Just heard on the LW transmission that there to stop broadcasting on the LW band from 14 April 23. 😪
If you don't take the end to be at the end of the Enda Caldwell introduced tribute show but take it to be at the point where the non-stop music was, err, stopped and Teamtalk 252 began, then the last "full" song played was William Orbit's Adagio For Strings (Ferry Corsten Radio Mix), with the last song to be played before being interrupted mid-way and Teamtalk 252's jingles crashing in a few seconds later, I'm not sure whom it actually was but I think it was called "Be Free" and sampled Belinda Carlisle's "Live You Life Be Free". The crash into Teamtalk 252 occurred at midnight some night in early January 2002, can't remember the exact date but I think it might have been the 3rd.
An homage that no-one would hear...
Sonique and Feel So Good was the last song to be played out by Edna Caldwell just before 5PM on the 20th of December, a day earlier than they initially had announced they were to cease. An hour long tribute show of classic air checks and clip aired and once it was over the station output went quiet for a few seconds, before playing out a Teamtalk ident then moving to automated music with a few contracted ads and the minimal of imaging. All told it was a sombre end to 12 years of export radio on the cheap.
Don’t think there was a last song as such.
They aired their one hour tribute show and went into non stop music (and ads, presumably for contractual purposes) for a number of weeks until the Teamtalk 252 promos began.
I suspect that it will go out with a whimper rather than a bang. How many members of the general public paid much heed to the ending of the MW transmitters back in 2008? If anything, even less people are tuned into this event (if you will pardon the pun!).
It would be an awful shame if nobody had the balls to crank up the rig to the max for a few hours and play some sort of homage on-air to this marvel of high-power radio engineering. But not surprising unfortunately.
What was the last song played on Atlantic 252?
If things are going to be kept low key, (looking that way) expect 2rn to pull the plug between 9am and 11am
Declan, Spirit's AM (549) has not been on air for around 6 months.
BTW Speaking of Spirit, I notice Spirit's 90.9fm in Cork suffering a lot of audio dropouts this afternoon. I assume the exposed satellite receive dish is skakin in the high winds
Any confirmation of the closedown time for the 252 transmitter on Friday?
Rufus and Chaka Khan "Aint nobody" was played early this morning on Radio 1. One of the songs from the test transmissions launch of Atlantic 252 in Aug / Sept 1989
When RTE Gold is relayed overnight on Radio 1, lots of Atlantic songs show up !! Last time you'll hear them on 252.
At a guess that was the first tune played on Atlantic 252?
It's actually the last chance to record any RTE AM radio channel in Ireland. However, you will still be able to record in Ireland non-Irish options from LW such as BBC Radio 4 (for the moment) and possibly that Algerian station on 252, and of course there will still be MW options available, including Spirit Radio and Irish MW pirates.
it's the last chance this week to record AM radio in Ireland. end of an era.
Clever. I get the connection but I wonder how many will!
If it closes at 1pm Friday, Louise Duffy should finish her show with sowing the seeds of love by tears for fears
I don't know what your point is because the Mediumwave service was switched off, long before Forbes joined RTÉ. Indeed, the initial decision to switch off LW was made in 2014; this is also before she became Director General.
In any case, the transmission assets are the property of 2RN; this is run independently of RTÉ itself.
Dee is building up quite an inventory of transmitters switched off and gathering dust in situ, medium wave rigs Long wave rigs, and DAB rigs. And antennae/links/masts/processors, complete asset write offs etc
If Dee Forbes fired a couple of fatcats (so-called 'talent' included), the transmitter could be kept going a few more years.
I find this listing useful as well. The North West receivers are well up the list, but I think I saw them higher in the past. Malin is doing well also. A lot of SDR's are really terrible, but I wouldn't complain. They are trying to do whatever they can under local conditions.
http://rx.linkfanel.net/snr.html
A map of public KiwiSDRs that are available (though it also includes the University of Twente SDR in the Netherlands)...
Additionally, a list of online SDR's running WebSDR software (which is the software used for the U-Twente SDR) as also available, but the frequency ranges for each SDR varies...
http://websdr.org/
Just on that subject, I brought up the list of SDR's in Sweden. The first and third from the top give usable reception of RTE on 252, the second one is just noise. I didn't try any others. It really is all to to with the antenna.
http://kiwisdr.com/public/
When the Norwegian 153 kHz outlet in the Arctic Circle (at Ingøy) was switched off a few years ago, there was a consultation in the few months prior to this happening asking for comments about its proposed shutting down. Not one objection to its closure was received. While the TX was originally set up in 2000 to help cover parts of northern Norway that had unreliable FM reception as well as potentially serving ships in the Barnets & Greenland seas, by the time of the switch off pretty much no one was using it. Even that far north, ships in the area were now using satellite reception from 1 deg. west or (no longer) 5 deg. east for any Norwegian radio reception (with DAB being an option closer to shore) with the likes of Inmarsat & other geostationary satellites, as well as potentially LEO satellites providing two-way IP links for both internet and maritime mobile networks where supplied. Also, while it sounds like a nice idea in theory of say DX'ing on the MW band on a ship at sea well away from any landmass e.g. the middle of the Atlantic, in practice pretty much every ship generator & engine will chuck out a lot of QRM over the LF & MF bands (notwithstanding receiving NAVTEX messages on 518 & 490 kHz where available for which I assume special measures are taken to reduce reception problems because of the ship's own "friendly fire").
When it comes to communications systems for maritime navigation & safety, the current international & regional systems in place have several levels of fallbacks that if it comes to the point that if a ship's captain is having to rely on BBC Radio 4's shipping forecast as they have no other info available, then that ship is in a very bad state to have everything else fail.
It's more of an anorak suggestion, let the rigs go with a roar and check out the SDRs for reception.
Last chance to hear the Sunday Worship opt out on 252. On from 10 am Easter Sunday.
Here is a thread from 20 years ago when people were getting excited about the launch of RTE Radio on LW 252 https://www.boards.ie/discussion/113296/rte-radio-1-lw-confirmed/p1
If you have a strong signal already, your ears won't hear any difference.
Well, 300kw is the max it can do since the old Atlantic kit was replaced in 2007, so no chance of 500kw from summerhill ever again
Just a crazy idea for the last days of 252 LW from Ireland. Would it be possible to give the TXs a last hurrah and drive them to full power? I'd like to hear the full power of all that transmission engineering and expense before it's all literally mothballed. Go out with a blast!!
I don't know what his home set up is.
Actually I don't even know where his house is I just meet him when visiting one of the other allotment holders.
As for Louise Duffy she is getting pretty good reviews here on Boards but that may not be relevant.
Donncha is a long time gone now but he had a great way with him.
I must mention the local stations next time I meet him.
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