BANDSCAN THREAD

JDxtra

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117860248#Comment_117860248

According to Radiowaves, Freedom FM will use 105.2 in Dublin.

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117860298#Comment_117860298

I am currently not in Dublin. In my entry it says "Free 105.2" not "Freedom". The only frequency at Three Rock in my notes seems to be 92.1, but the power is rather low. Just 0.5 kW. Should only cover Dublin, but not more. The 87.7 in Cork is also 0.5 kW.

end of the road

deleted

maniac2003

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117853837#Comment_117853837

Deserves its own thread, great radio station so many great memories of listening to it in my youth

marno21

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117860248#Comment_117860248

106.7 in Cork, 105.5 in Limerick and 87.9 are the standard frequencies in those cities. 87.7 was used last Christmas for North Cork

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117861332#Comment_117861332

In my probably inaccurate records, it states the 106,7 in Cork with "8radio.com" and broadcasting with 1kW. Limerick is also mentioned with "8radio.com" on 105.5, however no kW power is mentioned. The 87,7 is mentioned in Galway with 1kW also as "8radio.com".

JDxtra

Freedom will use: Dublin 105.2 | Cork 106.7 | Galway 87.9 | Limerick 105.5

onmia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117865775#Comment_117865775

Correct , All systems go, Roll on the 18th

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117865775#Comment_117865775

However, the frequencies won't go very far, or let's say the signal isn't the strongest, but it covers the cities and a bit around these cities.

JDxtra

107.6 strong blank carrier last few days (one of the Newstalk frequencies I assume).

Antenna

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117860322#Comment_117860322

If it were possible for Freedom to use 92.1, it would be almost the same frequency of when Freedom FM was a pirate - 92.0 - (for a number of years until the May 2003 closures).

Spirit Radio is on 92.2 in north Kildare so 92.1 for a Dublin-wide station nowadays would suffer since that came on.

Spirit Radio FM Frequencies: Dublin 89.9 | Cork 90.9 | Limerick 89.8 | Galway 91.7 | Waterford 90.1 | Newbridge/Naas 92.2 | Navan 92.4 | Letterkenny 87.7 | Drogheda 92.1 | Killarney 91.2 | Bray/Greystones 90.1 | Dundalk 90.4 | Clonmel 95.8 | Kilkenny 93.1 | Carlow 90.5 | Athlone 90.6 | Ennis 90.3 | Tralee 88.0 | Sligo 93.4 | Wexford 94.5

Almost all Spirit's FM frequencies are spread across the RTE R1/2fm/RnaG sub-bands - (though a transmitter introduced earlier this year - Clonmel - is on 95.8)

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117881452#Comment_117881452

I didn't have the 92.2 down in my notes. The 92.1 is indeed coordinated in Dublin, however the question is, whether it's feasible to use it. Or more, why Spirit uses the 89,9. Probably because it's coordinated for 5kW, and thus the stronger signal.

All the other frequencies for Freedom seem to be 1kW. I would suggest that between Galway and Limerick you would have a continuous signal, with maybe a few outages. Down from Limerick to Cork, most likely not.

JDxtra

Newstalk 107.6 has audio again.

RetroNow have moved to 94.3.

Liffey Sound FM (Lucan) on 96.4 has been operating without RDS for some months.

marno21

Xmas FM 2021 (much earlier than usual this year).

Dublin City and County - 105.2

Cork City and surrounds - 106.7

Limerick city and county - 105.5

Waterford City - 105.9

Galway City - 87.9

Kilkenny - 104.3

Wicklow Town - 106.6

South East - 103.8

Kildare - 88.1

Bray/North Wicklow - 99.5

Longford and surrounds - 101.6

Cavan - 99.4

Mid Kerry (Tralee/Killarney) - 105.0

Clare/Co. Limerick - 105.2

NE Donegal/Letterkenny - 105.7

Sligo - 95.0

North Cork/SE Limerick - 87.7

Louth - 105.2

Plus new ones for this year

Port Laoise - 105.0

North Tipp - 105.2 (not sure here as this is the same frequency used in Clare).

(BAI have N Cork down as 87.9 and Galway down as 87.7 but these were the other way around before and there has been mistakes in their documents before. 87.9 would be difficult in N Cork due to Spirit in Castleisland on 88.0).

JDxtra

Is there a FreeDAB MUX operational in Cork, and if so - what services are currently on it?

The Dublin MUX is not on at the moment.

Declan A Walsh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117886628#Comment_117886628

I briefly heard dance music on 94.3 over the weekend. I wondered what it was. Presumably, it moved off 105.2 because of the imminent arrival of Freedom FM with its temporary license. It must be a month or more since Charity Radio or All80s has been relayed by the "oldies collective" on 94.3 FM. Maybe, RetroNow should stay on this vacated frequency.

JDxtra

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117852962#Comment_117852962

FreeDAB was on yesterday in Dublin but is not on today.

JDxtra

Freedom FM now testing across Dublin on 105.2.

marno21

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117899318#Comment_117899318

Same in Cork on 106.7 and Limerick on 105.5. 106.7 has fantastic range going well into North Cork.

KildareP

105.2 getting well into Kildare as well, test loop of only a few songs for the moment.

Very aggressive audio processing on 105.2, on par with 98FM and FM104 in loudness although sounds very like an Omnia unit as opposed to an Optimod.

JDxtra

FreeDAB in Dublin on block 5D with the following services...

Angel Vintage

Gorgeous Radio

Kream DAB

Purveyors Radio

London Music Radio

Shine 879

Black Culture

BKLR Radio

Wild Country

Flex UK

Tomorrow Radio

Sami Swoi Radio

Dublin's ABC

Ambition Radio

Release Radio

Spektrum Radio

JDxtra

An improved signal for Ice Radio on 102.5 out my direction.

Getting what sounds like a relay of All 80s on 94.3. Not sure if it is the usual broadcast source. Seems to be mono. Clashing with RetroNow.

Losty Dublin

As mentioned elsewhere Freedom FM launched their FM service at midday today with live programming from Greg Browne and a mini posse on hand in studio for hollering and hooting duties :)

Thus far the signal is unbelievable but what they are doing with it is making the difference. Loud audio, processing that's exciting but not too aggressive, modulation is controlled and the stereo separation is clear and doing an excellent job. It's a good example in how getting the audio bit right makes all the difference.

All in all things look and sound good for them over the next 30 days.

Declan A Walsh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117905575#Comment_117905575

I picked up All80s yesterday evening on 94.3 FM - and here's me saying in an earlier post that it looked like that crowd were gone and that RetroNow should stay on this frequency! Around Nutgrove, there was undoubtedly interference. On the M50 between Dundrum and Lucan, it sounded okay today. However, later on the M2 in Co. Meath, RetroNow was coming in loud and clear on 94.3FM.

dxhound2005

BBC Radio Scotland 94.7 very strong in Dundalk, including on the car radio. 250 KW from Sandale.

JDxtra

Freedom (on 105.2 at least) certainly are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in terms of processing. It’s showing as having the loudest de-modulated audio of any station on the dial at the moment. I’ve seen some pirates in recent times push it in a similar way using software based MPX encoding, I presume Freedom are using some fresh piece of hardware to achieve this.

Here’s an unedited audio sample recorded over FM (105.2) in Dublin this afternoon…

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gap3zcg9l4voeqo/Freedom%201052.wav?dl=0

Audio sounds very clean, great stereo separation and fresh sounding - at least to my ears! For dance music, a little extra thump in the bass frequencies would be nice – but this is a pop/general music station so they’ve to configure the processor to suit a wide variety of genres.

RDS with song information is working well, right on cue - although for me there does appear to be some minor issue with RadioText+ (car radio is only decoding this intermittently).

You can tell this station is a labour of love, well done to them.

KildareP

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117919435#Comment_117919435

It sounds very like an Omnia unit.

The audio does jump out at you but I find it's very tiring to listen to for anything longer than about 20 minutes - that's not just them though, FM104 and 98FM are equally very difficult to listen to for longer periods since they bumped up their processing in recent months (well, FM104 has always gone balls to the wall over the years but 98FM did sound very nice for many years).

marno21

106.7 sounds fantastic in Cork too.. very loud and works very well as you leave the city as noise is drowned out by the loud processing.

RadioText+ works fantastically on the Cork outlet too.. no issues on my Kia head unit.

Max Power 2010

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117924399#Comment_117924399

Yes have to agree it sounds very Omnia, and they do alot of over IP stuff that would accommodate a multi city.

I listened for a good while on Saturday in the car and enjoyed the audio but found it thin at times and I didn't feel that bare metal processer warmth, that said i am still getting used to the speakers in the new car and was fairly hungover.

dxhound2005

Freedom on 105.2 is a fairly good signal in Dundalk. For a while last night I was getting Heart North Wales on 107.2 from Arfon. Listed on Wiki as 2.5 KW but on Frequency Finder 18.75, which is more likely.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arfon_transmitting_station