The future of RTE Radio 1 LW

Elmo

The new Atlantic 252 wrote: »

It is scandals that RTE have been forced to spend 2 million euro on longwave the past 6 years due to a few radio enthusiasts with political connections making a disproportionate amount of noise with flux outrage about elderly people. These radio enthusiasts have engaged in an social media harassment and bullying campaign against any average Joe who disagreed with them on Twitter etc. Btw could Mickey Mike/Mad_lad please stop posting shïte.

~350,000 a year, possibly the same as they've had to fork out for Oireachtas TV, because a few civil servants and politicians didn't want to pay for Saorview.

kazoo106

This price keeps going up and up

If it's 60kw (which many estimate the power level has been reduced to) then assuming it uses 75kw of electricity (allowing for heat loss) at discounted rates of €0.15 /Kwh - the annual ESB cost would be €98,550 - which in the big scheme of things is Tiny. - where are the other €252(pardon the pun) thousand going???
I feel the op above would have no problem if the output were still aimed at British teenagers instead of containing the audio of RTE 1

icdg

Take a warning for backseat moderation and personal abuse, the new Atlantic 252

RTE won't be paying domestic rates for electricity.

Why would someone come on with the name "the New Atlantic 252" ? what's that all about , given the nature of the discussion and all.

What a great first post.......

225LongWave

17 all re-advertised by 'irtc' in 1998 try info@bai.ie
(353) 1 6441200 2-5 Warrington Place, Dublin DO2 XP29


HP 1251kHz Westport 50kW 1584 Ballina 1kW 1386 Limerick 1kW
Many are. ITU co-ordinted frequencies shared with neighbouring countries equal power
Limited to 1kW search "Geneva 1975" World Administrative Radio Conference. GE-75

kazoo106 wrote: »

I do remember a list in the mid 90's of MW allocations for nearly every county in Ireland, I wonder does anyone still have that list or is there an online source for it?
I do agree that RTE Gold would suit MW, there is a station on 1494kHz here in the NE for the past few months and I must say, I find myself listening to it in the car quite a bit as it nearly covers all of Co. Louth and into Monaghan.
There is definitely a market for well done AM.

Mickey Mike

The new Atlantic 252 wrote: »

It is scandals that RTE have been forced to spend 2 million euro on longwave the past 6 years due to a few radio enthusiasts with political connections making a disproportionate amount of noise with flux outrage about elderly people. These radio enthusiasts have engaged in an social media harassment and bullying campaign against any average Joe who disagreed with them on Twitter etc. Btw could Mickey Mike/Mad_lad please stop posting shïte.

I have no idea what you're talking about, myself and Mad_Lad have different views on this matter and leads to a good discussion along with many others, its great so don't take it personally, relax.

icdg

We might not feed the troll, please

225LongWave

For 2013 252Lw Total site & transmission operational cost €859,000
(€429,500 in 6 months) Search 2rn Tarriff Changes 2013.

In March 1998 500kW x18 + 100kW X 6 = IR£1,100 daily ( €1400 ) €42,000pcm

Therefore €252,000 over 6 months is Purely Historic 20 year accounting by RTE ?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BdeFTOjkpzY

Mickey Mike wrote: »

I have no idea what you're talking about, myself and Mad_Lad have different views on this matter and leads to a good discussion along with many others, its great so don't take it personally, relax.

Mickey Mike

Is there any news of RTE Radio 1 launching on mini DAB+ in the UK? the time is pushing on. Another idea is to broadcast on low power MW in the main cities, 1 or 2kw of power. We're down to the last 3 months of LW 252.

lgs 4

Mickey Mike wrote: »

Is there any news of RTE Radio 1 launching on mini DAB+ in the UK? the time is pushing on. Another idea is to broadcast on low power MW in the main cities, 1 or 2kw of power. We're down to the last 3 months of LW 252.

it's a good idea, but, it would have to be national DAB network in the UK. Not all Irish people live in Birmingham and London. That could cause problems with sports rights and other talk sports radio stations. Who cover Irish sports events.BBC Radio 5 live sports and 5 sports extra and Talk Sport. Who geo-block sports events.

Last I checked a few months ago a decision had not been made.

What's most likely to happen is that 252 will be switched off in the hopes people will then just forget about it.

Shame as it's signal belted in all over wales and into Birmingham when we were there in the Summer all from just 1 single transmitter.

They know now DAB is not nearly as efficient as once believed.

I can't get DAB and even if I could I'd only be able to get a few RTE stations only.

And they try push DAB as being modern better than analogue FM ? well no, not really because FM carries digital information these days and you don't have to re-tune or tune at all a lot of modern FM radios especially in cars so the case for DAB becomes less valid.

As if tuning a radio is a chore........

Digital Radio does not provide the amazing quality benefit that is seen with HDTV, proper HDTV, RTE Digital TV broadcast are not that great and are too compressed but it's ok for smaller TV's.

L1011

Their Irish broadcast licence would not be valid on UK DAB in three weeks time and obtaining a UK licence for something provided from outside the UK would be problematic.

The Cush

L1011 wrote: »

Their Irish broadcast licence would not be valid on UK DAB in three weeks time and obtaining a UK licence for something provided from outside the UK would be problematic.

The Irish broadcast licence isn't valid for UK DAB now, they require an Ofcom licence. This was the reason they didn't launch on the Manchester small-scale DAB trial mux a few years ago. This was addressed in a UK Dept of Culture consultation last year, I posted links to the consultation and the outcome here at the time.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=102977559
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=105600397

L1011

The Cush wrote: »

The Irish broadcast licence isn't valid for UK DAB now, they require an Ofcom licence. This was the reason they didn't launch on the Manchester small-scale DAB trial mux a few years ago. This was addressed in a UK Dept of Culture consultation last year, I posted links to the consultation and the outcome here at the time.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=102977559
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=105600397

That is rather strange, seeing as the UK hosts huge quantities of broadcasters broadcasting specifically to a foreign country on a UK licence (TV3 Scandinavian, Discovery Europe, MTV Networks, etc etc).

225LongWave

2 week closure June/July 2016 to replace mast base-plate estimated €360,000?
€4.75million 252 transmitter has DRM capability 160kW was Never used in 12 years

RTEs
Dee Forbes & J.P. Coakley both know the cost of €verything and the value of Nothing !

€504 daily cost of running 252 at 300kW €15,000pm
€186,000p/a ESB 10kVA Supply to Summerhill = € 46,500 Quarter

TOTAL €859,069 2013 2RN Annual Expenditure for 252kHz/1190mts LW

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3hjO0j8x1OE
27 June - 8 July 2016

TDA Algeria3 252 (750kW from 19:00)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6pi78vo87c8

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BdeFTOjkpzY
ATLANTIC 252LW 500kW TRANSMITTER
(August 1989 - 2001 & March 2004- July 2007)
video © 1996 Greg Parke

SPDUB wrote: »

Well that would explain why they have put the sea area forecast on DAB & LW ( and fade out from the Ronan Collins show on LW ) from February this year

Seemed an odd decision to put it on LW as well if it was closing in June ,

kazoo106

Was driving today from Donegal back to the East Coast while trying to listen to Radio 1 - Neither Mountgorey Hill, Truskmore, Monaghan, Holywell or Clermont Carn are any way good around Omagh, with AF hopping between all through RDS. Ended up just switching to LW which was perfect.

Mickey Mike

Long Wave 252 is staying until Jan 2022, is this correct? Where did the info come from?
If its true and I doubt if it is, they should move to 261khz and ramp up the power to 300kw.
I didn't hear anything of its continuation beyond June 29th. I await with interest.

Glad to see an important piece of infrastructure kept functioning for another few years.

A radio station however is only as good as the programming and RTE's programming is deteriorating .

RTE are creeping in more and more modern music to the point it's beginning to become a pop station lol. The music played on Tubridy's show is especially bad and not really fit for the age of audience, not even I like that muck they're playing. Even int he early hours they play an oldie and a very modern crap song after.

RTE are trying to gain a younger audience but the music isn't going to work in fact it's turning off my Mother, Aunt and many other older generations.

SPDUB

What's happened to my post which I made in this thread today at 2pm and now only exists in 225LongWave's quote .

Just realised that what I quoted is also gone though why my post wasn't just edited to remove that quote and leave the factual information in it seems odd

Posts are deleted all the time on boards by mods.

I've had an uncountable amount of posts deleted.

Mickey Mike

SPDUB wrote: »

What's happened to my post which I made in this thread today at 2pm and now only exists in 225LongWave's quote .

Maybe its a bit suspicious, are you sure you didn't dream it up? You never know what a few pints on a Saturday night might do.

SPDUB

Mickey Mike wrote: »

You never know what a few pints on a Saturday night might do.

A few pints of cola on saturday has never caused problems before

Mickey Mike

The long term use of the Long Wave tx was to be DRM, This format failed to begin with, not even a chance to get off the ground. I read in a Digital Spy website where the DRM decoder was removed from the Clarkstown site in 2011, rendering it an analogue tx only. Its future was to be digital and now that its gone, RTE seems to have very little interest in it. It explains why there is so many switch off dates, they wanted out which is mostly the blame of the DRM failure.

225LongWave

TRAM/300L has DRM with Maximum 160kW R/F output.
RTE struggle to accept they have a highly viable digital service

BBCs' Project Mayflower DRM 855kHz was Deliberately mis-managed !

DRM transmits AAC+ same as streaming & Excels MP2 audio

Few overpaid Execs at Donnybrook D4 should seriously seek employment elsewhere.

Mickey Mike wrote: »

The long term use of the Long Wave tx was to be DRM, This format failed to begin with, not even a chance to get off the ground. I read in a Digital Spy website where the DRM decoder was removed from the Clarkstown site in 2011, rendering it an analogue tx only. Its future was to be digital and now that its gone, RTE seems to have very little interest in it. It explains why there is so many switch off dates, they wanted out which is mostly the blame of the DRM failure.

DRM is now AAC+ which is far more advanced than RTE's DAB MP2, however , currently transmissions seem to be in 16-20 Kbps which is not that good and to be honest Analogue is just fine for Shortwave but it is amazing to hear radio Kuwait in stereo , on Shortwave is amazing.

DRM on MW and LW would be interesting, stereo and wouldn't have to be so limited in bandwidth. track info etc.

But, to me analogue is just fine for most radio programs, quality of programming to me is more important.

225LongWave

Radio1 LW252 still needs 250kW daytime (100kW after 18:00)
doesn't need the high-power 150kW early morning as Algeria252
are faint with solar magnetic energy pulling to Egypt & middle:East

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VFVFtr-r7_Q
RTL 261kHz 08:00 Sunday 25/9/2016 week after GAA All-Ireland
senior Final was broadcast & RTE 252 was 'OFF-AIR' until 10:55am

+3kHz move upto 255kHz would resolve problem of Algeria 10:1 vs Ireland 252

[Deleted User] wrote: »

DRM is now AAC+ which is far more advanced than RTE's DAB MP2, however , currently transmissions seem to be in 16-20 Kbps which is not that good and to be honest Analogue is just fine for Shortwave but it is amazing to hear radio Kuwait in stereo , on Shortwave is amazing.

DRM on MW and LW would be interesting, stereo and wouldn't have to be so limited in bandwidth. track info etc.

But, to me analogue is just fine for most radio programs, quality of programming to me is more important.

dxhound2005

We can't use 255 because it is not in the Band Plan. Long Wave channels start at 153 and go to 279, all divisible by 9, and 9 kHz apart. There is one exception the French station on 183, but nobody is on 180. If we went to 255 and Algeria stayed on 252 it would probably cause an awful whistle, known as a heterodyne, where both were being received.

Heterodyne Interference:
A heterodyne is an audible beat note or whistle that is generated in a receiver when two signals on slightly different frequencies are received simultaneously. In a perfect world where all MW stations operated exactly on their allocated channels, heterodyne interference would not be a problem. However since different channel plans are used in different parts of the world it is possible to hear heterodynes on the MW band. Occasionally, within one radio planning region it is possible to find off channel stations either because the station has failed to conform with planning guidelines or a technical problem has arisen in the transmitter. In 1978 the frequencies of the European Asian and African channels were aligned to all be exact multiples of 9kHz, and every station was expected to retune their transmitter to the new channels.

The solution would be 261, but again Ireland does not have this in the Band Plan.

marno21

Indeed. 255 would be troublesome to receive on any digital radio.

Europe 1 on 183 is there because 180 was split between it and Deutschlandradio Kultur on 177. However, since 177 closed down a few years back there is no requirement for it to stay on 183.

kazoo106

Buy 279 off the Manx - or close it down and put it on 612 from the same site - antenna should work fine as 1/2λ for 612kHz would be 245m and the Clarkestown mast is 248m high - just slightly over a half λ

DRM is of no real benefit because again, Analogue works and sounds a lot better than the 16-20 Kbps digital ringing. Think of digital artefacts on TV well that's kind of what you hear, it's not nice.

If they could get to 48 Kbps AAC+ it would sound a lot better.

Mickey Mike

I'm getting a little lost, Is the long wave service going to continue after June or turned off? because if so there's little point in talking about moving frequencies or MW bands. I guess we're all at a loss without proper information.

TAFKAlawhec

dxhound2005 wrote: »

The solution would be 261, but again Ireland does not have this in the Band Plan.

From memory reading details about the Copenhagen 1948 and Geneva 1975 bandplans (and they're a little distant in my head), in the long wave bands in the 1948 conference, allocations in the long wave band were not made for western Europe above 245kHz, but permitted east of the Iron Curtain up to 281kHz. This was because several countries with Atlantic coastlines (including Ireland) had marine allocations in this upper end of the of the band which had primary importance, and indeed many of them noted concerns of the 272kHz allocation to Czechoslovakia might have on these stations. Come 1975 it appears that this limit was raised to 254kHz (later 252) which gave an additional LW channel in western Europe that was allocated to Ireland (and also I think Spain for use as a single frequency network, though to my knowledge they never did anything with it), but again the three frequencies above it were off-limits in western Europe - East Germany had use of 263kHz, Czechoslovakia still had 272kHz and the Belarus SSR had 281kHz.


While the marine transmissions in the upper LW band are, I assume, now gone, I wonder if there is any reason that such a exception to the use of these frequencies still technically applies. Funnily enough while there was plenty of talk about Musicmann 279 around the turn of the century, in was noted by themselves that they would have to reduce their TX ERMP to 10kW at night. Cheekily, Luxembourg in the early 00's also made an application for clearance to use 279kHz at Junglinster - obviously whatever was its purpose never came about.

TAFKAlawhec

Deleted User wrote: »

DRM is now AAC+ which is far more advanced than RTE's DAB MP2, however , currently transmissions seem to be in 16-20 Kbps which is not that good and to be honest Analogue is just fine for Shortwave but it is amazing to hear radio Kuwait in stereo , on Shortwave is amazing.

DRM on MW and LW would be interesting, stereo and wouldn't have to be so limited in bandwidth. track info etc.

But, to me analogue is just fine for most radio programs, quality of programming to me is more important.

The Digital Radio Mondaile standards now call for the xHE-AAC standard for all receivers. This is down to the development of the Unified Speech and Audio Coding format being approved and subsequently the rule for also requiring CELP & HVXC codec compatibility was also dropped. If I recall correctly, when RTÉ did their late night DRM tests on 252kHz back in the 00's one of the streams was using HVXC.


Given my own experiences with the HE-AAC v2 codec (generation before xHE-AAC, and HE-AAC v2 is compatible with xHE-AAC), if a DRM transmission could generate a bit rate to handle a 32kbps stream of HE-AAC v2 with SBR & PS and a sampling rate of 32kHz, it can be reasonably close to a decent FM broadcast in terms of audio quality - definitely not hifi quality but most listeners shouldn't find it objectionable. At 24kbps with everything else the same, you're starting to push it - though if you then drop the sampling rate to 24kHz you could compensate a bit for that especially if most of the content is speech based or the music is aimed at an audience where generally their upper audio frequency limit is falling close to 12kHz.


The big problems for DRM are that, at least at the time it was initially developed, there wasn't a large amount of bandwidth in the LF, MF & HF frequencies as a good amount of AM broadcasts were still about so there was little opportunity to either properly simulcast or use dual-channel transmissions that could have made it stand out. If a large enough number of countries were thinking of giving it a go, I'm sure a new ITU conference to allocated LF & MF frequencies with DRM in mind could be done, but I'd doubt there's the interest. Many old LW & MW transmission sites have either been demolished or left in a state that would require significant work and money to get them going again. Comparing them to broadcast radio on VHF (FM & DAB) they are much more prone to man-made and natural interference, more expensive to maintain (a VHF TX aerial can be made with significant gain and/or directivity to derive from the power consumption and efficiency of the transmitter a good bit easier than for a LW or MW TX aerial) and suffers from the same disadvantage as DAB does in terms of power consumption of receivers compared to AM & FM. Not to mention the slow move away from "linear" radio by audiences towards more on-demand content like podcasts, especially among young adults.


In most places there doesn't appear to be an economic argument to introduce DRM transmissions on a large scale for a domestic audience in 2019 - the possible exceptions being in some developing countries. India is the big one, All-India Radio have been investing in running simulcast AM/DRM transmissions for a few years now in the MW band (not withstanding AIR's finances). If it doesn't work out there, then it's pretty much game over for DRM anywhere.

225LongWave

Closure on 30th June 2019 was confirmed in 2017 & there has been no announcement
from Radio Telefis Eireann (RTE) to indicate service extension until January 2022

279kHz 500kW Isle of Man licence has expired - no need to buy or make an offer
since Tynwald, Manx government will NOT grant permission for new LW service !

you can now rent or buy the CFA
https://www.crossedfieldantenna.com

225LongWave

RAF Northolt westLondon (adj A40) & RAF Lyneham , Wiltshire
still use NDB [Non-Directional Beacon] on 284kHz You can often hear
transmission of "Morse code" identifier between 266kHz & 279 LW

https://www.hfunderground.com/wiki/Radio_beacon




quote="TAFKAlawhec;109894380"]From memory reading details about the Copenhagen 1948 and Geneva 1975 bandplans (and they're a little distant in my head), in the long wave bands in the 1948 conference, allocations in the long wave band were not made for western Europe above 245kHz, but permitted east of the Iron Curtain up to 281kHz. This was because several countries with Atlantic coastlines (including Ireland) had marine allocations in this upper end of the of the band which had primary importance, and indeed many of them noted concerns of the 272kHz allocation to Czechoslovakia might have on these stations. Come 1975 it appears that this limit was raised to 254kHz (later 252) which gave an additional LW channel in western Europe that was allocated to Ireland (and also I think Spain for use as a single frequency network, though to my knowledge they never did anything with it), but again the three frequencies above it were off-limits in western Europe - East Germany had use of 263kHz, Czechoslovakia still had 272kHz and the Belarus SSR had 281kHz.


While the marine transmissions in the upper LW band are, I assume, now gone, I wonder if there is any reason that such a exception to the use of these frequencies still technically applies. Funnily enough while there was plenty of talk about Musicmann 279 around the turn of the century, in was noted by themselves that they would have to reduce their TX ERMP to 10kW at night. Cheekily, Luxembourg in the early 00's also made an application for clearance to use 279kHz at Junglinster - obviously whatever was its purpose never came about.[/quote]

Johnboy1951

225LongWave wrote: »

Closure on 30th June 2019 was confirmed in 2017 & there has been no announcement
from Radio Telefis Eireann (RTE) to indicate service extension until January 2022

279kHz 500kW Isle of Man licence has expired - no need to buy or make an offer
since Tynwald, Manx government will NOT grant permission for new LW service !

you can now rent or buy the CFA
https://www.crossedfieldantenna.com

Thanks .. interesting read.

I did have to change the URL from https to http to get to the site though

http://www.crossedfieldantenna.com

225LongWave

https://www.paulrusling.com/IsleofMan.html

MUSICMANN 279 initially planned land-based
CFA at Cranstal N/E of the Island IOMIB Ltd
Isle of Man International Broadcasting included
commissioned Environmental Impact Assesment
which later required an off-shore platform in Ramsey Bay (Bahama Bank)

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Thanks .. interesting read.

I did have to change the URL from https to http to get to the site though

http://www.crossedfieldantenna.com

kazoo106

One of these things went up recently somewhere near Jurby on the Isle of Man - think it was for trial and test

Limerick_Dub

kazoo106 wrote: »

One of these things went up recently somewhere near Jurby on the Isle of Man - think it was for trial and test

I think this was sometime around 2006, assuming we're both referring to the same project. Music Mann 279 kHz was the name of the station though it never actually went on air IIRC

kazoo106

No there is another one up - don't know the reason. Perhaps if any Manx boardsies out there they could check.

Mickey Mike

dxhound2005 wrote: »

We can't use 255 because it is not in the Band Plan. Long Wave channels start at 153 and go to 279, all divisible by 9, and 9 kHz apart. There is one exception the French station on 183, but nobody is on 180. If we went to 255 and Algeria stayed on 252 it would probably cause an awful whistle, known as a heterodyne, where both were being received.

Heterodyne Interference:
A heterodyne is an audible beat note or whistle that is generated in a receiver when two signals on slightly different frequencies are received simultaneously. In a perfect world where all MW stations operated exactly on their allocated channels, heterodyne interference would not be a problem. However since different channel plans are used in different parts of the world it is possible to hear heterodynes on the MW band. Occasionally, within one radio planning region it is possible to find off channel stations either because the station has failed to conform with planning guidelines or a technical problem has arisen in the transmitter. In 1978 the frequencies of the European Asian and African channels were aligned to all be exact multiples of 9kHz, and every station was expected to retune their transmitter to the new channels.

The solution would be 261, but again Ireland does not have this in the Band Plan.

In America they use 10 kHz apart which gave more space for better quality, I examined it myself when I was there back in 2004, I don't know why it wasn't done in this neck of the woods. AM radio sounded very good I must say, on a par with FM (in America).

There are some HD AM stations in the U.S supposed to sound pretty good indeed, who needs DRM !

kazoo106

How much HD are you going to notice even if that extra kHz was used?

225LongWave

MadLad was referring to r/f channels @ 10kHz
530/540/550 A/F 8-12kHz; since FCC manage
AM spectrum with greater geographic separation
with adjacent local channel -/+20-30kHz apart; allowing for the required AF bandwidth on HD-AM
unlike UKs archaic AM planning after Geneva '75
effective 23rd November 1978


Radio Caroline 648
https://members7.boardhost.com/PirateRadio/msg/1555880938

kazoo106 wrote: »

How much HD are you going to notice even if that extra kHz was used?

225LongWave

https://members7.boardhost.com/PirateRadio/msg/1555880938.html

Has any-one told JP Coakley @ RTE to cancel the
Scrap-man travelling to Clarkstown 4th July ?

Mickey Mike

225LongWave wrote: »

https://members7.boardhost.com/PirateRadio/msg/1555880938.html

Has any-one told JP Coakley @ RTE to cancel the
Scrap-man travelling to Clarkstown 4th July ?

Can you explain this please?

225LongWave

earlier message from comments on RadioCaroline 648am or internet stream ?
https://members7.boardhost.com/PirateRadio/msg/1555861250.html

added today by 'wireless waffler' who seems to think BBC own 252 ??
https://members7.boardhost.com/PirateRadio/msg/1555942690.html

Mickey Mike wrote: »

Can you explain this please?

?

Oscarziggy

http://www.hildegarde.ie/longwave-radio-to-continue-for-the-benefit-of-diaspora-naughton/

The Cush

Oscarziggy wrote: »

http://www.hildegarde.ie/longwave-radio-to-continue-for-the-benefit-of-diaspora-naughton/

Deputy Naughton said: “The maintenance of long wave radio for the Irish diaspora is a significant concern to the Committee.

“The UK regulator, Ofcom, will not grant RTE, as a non-UK broadcaster, the necessary licence to broadcast on digital in the UK at this time.

Still awaiting the necessary legislation to allow Ofcom grant overseas radio stations like RTÉ a licence to broadcast within the UK, as was recommended in the UK government's response to the DCMS Commercial radio deregulation consultation back in 2017. Delayed due to Brexit planning most likely.

international licensing. We still intend to seek powers to enable Ofcom to license overseas services but want to secure this by adopting a more gradual approach. We will start with Republic of Ireland services and only consider extending this to stations licensed in the European Union (EU) and other countries after we have assessed what reciprocal arrangements may be needed to protect against the broadcast of harmful content;