The future of RTE Radio 1 LW

225LongWave · 16-02-2019 9:23pm

irtc re-advertised 17 mw frequencies in 1998
with varying emrp incl. Westport 1251 on 50kW.
Ballina 1584 1kW Dublin 531 & 1143 10kW.
Limerick 1386 1kW. ITu plan to Revoke unused
Geneva 1975 European allocations in October

ComReg destruction of Atlantic Radio 1251 in
Castlebar Co. Mayo will be Highlighted to ITU by
myself to demonstrate IRTCs exclusion of two
AM community radio applications in 1999 which
amounted to £15,000 in preparation expenses

https;//m.youtube.vom/watch?v=tJnPZ-mAy4s

6960kHz SW licence was challenged by MWRfm

L1011 wrote: »

No, its dead. A few trials is all it has had for more than a decade. Idea was delivered dead. SDR decoding is hobbyist stuff of zero use for actual broadcasters - they do not care about it. There's been radios available for over a decade, nobody buys them.

Frequencies would be allocated by Comreg and the BAI; not RTE. But its irrelevant - DRM is dead and there will never be DRM stations in Ireland beyond possibly some more throw-money-in-the-fire trials.

16-02-2019 10:10pm

DRM is as much use as DAB. DRM V DAB ?

And there have not been any DRM radios available the last 10 years. Think that was confused with DAB.

Broadcasters would rather we just used apps and not radios because they would not need to maintain any transmitters.

Everything is going into the internet. Next our cars won't turn on without the cloud lol

16-02-2019 10:10pm

Having said all that listening to radio Kuwait in Stereo on shortwave is quite amazing !

Mickey Mike · 16-02-2019 10:55pm

Long Wave 252 is coming to its last 4 months of life, and I believe the transmitter will be dismantled along with Tullamore's 567 (I think). DAB is also done and dusted as far as Ireland is concerned. The FM service won't go any further either, another 10 or 15 years and the fm band wave will be empty.
The future is the Internet, the Internet for everything, ie. TV, Radio etc. So let's all get ready for an Internet future. Nothing stays the same, not even us unfortunately.

EdgeCase · 16-02-2019 11:05pm

I'd say FM has quite a long way to go yet before it's shut down. The technology's simple and the reach is still very high.

Mickey Mike · 16-02-2019 11:53pm

EdgeCase wrote: »

I'd say FM has quite a long way to go yet before it's shut down. The technology's simple and the reach is still very high.

Quite right, FM and the Internet should work longside each other as main platforms.

Gerry Wicklow · 16-02-2019 11:58pm

Mickey Mike wrote: »

.....
The future is the Internet, the Internet for everything, ie. TV, Radio etc. So let's all get ready for an Internet future. Nothing stays the same, not even us unfortunately.

All well and good if you can get a service. I often struggle to get 2G where I live. And then you just have to look at the RTÉ TV advert player app. A total PoS.
For me radio = FM or do without.

EdgeCase · 17-02-2019 1:50am

There's a lot to be said from an ISP's point of view in not having a couple of million FM radio listeners dumped onto their networks. That's especially true for mobile providers.

You would need proper multicasting and advanced peering arrangements to handle the volume of traffic and it would (at present) impact people's use of 3G and 4G services.

FM also still reaches places mobiles and wireline / fibre broadband doesn't.

You're basically replacing reliable and cheap broadcasting with bandwidth wasting, unicast streaming technology for no particular reason.

I think DAB may well be a dead end technology but FM could well be around another 40 years, supplemented by internet streaming and podcasting.

There's really no reason for DAB with what's possible on the internet. It's an 80s digital concept.

Gerry Wicklow · 17-02-2019 2:42am

DAB is an answer looking for a question

EdgeCase · 17-02-2019 2:24pm

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

DAB is an answer looking for a question

Well, it's an old answer to a question that's been resolved by a different technology.

The concept behind DAB is from the mid 1980s, a time when having a powerful computer with tens of Mbit/s of connectivity would have been absolute science fiction.

The reality is that many of us (and yes I know there are areas with poor coverage) have more bandwidth from a smartphone than an entire city would have had 30 years ago.

Mickey Mike · 17-02-2019 2:50pm

In my neck of the woods down in Kerry, there have not been any Radio station launch in 10 years, the last one been 4fm which barley scratches north Kerry. From 102.7 to 104.6,
104.6 to 107 remain empty.

marno21 · 17-02-2019 3:11pm

Mickey Mike wrote: »

In my neck of the woods down in Kerry, there have not been any Radio station launch in 10 years, the last one been 4fm which barley scratches north Kerry. From 102.7 to 104.6,
104.6 to 107 remain empty.

You must not have a good view to the east.

103.3, 103.7, 104.5 and 105.7 all strong here further south in Kerry.

17-02-2019 3:18pm

Who's want 4fm anyway ? I've heard it at night sometimes, it's a disgrace.

Can't get it down my way anyway thankfully.

There's a new FM station Down in Carlow called RedRock on 106 Mhz.

The Cush · 17-02-2019 4:01pm

Willie O'Reilly, former commercial director at RTÉ, in his SBP Media & Marketing column today wrote the following about radio

I also believe the medium hasn't properly adapted to new technologies such as DAB and DAB+, with only RTÉ promoting this new digital technology. This is all the more remarkable given the number of British registered cars that are imported here, many of which have DAB radios.

RTÉ estimates that there are more than 420,000 DAB receivers in the country already. The argument here is that FM will be superseded by internet based listening.

I am not no sure. In Britain they have successfully launched more than 280 DAB stations. This has re-excited the listeners' interest the medium and driven new revenue to the operators. Are Irish listeners so very different?

17-02-2019 4:16pm

The British people couldn't care less, it's radio manufacturers pushing a new technology to make money.

There is no case for DAB except that it is a newer technology and above all it's digital but digital radio doesn't offer any benefit , it's not like it offers a gigantic increase in quality like digital tv can, digital was necessary for this huge increase in quality not possible with analogue sets.

The think by having "digital" in the advertisement that this will attract more people to radio.

The only reason cars have DAB is because radio manufacturers want to eliminate AM in order to make their radios more attractive because they receive wonderful "digital"

RTE's DAB transmissions are not great quality either.

The only reason Sweden was it ? adopted digital was because they were forced and there was a switch off of analogue why do this when people are happy with FM ? it turned out there was a huge loss in listeners to the national broadcaster because the signal was crap.

Why are they trying to reinvent the wheel ?

Mickey Mike · 17-02-2019 5:06pm

[Deleted User] wrote: »

The British people couldn't care less, it's radio manufacturers pushing a new technology to make money.

There is no case for DAB except that it is a newer technology and above all it's digital but digital radio doesn't offer any benefit , it's not like it offers a gigantic increase in quality like digital tv can, digital was necessary for this huge increase in quality not possible with analogue sets.

The think by having "digital" in the advertisement that this will attract more people to radio.

The only reason cars have DAB is because radio manufacturers want to eliminate AM in order to make their radios more attractive because they receive wonderful "digital"

RTE's DAB transmissions are not great quality either.

The only reason Sweden was it ? adopted digital was because they were forced and there was a switch off of analogue why do this when people are happy with FM ? it turned out there was a huge loss in listeners to the national broadcaster because the signal was crap.

Why are they trying to reinvent the wheel ?

You are very anti digital, from my point of view when it comes to quality, there is nothing worse than the AM band with noise, crackling and tearing. The best was Radio1 567kw and Alantic 252 when these txs were operating full power.

17-02-2019 7:33pm

Mickey Mike wrote: »

You are very anti digital, from my point of view when it comes to quality, there is nothing worse than the AM band with noise, crackling and tearing. The best was Radio1 567kw and Alantic 252 when these txs were operating full power.

What noise and crackling are you thinking about ?

I can listen to 252 perfectly clean AM sound with 0 cracking and even picked it up in the car all over wales in to Birmingham City in the Summer clear as a bell.

Listening to MW stations is different because they are usually mainly from the U.K and Spain and usually lower power and we're not in the target area so it won't sound nearly as good.

RTE DAB is compressed with 22 Khz sampling rate @56 Kbps last time I checked and it sounds like a poor quality internet radio station. And that's 56 Kbps split between 2 audio channels. If they changed to mono it wouldn't sound so bad because then you'd have one channel using all 56 Kbps but still at a very poor Mp2 and 22 Khz sampling rate.

Worse again is RTE use MP2 compression FFS, give me a good AM station any day !

I don't care much for stereo.

Most people who want quality are using spotify which uses a much higher quality and RTE are not going to persuade spotify users to listen to RTE's mostly poor quality of programming and 2FM is just a horrid joke at this stage.

EdgeCase · 17-02-2019 9:37pm

DAB to my ears sounds awful. I'd much rather listen to a proper stream online, a podcast or FM.

I've no interest in listening to AM though. It sounds very poor.

17-02-2019 9:59pm

I prefer the sound of a good quality AM station over highly compressed digital signal.

AM is perfect for the likes of Liveline and say, newstalk and other stations.

Gerry Wicklow · 17-02-2019 10:25pm

RTÉ guy cant understand why no one is interested in DAB here. Perhaps because they cant get a signal. It's the old Dublin 4 mentality again

I can just about get a DAB signal on a large roof aerial but it is not good enough to be usable.

17-02-2019 10:32pm

I could get DAB with a roof antenna too. But why would I bother when I have FM ?

That's my point, not that I'm anti Digital but what's the point of pushing DAB when FM is perfectly suitable for Radio ?

The Cush · 17-02-2019 10:43pm

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

RTÉ guy cant understand why no one is interested in DAB here. Perhaps because they cant get a signal. It's the old Dublin 4 mentality again

He never mentioned the commercial radio sector in the DAB plans considering he was Chief Executive of Today FM for over 12 years.

Mickey Mike · 17-02-2019 10:47pm

What sort of roof top ariel? is it the old VHF band lll television ariel, if so I could redirect it to Woodcock hill, but I have a feeling it won't work.

17-02-2019 10:49pm

Mickey Mike wrote: »

What sort of roof top ariel? is it the old VHF band lll television ariel, if so I could redirect it to Woodcock hill, but I have a feeling it won't work.

That should do the trick. The fact it's outside on the roof will help anyway.

EdgeCase · 18-02-2019 1:49am

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

RTÉ guy cant understand why no one is interested in DAB here. Perhaps because they cant get a signal. It's the old Dublin 4 mentality again
I can just about get a DAB signal on a large roof aerial but it is not good enough to be usable.

Even if you're in the coverage areas there's so little on DAB here you wouldn't be bothered with it. I have a tuner in the car in Cork City and tbh I rarely even flick past DAB and I find the audio quality for RTE Radio 1, 2FM and Lyric far more pleasant on analogue FM.

I don't really find the extra RTE stations compelling enough to make me tune in and all the stuff on the extra mux seems to just be yet more religious stations. I mean do we not have enough with Life and Sprit without UCB and Maria !? Ireland's not THAT religious anymore and it's really not adding to the choices on air.

If I want alternatives to FM, I usually end up streaming BBC R4 or R6 or listening to podcasts from various sources or some of the NPR stations. Sometimes I even listen to continental radio in the car as I speak a couple of languages.

It works fine most of the time on 3 streaming away.

18-02-2019 7:58am

I do like RTE Gold , in my opinion it's RTE's best station and I can't get it here I can get it on the M9 about 5-10 Km on the M9 heading for Dublin coming from Carlow but where it's coming from I have no idea ? not coming from Mount Leinster so probably Kippure ?

It breaks up a few times along the N7 which bugs the crap out of me , this is one reason alone I hate digital, it doesn't become weaker or audio fade , no hissing noise etc just there or not at all !

They could use LW252 for RTE Gold it would be brilliant and sound better, a Mono AM signal sounds a lot better than highly compressed digital muck.

MW 567 would be great for this station too. MW offers real alternatives.

In the U.S AM is massive and there isn't a hint of that changing and won't because of the geography , digital signals would be useless to cover much of the U.S/Canada.

People are not complaining about AM in the U.S why ? because it works and People are quite happy with it, they can listen to it in their cars, homes etc no problems.

As I said earlier, I could listen to LW252 everywhere in Wales and much better than some local AM stations, It blasted all the way into Birmingham City no problem, clear as a bell, no noise, no hissing , no fading just there all the time and to think it's on restricted power amazes me.

Radio fascinates me, one signal can travel hundreds of miles and sometimes thousands and one reason I hope to get my Amateur Radio Licence hopefully in May.

I can get RTE Gold on the internet but it sounds crap, but it's slightly better than DAB ,

DAB = 22000 Khz sampling rate, 56 Kbps Mp2, who the hell thinks that's good quality ?

BBC streams = 44100 sampling rate, 320 kbps AAC+ a major difference.

Gerry Wicklow · 18-02-2019 11:53am

In my case Cairn Hill provides all the RTÉs I want on FM. On the very rare occasions that I might want the extras I could use Saorview. Not practical on the move I know, but I can survive that. So DAB? Thanks but no thanks.

18-02-2019 12:03pm

We can all survive without DAB.

The Real puzzle is why do RTE not have Gold on FM ? FM is full of crap stations with Pop music belting out all over the band, why not put Gold on FM ? ridiculous !

EdgeCase · 18-02-2019 12:34pm

[Deleted User] wrote: »

We can all survive without DAB.

The Real puzzle is why do RTE not have Gold on FM ? FM is full of crap stations with Pop music belting out all over the band, why not put Gold on FM ? ridiculous !

I don't think the BAI would licence it as it's far too much like a commercial station. RTE get away with it due to the still semi experimental status and lack of commercial interests in DAB.

You'd struggle to make any case that Gold is meeting a public service requirement.

18-02-2019 12:53pm

Radio stations should be allowed to play and do what they want and not be highly restricted. It's a joke.

Radio stations shouldn't be obliged to play news every 30 mins either. That's irritating as hell.

I'd say these licensing restrictions are helping people turn away from radio because stations have to play certain genres at certain times, play some Irish music even if what they play is crap then people have to listen to the same news every 30 mins the entire day , commercial radio in Ireland can be quite irritating.

The future of RTE Radio 1 LW

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