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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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.

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

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.

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.

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

What time on Friday the 14th is LW252 closing down?

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.