RTE announce multi million euro investment in Longwave transmissions

StaticNoise wrote: »

Genuine question here:

I understand that DAB was not what people hoped, and how, for a variety of reasons, it never took off here. But why is there such an investment in LW? At a time when the broadcaster is facing incredible financial challenges, why are they keeping LW going?

In an era of digital services, why is this getting covered off? There is a strong coverage of FM and AM services to the masses across the nation, and where internet is available, it's quite easy to find a plethora of services from RTÉ online.

It's hard enough these days to buy a portable radio with even an earphone jack socket,as they expect you to use Bluetooth, even if it doesn't travel more than a few yards,with no tone control info.

How long will they include LW?

At one time we did debate the US satellite radio system.

All broadcasters are required to have non-mains backup power at transmission sites and studios as per licencing.

Is there an emergency alert system in Ireland? Everybody's mobile phone would sound an alarm and display the emergency message. Operational in some countries.

AM and other bands would be useful for ongoing information though.

What sort of emergency are you contemplating that would require such a system?

For modern governmental systems to alert its populace to varying natural & man-made warnings, the key to getting the needed message(s) out is to use the popular technology of the time - essentially no different to those in the private sector disseminating information or entertainment of their own. AM radio still has its uses in some locations around the world especially where listeners still regularly listen to station on those bands (and by that I mean actually listening to a MW or LW broadcast, not an alternative method), like the Australian outback, and where no comparable system is in place either for cost or logistical reasons. But Ireland, while having plenty of places "in the back arse of nowhere" has no real wilderness areas where you can be tens of kilometres from anyone else at any one time, nor does it regularly suffer from extreme weather events, suffer regular significantly damaging earthquakes or have volcanic activity. The FM broadcast radio network (both PSB & commercial in the country) has as close to full coverage as practical from at least one station in weak but listenable mono reception, the three MNOs have wide coverage across the country, and in the very few places where there are total FM radio & mobile reception blackspots, in most cases satellite reception is available for both broadcasts and internet use where a landline or fixed wireless service isn't available. Nearly every household has at least one FM radio receiver, the vast majority have an active mobile telephone on them, and in some cases the two are combined - it therefore makes sense in Ireland to base any warning system on this as well as announcements on TV channels.

The idea of keeping an AM transmitter (or transmitters) in place for such emergency broadcasting in somewhere like Ireland is rather quaint, but it's not the 1980's or even 1990's. It's 2023. MW & LW radio is no longer relevant to all but a small few people in Ireland. As for sending out LW or MW radios for a potential catastrophic emergency, first you'll want to make sure that quality control of the radio is good - you don't want people not having used them in years suddenly putting in a fresh pair of batteries to find out they don't work because of poor quality components failing over time, placed in humid environments leading to corrosion etc. and besides they're unlikely to be kept in a grounded metal box that acts as a Faraday cage - if an EMP pulse takes out electronics over a very wide area, then most such radios are f****d anyway (unless it's using valves instead of transistors - highly unlikely these days)! It's also not a great idea of "keeping all eggs in one basket" - top priority emergency systems are designed to have multiple points being required to fail before operational failure actually occurs. If you're relying on one MW or LW TX to distribute emergency communications from a government, then that is an easy vulnerability to be attacked from an enemy. OTOH many people are using FM radios and mobile phones or a regular if not day-to-day basis. The average Irish person know that this equipment can work when it's needed to.

While we can all point to the lack of knowledge of certain politicians (YMMV), professional people across the world that plan and design such systems for their own countries at national and local levels are not idiots. They are constantly learning and keeping up to date with what is the best way to disseminate messages of varying importance as time goes on. The USA have their EAS, and quite an extensive system they have too, with traditional local "entry points" usually being clear-channel AM stations largely for the practice of receiving to relay alerts via other channels - but they simply don't rely on those AM radio stations to do the heavy lifting for them, that's why CONELRAD was already considered insufficient by the early 1960's. In addition, the UK government is to shortly do an emergency alert test based on the GSM Cell Broadcast standard (already used in several countries inc. the USA), they're not telling people to keep a radio handy to tune in to either 198, 693 or 909 kHz.