Atlantic 252 What happened?

My memory of it was a station only listened to by some of the rougher usually female members of my class.

Thankfully the choice was better in the city but anyone into their music was listening to tapes not radio except the odd pirate.

"I uesta love her" (1990) and "Crazy World" (1994) were playlisted, though not on high rotation, on 252 at their time of release.

Less of the personals please, Enda. BallyBogBrain was a light-hearted way of describing a town where some of the DJs might have emerged from. Lads who got behind the mike and started talking like they were from Brooklyn via Balkyhaunis. That lad Dusty Rhodes was mad for it. Then all you’d get was hours of New Kids on the Block and Kissed from a Rose by Seal. Complete shíte.

Tge A252 DJs were far from country bumpkins finding themselves in front of a mic. Rick O’Shea, Dusty Rhodes etc went on to have great careers. It mightn’t have been to everyone’s taste but they were some of the best jocks in the business at that stage.

@Enda Caldwell, can you tell us the difference between what 252 did 30 years ago and what Capital FM are doing these days?

To me its a variation of a theme? And I say that with someone who appreciated 252 back then.

I don't recall Smokie on A252 either. I suspect that the re-released version of Living Next Door to Alice with Smokie and Roy Chubby Brown, which was out in the mid 1990s, probably got played as it was in the charts. Once I had access to FM on the car radio in 1994, I did not listen as much to the station after that. You definitely would not have heard Smokie on Classic Rock Sunday!!

Mine would be ‘Sweat (A La La La La Long)’ by Inner Circle and then ‘Baby I Love Your Way’ by Big Mountain. And, of course, hearing ‘I listen to long wave radio Atlantic 252’ in a northern English accent.

Was a great station, in its day. One that the popular kids in school, even in Dublin, would talk about down the back of the class.

My own memories of the station was that it was hugely popular (Tyrone/Fermanagh areas) in the early to mid 90's as there wasn't anything else close to its style of music & presentation. Yes it was somewhat repetitive in its playlist but that was part of its charm back then that likely wouldn't survive today - you were guaranteed chart hits when you tuned in. Talk of this being based on Sunshine 101 etc. is alien to those of us whom have no recalling of the Dublin 80's superpirates and what they were like, being targeted at the UK its influences were as much derived from Laser 558 etc. if not moreso than what had went on in Ireland before it. The alternatives locally were 2FM, which was tolerable much of the time (and the first to try if the radio you hadn't didn't have LW on it), BBC Radio 1 which was having an identity crises at this point in time (I couldn't see whom it was trying to appeal to - this got sorted out later in the 90's - also it wasn't available on FM here until '93), and Downtown which at the time was naff for anyone under 35-40. Sound quality of A252 wasn't a huge issue when much of the listening wasn't done on big feck-off hi-fi systems but rather on single-speaker trannies, boom boxes and simple car radios in noisy vehicles whose frequency response would be clipped at the high audio end anyway. However, it was a station of its time and the "comeback" being touted for parts of the UK on DAB is just a nostalgia cash-in - though it isn't the first and it won't be the last. the folks on the Digital Spy forum (in their classic form) are already picking holes apart on it!

Oh, and I did get to call in to A252 once and get on air one evening. I think it was Robin Banks that took my call, still remember the number - 010 353 463 6677, originally announced as "oh-one, oh-three-five-three…" to disguise it as if it was a London (01) number - once the IDD code in the UK changed from 010 to 00 in 1995 IIRC, it became harder to hide the number for UK listeners being an international one!

Two songs I remember exclusively from A252 are from around about 91. “Because I Love you” - Strvie B and “Where Does My Heart Beat Now” by Celina Dion. They had that Stevie B song on heavy rotation. It was the first I’d heard of Celina since she won the Eurovision in Dublin in 1988. I figured she must be doing alright post Eurovision. Little did we know what was in store. I don’t remember any of the regular FM stations playing eithrr of these at the time.

God yes! Hearing those brings them back. I’d totally forgotten them. It was a million miles from the kind of stuff on FM here at the time. I’d listen the hell out of a station playing all those today. Thanks!! Great reminders!!

6-7 million people can most definitely be wrong.

Look at what is and was popular in TV, film and music. We live in a world where Sex and the City and Westlife were wildly popular.