The future of RTE Radio 1 LW

Mickey Mike

Mickey Mike wrote: »

I listen to RTE radio via Saorview, a set top box with leads inserted into my Hifi stereo system, I know its a tall order but the sound quality is fantastic, RTE Gold as you can gather is crystal clear, all of them are.
If like LW power being reduced, what is the point, just listening to hiss, tear and noise.

LW is far from Hiss , tear and noise, I'm down in Carlow and it comes in clear as a bell . on DAB in Dublin Gold comes in clear as a bell but it's highly compressed in Mp2 format which sounds worse than a good analogue AM station to be honest.

Most of the Country can receive Lw/Mw , not DAB.

Mailcoachinn

Mickey Mike wrote: »

I listen to RTE radio via Saorview, a set top box with leads inserted into my Hifi stereo system, I know its a tall order but the sound quality is fantastic, RTE Gold as you can gather is crystal clear, all of them are.
If like LW power being reduced, what is the point, just listening to hiss, tear and noise.

I agree but that’s all well and good for listening at home. Doesn’t work for listening on the move. To be able to get Gold in the car would be great. That’s where the LW & MW transmitters could be put to good use. I didn’t find much wrong with the sound quality when I used to listen to Atlantic 252 back in the day

Mickey Mike

Mailcoachinn wrote: »

I agree but that’s all well and good for listening at home. Doesn’t work for listening on the move. To be able to get Gold in the car would be great. That’s where the LW & MW transmitters could be put to good use. I didn’t find much wrong with the sound quality when I used to listen to Atlantic 252 back in the day

Atlantic 252 operated at 500kw, it was fantastic and came across loud and clear. I'd love to see RTE Gold either on MW or LW with full power.
Question is who's going to do it? Our TV licence should contribute to it.
By the way I'd prefer MW as LW is not on all radios.

Yeah I'd be more for MW, I'd love gold on MW on the old 567 transmitter.

RTE see no value in what they call outdated technology, unlike most of the world, even in the U.S AM is still hugely popular.

RTE could sack Marian and save a tonne of cash, it's a disgrace the salary that woman is on !!!

I'd rather see the money go into a good AM station that's not full of pop sh1te and a station the whole country can hear and beyond.

This is also another benefit of long range radio, it can give people unfamiliar with Ireland some insight into the culture and perhaps boost tourism particularly on Shortwave.

Johnboy1951

Deleted User wrote: »

Yeah I'd be more for MW, I'd love gold on MW on the old 567 transmitter.

RTE see no value in what they call outdated technology, unlike most of the world, even in the U.S AM is still hugely popular.

RTE could sack Marian and save a tonne of cash, it's a disgrace the salary that woman is on !!!

I'd rather see the money go into a good AM station that's not full of pop sh1te and a station the whole country can hear and beyond.

This is also another benefit of long range radio, it can give people unfamiliar with Ireland some insight into the culture and perhaps boost tourism particularly on Shortwave.

Maybe it is a good thing so

I'm currently on my last night in the U.K on holidays, took the Boys to the Drayton Manor to see Thomas the Tank Engine in Tamworth and RTE 252 blasted clearly all the way from Fishguard, I was very impressed with the quality of the signal all the way, with the exception of the car park at Ash End House Children's Farm which is well worth a visit, anyway there was a hell of a electrical transmission line there, I never say the likes of the amount of cables on one pylon ! that's the only time LW 252 had difficulty, even when local FM stations died in the sticks 252 blasted through clearly even more than some local (ish) MW stations which are most likely running much less power.

Anyway, it's a shame LW 252 will be no more soon, it was a pleasure hearing it all over Wales and even in Birmingham in the middle of the City it was clearly heard in the car.

I'm in the Guest House/Hotel now listening to some MW stations very clearly, it's a pleasure to hear MW signals so plentiful and clear with such choice in music and best of all , you can hear them in the middle of nowhere in the car as you drive along and it's good I had the good sense to download the section of google maps I needed for my trip because the 3G signal is crap in a lot of the sticks and streaming RTE would have been impossible in a lot of places.

I find a good strong MW station a lot more listenable than a highly compressed DAB signal from RTE, perhaps it's due to the fact our ears are Analogue at the end of the day.

I wish we had a lot more MW stations in Ireland , free from the internet, playing enjoyable to listen to music that is not allowed by law at certain times of the day as part of highly restrictive regulator on FM, it's a joke. I don't think MW is as restrictive at all and it's a shame we do not at least have RTE Gold on MW.

I'm glad I got the opportunity to hear LW 252 so far from Home in such clarity before the signal is lost forever until the end of time, this will be a sad day !

Mailcoachinn

I really hope RTE isn’t thinking of going down the same road as Norway has done & that Switzerland & Germany are thinking of doing. DAB is the most overrated nonsense as a broadcasting medium. The sound quality is all compressed & sh1tty. The battery life on the receivers is p15s poor.

Give me a nice warm medium wave sound any day

Funny enough speaking of DAB in Germany, I was in Germany in July and was less than impressed in the signal quality, had to change to FM many times in the car.

FM works, MW works and my motto is , if it's not broke then don't fix it.

Why try reinvent the wheel ? they're trying to do this and it's all buckled !

I fail to see the cost benefits in several DAB transmitters than less MW transmitters or FM transmitters, all for the sake of being modern ? lol give me a break !

It's really sad to see so many radios in Currys as DAB and FM only when we have little to no DAB network so why not include AM ? at least I can listen to several U.K AM stations clearly !!!

Mickey Mike

Mickey Mike wrote: »

The future of the LW252 site will be the same as Tullamore MW567, it will be left abandoned and disused, never again will RTE use the AM bands. RTE will not spend a single cent carrying RTE Gold or any other station. You will even see RTE start reducing the power output of the FM transmitters, like they have done with our local low power tx.
The focus is Digital from here on in as far as RTE is concerned.

Is this actually the case though? Page 41 of RTE's own 5 year plan notes the continuance of FM as the primary means of radio reception into the future.

https://www.rte.ie/strategy/pdf/RTE-Strategy-2018-2022.pdf

RTE recently announced a Digital First agenda, but I think they meant internet services like the RTE player and app, I don't think they meant DAB because FM is their main transmission means. DAB has failed in Ireland, no other station is interested in DAB this is the issue, they know that FM is all people need so why on Earth install a DAB network ? for what ? ok if you want a network independent of FM then I could understand, this is where MW works, it covers large distanced with minimal infrastructure and best of all most radios have AM very few have DAB.

Sam Russell

It is not just DAB, there is DAB + - just to confuse the issue. RTE Radio 1 is available on both.

Mailcoachinn

Just seen that Radio Aire 2 in Leeds has had its license extended for another 5 years. Looks like medium wave isn’t quite dead yet.

I would love to be able to have a similar station here in County Clare

MW is certainly not dead, I was in Germany in the Summer and DAB was sh1t , coverage poor and they turned off all MW transmissions for that DAB pile of muck ? fools !

I was in Wales and Birmingham, and up as far as Tamworth a few weeks ago and had LW 252 belting in all the time even in Birmingham city. Beat that DAB you useless pile of crap !

Imagine that, just one transmitter covering such distance ? and to think car manufacturers wast to make us listen to DAB by removing AM ? scum bags the lot of them, governments included, MW/LW just works, one large transmitter can cover huge distances without a large network of smaller transmitters and LW/MW can penetrate walls and hills a lot easier than DAB.

Have to say I was less than impressed with DAB in Germany of all places, it's amazing the way the powers that be decide a route we should travel. Even go into Currys and low and behold you'll be hard pressed to find a radio with AM which is ridiculous because DAM could not take off and it has not taken off in Ireland, why ? because the commercial companies have no interest because FM works and people are not shouting for DAB simple as that so why force DAB upon us ? for what ?

Mailcoachinn

[Deleted User] wrote: »

MW is certainly not dead, I was in Germany in the Summer and DAB was sh1t , coverage poor and they turned off all MW transmissions for that DAB pile of muck ? fools !

I was in Wales and Birmingham, and up as far as Tamworth a few weeks ago and had LW 252 belting in all the time even in Birmingham city. Beat that DAB you useless pile of crap !

Imagine that, just one transmitter covering such distance ? and to think car manufacturers wast to make us listen to DAB by removing AM ? scum bags the lot of them, governments included, MW/LW just works, one large transmitter can cover huge distances without a large network of smaller transmitters and LW/MW can penetrate walls and hills a lot easier than DAB.

Have to say I was less than impressed with DAB in Germany of all places, it's amazing the way the powers that be decide a route we should travel. Even go into Currys and low and behold you'll be hard pressed to find a radio with AM which is ridiculous because DAM could not take off and it has not taken off in Ireland, why ? because the commercial companies have no interest because FM works and people are not shouting for DAB simple as that so why force DAB upon us ? for what ?

Soapbox time 😂😂😂

AM is old technology. That may well be the case. But ask yourself the question - what other method of broadcasting can cover that sort of geographical area and be picked up on a cheap handheld receiver? Answer: none.

DAB is a joke. If anything it’s a step back from analog radio. More transmitters to cover less reach, rubbish sound quality, changing batteries that often can’t be any good for the environment. And yet everyone who wants to kill off AM gives out about the electricity costs of running a transmitter.

I really hope that AM in the UK, Spain, and other countries in Europe where it is still popular survives for at least long enough to prove to the other countries that insisted on killing it off that they really made the wrong call

AM is old but it works.

All the companies want us streaming on the internet and do not want to maintain any form of transmitters and they will inflict us low bitrate digital noise instead.

Internet streaming also means low battery life.

RTE have a digital first campaign now and want us all on mobile devices thinking sure who wants a radio.

Mailcoachinn

My sister’s boyfriend was visiting a couple of weeks ago. He couldn’t understand why he couldn’t get radio Scotland on digital radio this far out. He actually believes that it’s all it’s hyped up to be. I tuned the radio in his car to 810 MW. Could hear it no problem. He didn’t know that you could even do that anymore. The guy is a network engineer ffs. Some people just blindly believe everything they’re told

TAFKAlawhec

Mailcoachinn wrote: »

Just seen that Radio Aire 2 in Leeds has had its license extended for another 5 years. Looks like medium wave isn’t quite dead yet.

I would love to be able to have a similar station here in County Clare

Pretty much all remaining MW activity in the UK is just a sustaining service right now - if a MW or LW licence & frequency was being offered up by Ofcom it's unlikely anyone would want it. There are odd exceptions like Radio Caroline getting a community radio allowance with a clear frequency & TX power allowance more than flea-powered, but that's an exception to the rule funded by a support group. The commercial groups would have no interest - they're happy enough to pay for the fees to keep current transmissions going as many of them are not hugely powered (Aire 2 as mentioned has an ERP of just 120 watts) but anything out of the ordinary and they'll bail out. Northsound 2 in Aberdeen is one example where they stopped broadcasting on MW when their Nigg TX site was being sold off and decided not to take up residence at nearby Redmoss, while Absolute Radio reducing their MW coverage footprint earlier this year is another.


ATM in the UK it looks like the pieces are falling into place for a general switch off of MW & LW radio broadcasting between 2022 and 2025 as licences expire, audiences listening via these mediums continue to fall with many of them listening to the stations via alternative means and Arqiva think about selling some sites out to property developers.


Other countries in Europe have different development levels, in some cases MW was effectively dead as a mass broadcast medium more than 20 years ago, some others still have stations on the band that have effective listener numbers to keep the transmissions going (TalkSport & BBC 5 Live in the UK spring to mind) and others are still invested in it to certain extents (e.g. Kossuth Radio, which is the main PSB radio station in Hungary, had it's big MW facility refurbished a few years ago) but the general trend worldwide is that it's in decline at varying rates. At best these declines are very slow if at all noticeable for well known "powerhouse" stations, particularly in Australia and the USA but even in those two countries while among the lists of most popular stations there have a good amount of MW (mainly) broadcasters among them, there's a quite large gap between them and most of the remaining stations available on the band compared to that for FM stations outside the top of those audience lists. In Australia several stations in regional areas that have been on MW for decades are now converting to FM, while in the USA many of the MW stations that would have served local areas with general formats, especially on the "graveyard frequencies" are either a pale shadow of what they once were or, as they say over there, "gone dark". If advertiser money isn't coming in for the station then it either gets cost-cut to pieces or gets switched off.


In my unpaid opinion, MW & LW radio broadcasting is entering its twilight years, and wherever it is for general listening or for DX'ing it is best to now make the most of it.

dxhound2005

RTE 252 is off air from 9.30 to 11.30 am 7 Sept. Algeria can be heard clearly on my set up.

Mickey Mike

The state should take over this Long Wave transmitter, sell off the existing TX and install a new 500kw Transradio TX, its the only way, but saying that I'd rather by a mile if the state could get the Tullamore MW 567 going (again at full power 500kw) as there is more MW radios than LW.

marno21

dxhound2005 wrote: »

Algeria can be heard clearly on my set up.

aka a normal night for most of Ireland especially areas of the south that have no FM reception.

Mailcoachinn

marno21 wrote: »

aka a normal night for most of Ireland especially areas of the south that have no FM reception.

I can get Algeria no problem on my old Soviet Radio. Just turn it 90 degrees.

Mickey Mike

marno21 wrote: »

aka a normal night for most of Ireland especially areas of the south that have no FM reception.

If people have no reception in those areas, they will have to resort to Saorsat. RTE have 100% coverage on the Island of Ireland with crystal clear sound, from next June people will have no choice but to install this excellent service.

Mailcoachinn

Mickey Mike wrote: »

If people have no reception in those areas, they will have to resort to Saorsat. RTE have 100% coverage on the Island of Ireland with crystal clear sound, from next June people will have no choice but to install this excellent service.

Yeh, expecting people to hang a satellite dish off the side of a car isn’t asking too much at all [/sarcasm]

Gerry Wicklow

Mailcoachinn wrote: »

Yeh, expecting people to hang a satellite dish off the side of a car isn’t asking too much at all [/sarcasm]

Or they could use the DAB service that doesn't exist on their car radio that doesn't support it either

marno21

Mailcoachinn wrote: »

I can get Algeria no problem on my old Soviet Radio. Just turn it 90 degrees.

If only I could drive my car at 90 degrees

Mailcoachinn

marno21 wrote: »

If only I could drive my car at 90 degrees

Drive her like she’s robbed...

Mailcoachinn

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

Or they could use the DAB service that doesn't exist on their car radio that doesn't support it either

Or trade up their car for a newer model so that they can benefit from a failed technology

byte

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

Or they could use the DAB service that doesn't exist on their car radio that doesn't support it either

It's a bugbear of mine, that modern cars generally don't allow you to change the headunit, like was possible years ago with DIN or double-DIN fittings. There are perhaps some exceptions, but generally, the radios seem to form part of the centre console fascia. An awful shame, IMO.

Gerry Wicklow

Sadly, I remember the days when a radio was an optional extra. Volkswagon supplied them in a cardboard box on the seat!

Mailcoachinn

byte wrote: »

It's a bugbear of mine, that modern cars generally don't allow you to change the headunit, like was possible years ago with DIN or double-DIN fittings. There are perhaps some exceptions, but generally, the radios seem to form part of the centre console fascia. An awful shame, IMO.

I think that integrating the radio into the dashboard was to deter theft?

Johnboy1951

Mailcoachinn wrote: »

I think that integrating the radio into the dashboard was to deter theft?

So we were told.

Antenna

It (252 LW) is due to be off the air again on this Thursday 20th September for 6 hours between 9AM and 4PM...

Mickey Mike

Antenna wrote: »

It (252 LW) is due to be off the air again on this Thursday 20th September for 6 hours between 9AM and 4PM...

You'd imagine they keep it going between now and the end of next June, what could they be possibly doing to the most maintained transmitter in the country.

Gerry Wicklow

Mickey Mike wrote: »

You'd imagine they keep it going between now and the end of next June, what could they be possibly doing to the most maintained transmitter in the country.

Trying to prove how costly it is to run?? :rolleyes:

dxhound2005

Mickey Mike wrote: »

You'd imagine they keep it going between now and the end of next June, what could they be possibly doing to the most maintained transmitter in the country.

I think that is just perception, because of the campaign. There are lots of FM radio and TV transmitter outages which don't get written about. Kippure seems to have been down more often than Summerhill this year.

https://twitter.com/2rnnmc?lang=en

The Cush

dxhound2005 wrote: »

Kippure seems to have been down more often than Summerhill this year.

Probably related to the 700 MHz clearance programme, Kippure is to get an 18m height extension.

Mickey Mike

The Cush wrote: »

Probably related to the 700 MHz clearance programme, Kippure is to get an 18m height extension.

That's exactly it, Maghera will be out for a while this week also, guess they'll have to get cracking with this clearance.

The Cush

Mickey Mike wrote: »

That's exactly it, Maghera will be out for a while this week also, guess they'll have to get cracking with this clearance.

I suspect this has been underway since last year, most of the government funding was allocated last year. Less than 12 months to switchover.

SPDUB

Off again this Friday October 5th for 2 hours between 11am and 4pm

They really are taking the piss

Mailcoachinn

SPDUB wrote: »

Off again this Friday October 5th for 2 hours between 11am and 4pm

They really are taking the piss

That'll be the second planned outage in just over a forthight!!!

The tinfoil hat-wearer within me would suggest that no work is actually being carried out & that this is just some sort of stunt to soften the blow for the final shutdown...

Gerry Wicklow

I thought they were warning lights I could see on the mast from miles away. Turns out it's just polished to death

Oscarziggy

I'm not around in the middle of the night but is 252 carrying RTE Gold through the night please?
Regards

Mickey Mike

Oscarziggy wrote: »

I'm not around in the middle of the night but is 252 carrying RTE Gold through the night please?
Regards

Yes it is, quality of reception is not great as Algerian radio is butting in on 252.

Oscarziggy

Mickey Mike wrote: »

Yes it is, quality of reception is not great as Algerian radio is butting in on 252.

Thanks

Mondo from Dublin

Prediction -.RTE LW 252 to cease next Easter Monday

Mailcoachinn

Mondo from Dublin wrote: »

Prediction -.RTE LW 252 to cease next Easter Monday

Any particular reason to suggest that? Not trying to be smart, just wondering...

Mickey Mike

Mondo from Dublin wrote: »

Prediction -.RTE LW 252 to cease next Easter Monday

What makes you say that? I thought it was the 30th of June.

Mondo from Dublin

Mailcoachinn wrote: »

Any particular reason to suggest that? Not trying to be smart, just wondering...

Both the RTE radio 1 & 2fm Medium Wave services closed on an Easter Monday

Mondo from Dublin

Mickey Mike wrote: »

What makes you say that? I thought it was the 30th of June.

Actually the press release at the time said BY June 2019:D

Mickey Mike

Its nearly gone as it is with constant power reductions, its now uncomfortable listening.