BANDSCAN THREAD

I have heard the name mentioned alright over nearly two years now (allowing for the fact that we are into 2025!) across various websites. Who is involved with Radio Cuckoo and what part of Ireland does it operate from? Is long-running Premier Radio International still on the go on short wave (I know it is online)?

88 is still on as i type and I think it must be Misty as it's about the same strength as 99.4 was.

Is that the return of one of those low powered pirate stations that used to cover that area of Dublin up to a couple of years ago? If it is a pirate, is that the first pirate activity in Dublin since about 5th December 2024, when Connect FM and The 90s Network were raided? Edit: Those raids were exactly a month ago!

I presume you meant to link to my previous post from yesterday - added above! It is interesting that those two pirates from Co. Meath were still on the go towards the end of 2024.

Won't be Bluetooth but just an ordinary low power FM transmitter.

radio pembrokshire receivable in wexford town on 105.7 all the time. Wont be long now for fm closures in dublin .Stations chasing a youth audience that no longer exists.

Was in Mullingar earlier and Spirit were on a blank carrier on 87.6. Just RDS.

Might be worthy of its own thread...

The new programme for government includes a proposal for an Irish language radio station aimed at younger listeners .

Ri-Ra immediately jumps to mind.

The proposal is included under the Irish Language header thus it would be fair to say that the proposal would be heavily subsidised by tax payers .

Ive often wondered why Camlough never followed the Blaen Plwyf frequency allocations

i.e. why is Radio 4 from Camlough the odd one out, being on 104.6MHz

Could this be because Shannonside were on 104.1 first?

Mind you - that may not have been a factor considering they originally came on from Camlough on 88.6, 90.8, 93.0, 98.0 and 104.6 - RTE were linking to Clermont off Three rock at the time and everything suddenly became hissy

98fm had a mickey fit as they were flattened across huge swathes of North Co. Dublin

never knew of those original frequencies! I do recall thinking that they were quite close to the Three Rock frequencies even with that revised allocation.

nice to hear 1206am back on/off in Dublin (they seemed to be having minor tech problems). Relaying KCRW from LA.

seems to be. All the others running scared perhaps? C’mon lads and lassies, get the pirate spirit going again … ooh arrr

Was passing thru Mullingar again and still seems to be a blank carrier. Does anybody care? As an aside, I recall the Midlands 103 low power relay in Castlepollard was for years just a blank carrier. When it returned with audio, it was relaying Today FM! Standards have slipped.

I'd suspect it was run on lower power initially, and later the power was increased. There should be no increase in signal strength at night on local mediumwave signals which travel by 'groundwave' rather than 'skywave' (which brings in distant signals at night). If anything, local medium wave signals may deteriorate at night due to incoming skywaves from distant stations - however as we know that is not an issue on 1206 since the closure of Absolute on AM in the UK, it became very clear at night.

They have also tried 1197 instead of 1206 in recent weeks:

https://x.com/IBHallofFame/status/1878612735778529649

however I don't think it has been on this weekend (on either 1206 or 1197 ?)

Meanwhile, of note on FM, the temporary licence run of Classic Hits 80s finished up at 6PM today.

And Radio Ri-Ra is back on the same transmitters/ 4 cities for a few days to the 31th January.

Galway Bay FM had a significant outage. All FM transmission was affected for sometime, no idea how long. I understand they had mast issues at the studio.