if you have an old decent MW / LW radio you'll still find a good few stations at night
It’s not my personal taste in music but there’s something very nerdy/anoraky hearing Radio Caroline on 648 at night. Even has that lovely MW atmospheric long fade in and out!
Radio XL (Asian radio station) Birmingham, England coming in loud and clear on 1296 MW in the west coast of Ireland tonight
I think I can remember on that last day that 612 switched to a feed of RTE Radio 1 for an hour or two, do you remember that? It was probably just a case of RTENL engineers messing around. Btw, your recording is very nice bit of nostalgia , hearing ads for Vodafone real tones etc.
Are the dismantled masts still on the ground at ballycommon and Clarkstown? any recent photos of the sites? The 1 dismantled mast at the Moydrum site remained on the ground for ages
Approx 1 year ago this week, the Tullamore and Summerhill sticks fell ☹️
I was there paying my respects for Tullamore, but they pulled a very fast one and didn't give an opportunity for people to say goodbye to the longwave giant.
Yes they kept it extremely quiet, I wonder was it really a case that they feared that the highly active campaigners, who succeeded in delaying the closure of RTE LW252 by a decade would mount a challenge to the mast demolition ? The Tullamore demolition was put out to public tender, presumably the same contractors did both masts but only Tullamore was publicly tendered for.
Really, campaigners to retain a mast which hadn't been used for years and would never be used again?
Some people really have nothing better to do with their time, if so…
At the time I didn't expect it to happen exclusively because unlike Tullamore 2RN had not looked for planning permission to topple it. One wonders why it wasn't required in this instance.
I’ve heard in the past that one of the planning conditions was that it be removed once no longer needed, due to the outcry from locals at the time.
are the transmitter buildings still at clarkstown / summerhill i wonder ?
Those things are actually harmless and done at their own expense.
Trying to force a public body to waste money isn't harmless.
How very dare you! The 48B was a critical part of Barton Road's history, I will have you know 😁
What I thought was strange, that when TT252 went off air in summer 02, we didn't hear a peep from the locals looking for the mast to be removed, even though their court case would surely have been fresher in the memory at the time, just over a decade on. It also took RTE almost 2 years after the closure of TT252 to commit to using the Mast permanently
The old RTE mast at Mahon in Cork is being dismantled at the moment
That’s been idle for a long time. Used to carry radio 1 on 729khz and 2fm on 1278khz. Possible some FM transmissions too.
Very close to one of the busiest roads in the city - could be a slow delicate operation
Watching it from a distance but most, if not all, seems to have been removed in one day
Some pictures attached of the aftermath of dismantling the mast at Ballinure, Mahon, with mast sections on the ground. I believe it was there from the end of the 1960s. Removal of a significant landmark near the South Ring Road especially for anyone turning off for Mahon Point Shopping Centre etc (the smaller mast for mobile and tetra operators on the edge of the site of course remains)
Were/are the transmitters still there? The market for high power medium wave transmitters must be dwindling these days - chances are the equipment is old too.
From what I heard, 2rn sold the Tullamore and Cork AM transmitters for scrap metal back in the early 2010s
I wonder is the cork Site going to be built on ?
This time 20 years ago, Tullamore 567 was off-air undergoing a 3 million euro refurbishment, before the closure on 19/07/04, RTE sent this booklet to every household in the country explaining how to retune the wireless.
All that for a temporary closedown affecting a small proportion of listeners.
Money was clearly not a problem for them at the time
I thought that was available in public libraries (as well as from RTE), - I don't recall it being delivered to "every household in the country" ?
The transmitter building for the Cork site appears to have been demolished very recently. There was activity with a JCB there today clearing the location around where the building was (see attached)
