RTE radio1 LW

I think you're right actually. I've passed it several times on the M6 and there's definitely stuff on there.

No date (so it could have been this weekend or a decade ago) & no other context other than it's a "save 252" campaign involving 15 people with banners & placards?

Listeners in GB have been warned now for over a decade the 252 kHz transmitter would eventually be switched off, and that they should in the long term seek to use the alternative methods available to them to listen to the station, namely via satellite, cable or internet. Satellite is essentially FTA in every way to terrestrial radio for home/fixed use, while in the past decade LTE networks that can handle capacity for audio streams better than UTMS & GSM ever could is available in all but the very remotest of Britain, with mobile data costs never being cheaper. If you're a cable subscriber to Virgin Media UK, RTÉ Radio 1 is on the EPG.

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.

As a couple of examples, I live in a rural part of Co. Tyrone, I'm reasonably fortunate that I'm served by most of the UK national broadcasting networks (or Ni sub-region of such a network), however I am missed out on in a few areas, notably that neither the SDN DAB ensemble or Classic FM is broadcast from Brougher Mountain - I'm able to get a somewhat secondary "fringe" service of Classic FM (not that I'm a listener) but if I wanted to listen to any of the stations on the SDN ensemble, I have to rely on internet streaming. C'est la vie.

Additionally, I remember around 30 years ago, after the first Gulf War and the success of temporarily transforming BBC Radio 4's FM network into a rolling radio news channel (nicknamed "SCUD FM") there were plans by the BBC to roll out a permanent rolling radio news network using the Radio 4 LW/MW network that was strongly resisted by British emigrants in continental Europe at the time, for whom listening to 198 kHz was (outside of the BBC World Service) their only link to domestic radio back home. Those plans fell by the wayside (though it did strongly influence the programming for "BBC 5 Live" when it was rebranded from BBC Radio 5) but shortly after Radio 4 became available via satellite (analogue at first) and then later on with internet radio, pretty much the same level of availability as those wanting to hear RTÉ Radio 1 in GB, and such listeners adapted to new platform that provided them with interference-free listening. When the BBC Radio services moved from a pan-European beam at 28 degrees east to the UK spot beam a number of years back (this was when the BBC severely curtailed their Red Button streams), it was a case for those unable to receive the stations in the spot beam to grin & bear it and having to move to internet streams to continue listening. When the 198 kHz transmissions essentially cease for good at some point in the future, you'll at best barely hear a murmur from Britions on continental Europe about its shutdown, as even quite elderly British pensioners that retired to the likes of rural France know how to access BBC services where they are. Something very similar goes for MW/LW shutdowns elsewhere in Europe - for example plenty of Francophones in Belgium & Switzerland listened to the French radio networks of France Inter, RTL, Europe 1 etc. where FM reception of such stations wasn't available to them, but they had to grin & bear it.

I suspect that the upcoming PTSN switch offs involving Open Eir (ROI) & Openreach (UK) will see a similarly very small but very stubborn element refusnikism, in refusing to accept having to change their landline phone service to VoIP provision simply because what they currently have "works" and don't want to give it up even where service providers are helping them to make the transfer over as seamless as possible. Some comments on the interwebs are convinced that they (Open Eir or Openreach) can't switch off their PSTN service if they say they want to remain on it - well, they can switch it off, they will (if not at first, eventually) and the refusniks will simply have a dead line if they stick with that attitude - and they can't say that they weren't warned.

It'd be ironic if the people in that photo took their smartphones out of their pockets and made noises about the closure on social media...

To me LW is already history. I wouldn't consider buying a LW radio anymore, that is if I would find one new for a reasonable price. It's just uncertain how long the LW transmitters will be on air. And 252 had a bit too much of downtime in recent months as well.

People didn't complain that much when analogue TV was switched off in favour of digital, - so why bother with an even older radio technology in the internet and smartphone age?

People like to give out and trot out extreme cases. Paddy who's 95 and living in a bedsit after a lifetime of building the roads lives for Joe Duffy in the afternoon on the wireless. In reality, the vast majority of elderly people have long since moved over to other ways to hear RTE if that's what they want. I know very few elderly people who don't have a smartphone or a tablet. They mightn't be power users of their devices but they're able to use the bits they want. Recently I found out that my 80-year-old uncle in the UK was now listening avidly to Irish local radio stations because he'd found some app. These people are not helpless.

It is time to get the tape recorders out, RTE radio stations will never be heard on AM radio again

What is not mentioned often, is why ex-pats in GB would not be entitled to the full output of RTE. Which would require more long wave transmitters. Or why our ex-pats in America and elsewhere were not entitled to the same. As mentioned in another post, anyone anywhere can now enjoy LMFM or Lyric or whatever other stations they want. Not by radio transmissions, but the other methods which were mostly not available before.

Geography means that 567 from Athlone/Tullamore, and 252 from Summerhill, have a certain footprint in GB and NI. But neither were satisfactory, even for full coverage of the island of Ireland. The people in London should have the same expectation for a useable service from RTE as what was available in Manchester. But they never got it. It would be a personal dereliction of duty for an Irish person in GB to have relied totally on long wave in recent years, and not equipped themselves with other technologies. If only to consume other Irish content not being transmitted on 252, such as local radio from their home county.

Most of the modern portable radios with the LW band on them produced in the last 10-15 years from Chinese brands like Tecsun are known for not having good LW performance. The XHDATA D-808 I have is notoriously deaf on the LW band - 252 kHz comes in okay, but BBC R4 on 198 kHz is barely listenable! I think it is down to the lack of a dedicated LW receiving coil on the ferrite rod aerial inside the radio causing such issues, falling back on to the single coil designed for MW reception on the ferrite rod. The best radio I have in my home for LW reception is a Grundig Ocean Boy 330 portable that I got back in the mid-90's, back in an era when LW reception in many parts of Europe still mattered.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120094256/#Comment_120094256

Taken from the thread in the Terrestrial forum, the 2003 All Ireland hurling final was the last time Clarkstown/Summerhill ran at full power.

Regarding the historical reception of RTE Radio 1 on 567 Khz in London :

There was certainly a time when it was a reliable receiving option in London, but back in the mid 1980's, it suffered splatter from the offshore pirate station Laser 558, operating beside it on 558 khz. The UK Government cited the 'interference' caused to RTE as one of the reasons for taking action against Laser and Radio Caroline. When Laser closed in 1985, Radio Caroline changed frequency from 963 Khz to 558 and the reception problems for RTE continued, as did the 'concerns' expressed by the UK Department of Trade and Industry.

Ironically then, in 1990, the UK Radio Authority, issued a licence to a new multi-ethnic service, Spectrum Radio, to operate in the London area ... on 558 Khz, so causing a greater degree of interference to local RTE reception than had previously been caused by the offshore pirate stations.

Since 2000, the ethnic station Punjab Radio has been operating on 558 Khz in the London area.

Did the London reception situation form any consideration in favouring Long Wave for diaspora servicing over the more crowded Medium Wave band?