The future of RTE Radio 1 LW

FuzzyThinking wrote: »

I'd say the main reason it's hard to get our heads around it nowadays is we're so used to instant, unlimited broadband communication being totally ubiquitous with the Internet. If you go back to the 1950s to almost 2000, international telecommunications was possible, but prohibitively expensive, certainly before the 1990s.

People being able to talk to others who were hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of km away was a huge deal in those days and radio was pretty much the only kind of access anyone had to it, other than the odd, very pricy phone call.

We're living in a different world technologically speaking to the time when amateur radio evolved, but it still has a niche hobbyist use.

Or when the Zombie Apocalypse, or alien invasion, hits. It is always radio hams that save the day in the films

Mickey Mike wrote: »

That's what it looks like, 567MW was never off like that.

I have a memory of it being off at certain times, including one very long break. It is not easy to find the information, but this from 2008 seems to confirm what I remember.

http://www.globalirish.ie/2008/letter-highlights-mw-problems-in-north/

It’s also worth noting that in 2004, the 567kHz transmitter was off air for four whole months due to maintenance. I can’t remember ever reading or hearing any outrage about people not being able to listen to RTE during that time.

FuzzyThinking wrote: »

Why haven’t they removed the big AM tower at Mahon on the N40 ring just south of Cork City?

It’s been off air for a very long time and isn’t very likely to be used again for anything else. Just seems like a very big structure to continue maintenance of.

Looking at it on Street View I can see mobile cells attached to it now. But they're very low down so it could be possible to at least shorten it.

Mickey Mike wrote: »

What did they do to it 2 years ago when it was off for 10 weeks, with no change in improvement, this current work was to be carried out last year but Covid prevented this from happening, its more of a mast job alright like insulator replacement, and of course they might close it down after that, God only knows.

Baseplate replacement, they said.

Always thought LW252 should be a mix of RTE’s output anyway - rather than just radio 1.

Whatever hope of listeners on MW, LW is long gone

This is a chance for anyone interested to hear Denmark on 243 in the clear. I'm not sure of the schedule, but it is very limited. They are certainly there on Sunday mornings.

Czechia on 270 might not appreciate us moving to 261. It is a good signal in Ireland at present, but would suffer from RTE being on 261. They probably have expats here using the service.

doughnut2000 wrote: »

Anyone called in about the loss of the signal?

Listeners using it probably know
There were announcements that broke over programming a number of times a day recently on 252, that it was going to be off for 2 months. LW Listeners must be well used to outages at this stage !

Re: 261 kHz. If you look at the allocations in the 1948 Copenhagen and 1975 Geneva frequency plans, you'll notice that the upper allocations of the longwave broadcasting band were all assigned to locations east of the old Iron Curtain.

In the 1948 plan, the highest frequency in use west of the curtain was 245kHz in Denmark - all above 250kHz were in the USSR, Czechoslovakia and Finland wrt broadcasting, while the UK had several maritime stations on 260 & 270 kHz. Indeed, the UK and Ireland (among numerous other western European countries, made noted reservations in the 1948 plan of the CS 272kHz allocation potentially affecting local aeronautical and maritime services, reserving the right to take action where appropriate.

Going to the 1975 frequency plan, both Ireland and Algeria were given 254 kHz allocations, but all other allocations in the LW band above this were again confined to east of the Iron Curtain (along with Israel whom were allocated 281 kHz (later 279) that I don't think they've ever used). I'm not sure of the use of maritime/aeronautical transmissions in western Europe at this point, but it's clear that all allocations were well away from the Atlantic. Interestingly, Ireland's 254kHz allocation in GE75 (listed as being allocated for Tullamore) isn't spec'd for 500kW day and 100kW night, but 500kW day omnidirectional and 500kW night directional - the directional restrictions mandating a 7db reduction in power in the directions of southern Finland and northern Algeria. A 7db reduction meant 1/5th ERP leading to 100kW - When it came to establishing Radio Tara/Atlantic 252, RTÉ obviously felt that there was little point in building a directional array for 500kW either for night time broadcasts, or to have the "night" directional restrictions also apply to daytime, and so constructed a single mast for the station, deciding to simply reduce to 100kW omnidirectional at night to meet the GE75 restrictions.

A bit more recently, there was the ill-fated Musicmann 279 project in the late 90's and 2000's which planned to establish a station on 279 kHz on the Isle of Mann - the technical conditions they had published stated that they too had night time restrictions - 500kW max ERP daytime but restricted to 10kW at night. No further explanation was given as to why their night time ERP was restricted to such power.

To summarise - there is possibly a bureaucratic reason why any possible suggestion of moving RTÉ Radio 1 from 252 to 261 kHz may not be easy, beyond requiring the general formalities of seeking co-operation from Germany and (likely) Bulgaria. Also, wrt 270kHz, as rathfarnhamlad pointed out, Czechia radio is due to turn off their broadcasts on that frequency soon - they're already running at significantly lower power (50kW) than their GE75 allocation (750kW).

Finally, in respect to night time interference on 252 kHz from Aligeria, it perhaps would have been better technically to have kept on the 729 kHz transmitter at Cork to provide an alternative AM listening frequency in the south, rather than turn it off at the same time as 567 kHz at Tullamore - however to the best of my knowledge urban sprawl had been creeping up towards the Cork MW site, and that the site was desirable to property developers, weighing the cost of the land that could be sold vs. the actual number of regular listeners to 729 kHz in the mid-00's.

Edit: Link to the ITU website of the Copenhagen 1948 Frequency plan - http://search.itu.int/history/HistoryDigitalCollectionDocLibrary/4.65.43.en.100.pdf - I don't have a link to the GE75 plan ATM.

I see Lidl currently selling DAB radio alarm clocks