I'd be more in favour if they kept 567khz, but no amount of pressure was going to tell RTE to keep MW on.
And this time nothing is going to persuade RTE to keep LW going any longer either.
15 years ago https://www.irishtimes.com/news/rte-urged-not-to-abandon-medium-wave-1.904278
At some point people need to start giving "the elderly" some credit. If they want to listen to rte they have options with sky, virgin, freesat and smart speakers/wireless radios. My parents are in their 70s, i have aunts/uncles in their 80s. They are well able to use any of those services.
Déjà vu. A new petition has been launched calling for RTE/the department to "postpone" the closure of 252. I remember when RTE first announced it's closure about 10 years ago, a spokesperson for the campaign said at the time they would be happy if it continued for just 5 more years https://www.change.org/p/don-t-cut-off-the-irish-in-britain-postpone-rte-s-longwave-252-shutdown
🤣🤣
If the Seanad was sitting this week, you'd have a load of misinformed senators saying that the upcoming closure of "Atlantic 252" wss an attack on the elderly https://mobile.twitter.com/EndaOKane/status/1367592325216563201
Who are they losing the argument with? doesn't seem like anyone cares that 252 closing.
What time on Friday the 14th is LW252 closing down?
Yeah apparently the closure has the full support of Ministers Catherine Martin and Eamon Ryan due to the climate change angle.
Looks like RTE are playing the Climate Change excuse https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/radio/rte-radio-1-to-stop-broadcasting-on-long-wave-over-climate-and-cost-factors-42412461.html a sure sign they are losing the argument that they have to add additional reasons
Does this mast have any potential to be rented out to broadband and mobile phone companies like the Athlone one ? Would it suit 4 & 5g cells ?
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.
The closure date of April 14 for RTE 252 is almost exactly 20 years to the day that RTE R1 was first heard on longwave https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/57831/rte-radio-1-on-252-now
Mentioning Summerhill, is there anyone in that area with a communications receiver, who could check for harmonics on 504 and 756 kHz?
The proportion that have LW that actually works over the electrical noise is going to be a fraction of the fraction that claim to have it. I have a single "AM" band on mine that has both but you're never going to tune anything in, unless you're actually in Summerhill looking at the mast.
Simple answer is 0%, new cars anyway, my car is 22 years old and its FM/MW but I'm sure lots of cars have the full AM band.
Does anyone know what percentage of cars on the road today has a radio with LW ?
It is on 0137. It changed from 0160 in November 2022.
Maybe you could check too
I know for an absolute fact that in the UK that Rte radio 1 is on Sky 0160.
Unless it changed since last Sunday
RTE Radio One is on Sky EPG 0137 and not 0160. I don't know why they got this wrong, they could at least check this out before making announcements.
To not take the Challenge TV thread further off topic, just a note about Longwave during daylight hours. Any Irish person in mainland Europe could hear RTE during the day with a little effort. There are YouTube clips to prove it, and lots of SDR's. SDR's can be great or really bad. I could hear RTE on ones in Sweden, Germany and France, but most are just horrible noise on 252. But the YouTube videos show that it can also be done on a portable.
Anyone from Poland can get strong reception in Ireland during the day on 225, and Romanians could suffer poor reception on 153, but it is usable. Algeria and Denmark will be clear after RTE is gone.
.
RTE radio is available in the UK without restrictions via Sky/Freesat and internet platforms. They had over 8 years to get prepared. They had their chance now to adopt to something better.
AFAIK the longwave transmitter in Denmark broadcasting on 243 is funded by their equivalent of the department of rural affairs rather than the public service broadcaster DR. RTE 252 would have closed over 10 years ago if it wasn't for high profile people at the time expressing concerns for elderly Irish in the UK, I think it would have been better if the campaign was for the department of foreign affairs to take over responsibility for the service, excepting RTE to keep it going was like expecting an ex girlfriend to still go on dates. RTE have little interest in catering for elderly people at home let alone in the UK.
A couple of contradictory statements from RTE:
https://www.rte.ie/news/2023/0331/1367393-long-wave/
"The Summerhill transmitter will be shut down but there are no plans to physically dismantle it."
but here, one of the reasons for closure stated is:
https://about.rte.ie/2023/03/31/rte-radio-1-to-cease-broadcasting-on-long-wave/
"The required investment to maintain the mast is very significant......"
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.
Was it yourself earlier who posted that Transradio went bust a few years ago? Can they get any support on it I wonder? It should be a lot more reliable being solid state though.
Do you know is it in anyway possible that the transmitter has some sort of defect that required frequent outages and shortened it's life ? I don't know how RTE could claim a 16yo tx is at end of life when the 1970s tullamore ones were on air 35 years
Actual figures for reserving a place on both the Freesat & Sky EPGs will be commercially confidential, but a brief check on a Digital Spy thread around 18 months ago suggests UK£7000 pa for a Freesat radio EPG slot (which was described by a couple of other posters as being a bit high), while their placement on the Sky EPG in the UK is likely to be bundled in with the deal that RTÉ have with Sky for providing content on the platform. Essentially, it's peanuts compared to what keeping 252kHz on the air is costing them.
As for DAB carriage in the UK, it'll depend on the progress of the latest British Media Bill going through Westminster, there's suggestions that it could become law at some point next year (or at least before the next UK General Election). At present radio stations not licenced by Ofcom are not permitted on terrestrial based/distributed platforms in the UK (with an exception for RnaG on Freeview in NI). "Small scale" DAB has been the suggested mode of carriage for RTÉ Radio 1 in the UK, but this was suggested, at least in Britain, to be broadcast only from SSDAB areas that have a significant Irish diaspora so mostly major cities like London, Manchester, Birmingham etc.There's also essentially no room on either of the two commercial DAB multiplexes for even an additional 24kbps DAB+ station at present. Finally, any plans for RTÉ Radio 1 to be available on DAB in certain areas of the UK are completely separate to anything regarding DAB in the Republic of Ireland, the two are not linked.
But back to 252kHz, it has long been the case of when, not if, the transmissions would fall silent. With rising energy costs over the past nine to twelve months allied with the likely case that off-air "maintenance" would have given rough feedback as to how many were relying on 252kHz to listen to RTÉ Radio 1, I'd say its fate was sealed especially with the likes of IP delivery being the best it's ever been these days not to mention relatively cheap (unlike broadcast, there will always be a running "access" cost) to rely on from even low-bandwidth connections.
Hopefully for nostalgia's sake they'll have a special feature similar to that for the MW closedown in 2008 or what Absolute Radio did for 1215kHz back in January before the off switch is flicked for the final time at Summerhill - maybe get Gary King to say "Mine will be the last voice you'll hear on 252!" before the carrier drops.
Its almost 10 years when RTE first announced they were axing LW252 so plenty of time to make changes to the way people listen, and I'm sure a lot of the elderly from 2014 would have passed away now leaving a next generation elderly and I'm sure would be able to handle other technology a bit better.
So it will be the end of an era and an end of this thread too with nothing left to go on.
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://www.boards.ie/applications/dashboard/design/images/banned.png)
