand new TX. The fact that it's tuned to 252 kHz isn't much of an issue, it should be easy enough to change the output frequency of it, including medium wave if required.

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It is on 0137. It changed from 0160 in November 2022.

Mentioning Summerhill, is there anyone in that area with a communications receiver, who could check for harmonics on 504 and 756 kHz?

They've corrected the recorded announcement that goes out every so often. I heard it on the first day and it was read by a woman but it's now a male voice and says 0137.

As I mentioned in a similar thread to this in the Radio sub-forum...

"If any other Irish public body or semi-state enterprise was found to be spending €250k - 400k per year to serve a small amount of refusniks with a service that was already being provided to them via several other alternative methods then it would quite rightly in 99%+ of cases be seen as an obscene waste of money that could be put to far better use."

IMO it would be far better for Irish community groups in GB to get self-organised into helping get things set up for those whom either don't have any alternative method to listen to RTÉ Radio 1 at present in their home and have no easy means to makes such changes themselves. Pretty much every other foreign group of nationalities in Britain have in recent years had to deal with their domestic stations from home not being available on MW or LW and thus unlistenable other than via satellite or internet, not to mention that Irish emigrants that left to go much further away than Britain never got such a similar link to home. Perhaps maybe ask the Dept. for Foreign Affairs for possible monetary assistance to help with such people (would almost certainly cost just a fraction of keeping 252 on for even just another year)? As others have mentioned, the vast majority of elderly persons can adapt to new technology where their wants change paths, for example my own father is very much a technophobe but has in the last couple of years got himself an Android smartphone so he can stream live horse racing from Paddy Power's app!

Other than that, I remember here back in 2012 with the TV Digital Switch Over/Analogue Switch Off complaints from some people that had reception difficulties that meant that they relied on the likes of self-help schemes which were analogue only and had no DTT replacement, saying that they should have allowed for these analogue transmitters to continue in the short-term. Back then I made the point that the DSO/ATO had been (reasonably) well publicised quite well in advance, that there was a firm date for an analogue switch off** and that if a temporary stay on the likes of self-help schemes not bothering to update to digital was to be granted, you'd end up with a camel's nose scenario whereby any time a potential switch-off date was coming up, there would be ongoing pleas for "just another while". Thankfully, no dice was had with that idea, the government stuck to its guns. We've had something similar go along these lines with 252 - it has been on death row now for several years, everyone knew it was a a dead man walking. The time has come to say "unless you're going to get someone to pay the 'leccy bill, that's it". Quite often it takes an abrupt change to make people having to get outside of their comfort zone.

** Ironically some analogue transmissions remained for "deflector" licences that carried UK channels that still remained in a few isolated spots of the country post DSO/ATO, but these were switched off for good by the end of 2102 when these licences expired.

Your radios should still be full of stations from Spain on medium wave for a few years. This is a post today in a discussion about La Coruna using 10 kHz bandwidth.

10khz bandwidth is very common in Asia and Australia/NZ. Most of the stations there are running it.

There's nothing to stop RNE running 10khz bandwidth and Spain needs AM long term to cover rural areas. Many of these RNE transmitters aren't even properly licensed, it's historic from when pre 1976 democracy Spain was denied any decent AM frequencies in the conferences and it has continued from there. When I was in La Coruña not so long back a lot of vehicles are listening to AM, it's a problem around that part of Spain with FM coverage for some reason and the same exists in Vigo, every radio I saw was on AM. When you drive along vast stretches of motorway in rural areas, AM is all you can get, no FM or cellular coverage.

UK broadcasters have been asking for 9khz bandwidth for some time and Ofcom don't seem to want to have the conversation. Some of the community and independent commercial stations are now talking about just doing it regardless and blaming "faulty kit" if they get caught, I know some stations have already tried it on the past, such as Bradford Asian Radio. Maybe in the next few months you might start to see 9khz on a few stations who are going "semi pirate" in the UK.

With how empty the band is now I can't see any reason why not. Unless of course there is the intention to make AM sound worse than it needs to.

If FM listenership dropped to a couple of hundred people and that there were several very accessible and far superior quality services, then yes FM should be turned off.

It's called moving with the times.

I'd put it down to the start of the new financial/tax year.