Talked to Joe (not Duffy)
Yes the 100.3 was originally put on to use the cablelink relay that century used. The AM was just a bonus. He said it was only on for a day or two on AM before it was turned off but they got a couple of months on cablelink.
The AM rigs that they got as scrap from the container at the sands hotel were 1kw and 5kw possibly Harris. Left to rot in Cooke’s back garden in wheatfield estate. Such a shame.
I don’t disagree with your facts at all.
I do know Cooke and Doyle went to collect scrap from the sands (as in AM TX’s). That ended up in his back garden in wheatfield.
The mast from the sands did end up on mohercroom as I rented space on it from Stanley Dagg (site owner) and we got talking about it. it’s been a few years since I’ve been there. So it might have blown down.
And I’m waiting on a call to find out what Joe remembers about the 100.3 getting relayed on 1143. which is the original post enquiry. thanks.
Sticking to facts, the MW installation, TX and Tower were sold to Century though an Oliver Barry-Stafford company .This would have been mid'89 .
The owner of the Sands ,John Ryan, reached agreement through Robbie for rent on the Tower to be offset by Century carrying advertising for Tomangos.
Are you sure it didn't fall in the winds several years back?
I’m just waiting for a call back this evening to hear how Joe Doyle remembers it. But yes the scrap merchants Cooke and sons was how they got the old TX’s.
The sands hotel mast is still in use on mohercroom co Cavan for newstalk.
Yet the tower and 531 TX were used by Century......
The studio equipment did find a new home in a hospital radio station.
When Sunshine 101 closed, alot of gear was left behind at the Sands Hotel including the huge tower. Afew weeks later Cookie and gang approached the Sands hotel owners posing as scrap men / professional antenna dismantlers and removed everything to there surprise some txs where there ! Which were taken.
The coax to the set top boxes was so leaky that the 'closed circuit ' relays could be picked up across the county.
It became an issue in the late 90s when Cablelink/NTL started relaying BBC Radio off Astra , there was a One second delay (approx) so when driving around Dublin a car Radio would flip constantly between the actual FM frequency (eg 90.1) and the one second delay 90.1 Cable relay.
Allocating 90.1 FM to the AM service Spirit Radio put an end to eg BBC Radio 2 on the car radio in Dublin.
They were on 100.3 BUT the signal was too weak to be relayed.
Are you saying the two TXs from Sunshine , one being used for Century (531 iirc) ended up with Radio Dublin ?? How / Why would that be allowed happen ?
The AM that they had was the ex LLCR/ Capital rig which was donated , but another two TXs in the garden ??
This sounds more like the poor demise of Novas 50kw rig.
@Antenna I’ll text Joe Doyle later and get it from the horses mouth. it’s over 30 years ago so maybe I’m looking through rose tinted glasses. It might have only happened for a day or two. But they did have a TX on 100.3. From what I remember, the frequencies at the time were 99.9 or 99.5, 100.3 and 101.7. I do know for sure that the AM transmitters from the sands ended up in Cooke’s back garden covered with tarpaulin. Left to rot.
It was before my time but I enjoying the history of pirates in Dublin.
I started out listening on SW (pretty much laser hot hits), wish I was around in the 90s and 80s!
When you speak of cablelink, do you mean a leaky coax was plugged into the cablelink box?
I have no record of this either and I recall everything being switched off very quickly.
The AM was a RTE managed site iirc (the irony of it being Sunshines site and ERIs in Cork) and they were already owed a small fortune by Century.
I am also fairly sure Radio Dublin was not carried on Cablelink ,despite posts to the contrary ,the100.3 was too weak at the receiver site , and the resolution to that was never followed through.
Are you really certain about this??
Others with an interest in MW DX have no recollection of this happening.
There is absolutely nothing on the DXarchive.com website about such use of 1143kHz. If there was, they would have known!
Something like this might have happened for a very brief time? , but for days, not to mind "many weeks" I do not think so.
For a start the electricity consumption of it was not insignificant, for that reason alone it would have been quickly powered down, if no one was going to be paying for it!
Speaking of MW, there seemed no activity on 12O6 in Dublin last weekend, and I think nothing from it for some weeks now. CoastFM relay from the west of Ireland was on air last Friday night on I5I2kHz, audible at night,
That's why my specific use of the word 'The Police ' ....
I recall arriving in Holyhead to crystal clear reception of Sunshine, Nova and Q102 , far stronger and clearer than local Welsh services
"the occasional broadcast from the Police"
Did AGS ever use broadcast band frequencies ? I though such insanity was the sole preserve of police forces in the UK.
That said there was the possibility of signals from some of the more powerful Dublin FM stations making it across the water.
I do remember the time the Cablelink went haywire and put out wideband white noise around 101 and 106 MHz (parts of the band popular with pirates at the time) for several months. It seemed to be only an issue in some areas of the city though. I mentioned to a couple of people living in other parts of the city and they had no idea what I was talking about.
If it's Choice FM, the AM transmissions would have been 2005 and 2006. I'm pretty sure it was those two years because it overlapped with two of the three temporary licence runs from Premier FM.
When would this have been? 1278 was used by Radio 2/2FM from Beaumont for about 20 years.
I heard it on the Saturday evening (week after the temp licence had expired) ,the TX was switched off by the Sunday.
Can't confirm the location of the TX but the suggested site would make sense.
I hadn't heard the story about someone getting a free ride on 1278kHz after the temporary service, CHoice FM (that fed it via FM) ceased. How long was it on for?
I understand that 1278 transmitter was at an equestrian centre near Rathfarnham
my fault for derailing this thread but I think Radio Dublin were on 99.5 and 101.7 from for a good spell in the early 90s.
They added the 100.3 and got that handy unofficial relay from Cablelink. They used that frequency for several years (eventually using Radio Dublin 100FM) as their ID.
The move down to 100.0 was due to Radio Ireland getting ready for its 1997 launch.
Their audio got very slightly better in the 90s but Cooke was convinced the majority of radio listening was on AM (it wasn’t!) and so the FM sound quality was sacrificed on many occasions
I found a log and Oops , Radio Dublin did use 100.3 but it was ,to coin a phrase 'a pea shooter'.
They could have switched the main transmitter to 100.3 and got relayed on Cablelink but they didn't.
It was suggested to them.....
Joe in an interview many years later made some lose reference to being relayed on the cable service being a reason for being raided but as I said in an earlier posting it was a semi audible / splatter filled relay.
1278 AM was used by a temp station (Choice ?) back in the day and the TX came on air the following week linking off FM , didn't take long for a station (Sonic?) to get an AM relay.
I think Radio Dublin must have moved to 100.0 just before Radio Ireland/Today FM arrived on 100.3 FM.
I can’t really remember radio Dublin being on cablelink. But when century closed down radio Dublin did put a TX on 100.3. The 1143 AM for century based at the sands hotel was left turned on for many weeks, so radio Dublin were on 1143 and 1188 at the time. As the AM for century was just a relay from the FM.
I believe that was a 3rd party providing a relay of their closedown…
Century was on 100.3 in Dublin , it's Cable relay was on 101.1??
When Century closed another station did hop onto 100.3 but it wasn't Radio Dublin. Caroline from Sutton maybe ??
There was talk of a quick return of Century and 100.3 was abandoned.
I don't think Radio Dublin was ever on 100.3 ,open to correction,there are logs somewhere ! , 100.5 is the frequency alongside 100.00 iirc , what was relayed on cable was a weak splattery signal.
A few years later the Cable system developed a 'fault ' which caused interference to many pirate stations in Dublin....
Non-Stop 90s did the same on their last week. They went on 105.2 which had been recently vacated by TXFM, but Virgin Media hadn't removed it from their EPG yet. So they got relayed on there and even advertised it.
didn’t Radio Dublin hop onto the defunct Cebtury frequency straight away? They got a free piggyback on the Cablelink as a result (Cablelink were relying Century on their network).
After Century Radio closed in November 1991, Radio Dublin moved on to Century Radio's former FM frequency in Dublin of 100.0 mh! In March 1997, Century's successor Radio Ireland (now called Today FM) launched with its Dublin frequency being on 100.3 mh at the time. I remember around that time a work colleague of mine deciding to tune it to Radio Ireland. He complained that all he could hear was country music. I realised that he had in fact tuned into Radio Dublin on 100.0!
I don't know why Radio Dublin changed frequency ,however some background:
Radio Dublin were on 98.8 and circa late '85 a second TX came on from Tallaght on 105.4 ish.
Going above 104 was avoided prior to '85 , TV interference ,risk of aircraft interference, the occasional broadcast from the Police and the fact that some radios did not go above 104 VHF (!) all contributory factors .
Late '85 saw the two Southside on 104.7 and 106.0 proving it was possible Radio Dublin started on 105.4 and shortly afterwards Radio Dublin suffered from interference on their link to 105.4 , this probably led to Radio Dublin moving the Inchicore TX to 105 and remaining there until December '88.
@BMG you mentioned Diamond 106 earlier ,they put a second TX on 99.1 , it played havoc to Boyneside as it was their link frequency, indicative that moving lock stock and barrell to 105 was a good early move
Running multiple TXs from the one site is possible without modulation issues;
Nova had a shunt for the 10kw AM, an 8 bay FM antenna, erp circa 24kw and 2 microwave receivers on the one tower , while Sunshine had two AMs , 1 high power FM and UHF links iirc on the one tower !
Of course they both had top engineers , harmonic filters ,professional transmitters which helped !
Radio Dublin circa 93 had one FM only from Inchicore (not #58 iirc) so there was no cross modulation.
There were also lots of TXs disappearing from mountain sites around that time with a lot of allegations flying around about who was the culprit (s)
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