The future of RTE Radio 1 LW

Gerry Wicklow

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

@Mad Lad
:eek: WOW :eek:

Wow is indeed what I said, more than a few times, absolutely amazing, and what is even more amazing is the signal strength wasn't huge either, S7 maybe a bit higher at times and the fact the signal was beamed towards Asia not Europe.

Johnboy1951

Mad)Lad wrote:

RTE have a digital first agenda today which means they want us using apps more and more ...

One might find that difficult to believe judged by the quality of the apps they produce.

Johnboy1951

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

One might find that difficult to believe judged by the quality of the apps they produce.

I don't use their apps, don't watch RTE, listen to Radio 1 in the mornings for the news if u want to call it that<MOD SNIP>

Various other things bug me about RTE's news and it's sick I have to pay for it

MOD EDIT: Deleted entirely irrelevant paragraph that had absolutely nothing to do with the thread

icdg

Mad_Lad take a warning for that rant which I’ve just deleted, it had absolutely nothing to do with the thread

Hotblack Desiato

Somehow or other I don't think DRM is going to be the answer for UK-resident Irish OAPs.

Then again, there are people who are OAPs now who were eagerly programming ZX81s when they came out...

Hotblack Desiato

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Somehow or other I don't think DRM is going to be the answer for UK-resident Irish OAPs.

Then again, there are people who are OAPs now who were eagerly programming ZX81s when they came out...

If they can actually buy a DRM radio for 20 Euro they wouldn't care and it would be as easy to use as a DAB radio or any radio.

I have a DRM radio made by Gospell , it's the GR-216 and I got it direct from China, it was expensive of course, but as a radio Enthusiast I had to have it as it has DRM.

There's a new DRM chip that has been released which should make the radios a lot cheaper, let's hope.

DRM is gaining huge traction in Asia which is as I said earlier big for DRM as the attraction is efficiency, so , in my opinion there is no stopping DRM now.

Next to adopt DRM will be The USA who have no intentions of turning off MW or SW stations due to the vast areas they have to cover , there are some trials going on there now beaming to Europe and I must see if I can catch them sometime.

Australia, might be next also for the same reasons.

Europe ? who knows, once DRM radios become available for a good price then the countries who have not turned off and demolished transmitters might change to DRM.

RTE ? who knows, I'd like to see some more trials to compare sound quality. The investment in the transmitter tower the last few years would mean closure would be a waste and a shame.

567 Khz would be the better frequency though.

I was impressed how strong the signal was in Wales and up into Birmingham city last year, we listened in the Car at times, it was much stronger than a lot of their local MW stations.

I do believe strongly that we should have an alternative to the internet especially since the company that internet radios get their list of stations from went bust, all my stations gone, all my favorites gone , they can be got back of course but another company had to intervene and it was a serious pain in the ass as I had to re-register again and add all my stations. It highlights how vulnerable internet services can be where as one radio station transmitter can cover vast distances and is not influenced by the internet , unless of course they have uplinks through the internet. But 1 transmitter can cover the entire planet on SW.

I forgot about this.

https://www.rtl-sdr.com/gospell-gr-227-new-sdr-based-digital-broadcast-radio-adapter-for-cars/

Over on the SWLing Post blog we’ve seen news of this new SDR based car radio called the Gospell GR-227. Gospell is a Chinese manufacturer of various broadcast consumer radio products including DRM receivers. It is intended to be an adapter for your car that lets you listen to digital broadcast stations such as DAB/DAB+ on VHF and DRM on UHF, but it can also be used for standard AM and FM reception. From the product sheet it looks like it will simply plug into you car USB port, and output audio through that port into your cars head unit. Control of the unit is through an Android app.

Ok so I learned that DREAM DRM decoder does not yet support xHE-AAC codec, interesting, can't wait to try a transmission that is transmitting this codec.

225LongWave

https://www.savertelongwaveradio.com/listen/

@19.8kb/ps EEP AAC+ mono
sample Radlett, Hertfordshire
https://www.ean.ie/mp3/rte-drm-london-m25.mp3

225LongWave

18:40
Moderator. Please delete ALL above links https://www.ean.ie/mp3/

The DRM station on 9655 Khz isn't making it here tonight, not a hint, propagation is non existant on the 31 meter band tonight, that's the way it goes.

I can pick it up on this sdr here http://czsdr.proxy.kiwisdr.com:8073/

More DRM from CNR-1 China, 30 Kw in Stereo, unfortunately , due to a close CRI 500 Kw station I could not get a successful decode but DRM is seriously starting to impress me.

LW 252 received in Michigan back in 2010. Probably when it was running full power ?

Mickey Mike

[Deleted User] wrote: »

LW 252 received in Michigan back in 2010. Probably when it was running full power ?

Sounds better there than what it does now in Ireland, I think the transmitter must be fcuked all together, I just don't know anymore.

Mickey Mike

Mickey Mike wrote: »

Sounds better there than what it does now in Ireland, I think the transmitter must be fcuked all together, I just don't know anymore.

I think 252 sounds just fine, at least to me.

Mickey Mike

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I think 252 sounds just fine, at least to me.

You must be kidding, it sounds awful, cracking and tearing is all I hear, don't know how people listen to it in the UK. Those were the days back when 500kw was used, it was fantastic, I really loved MW 567 when every radio had MW.

Portsalon

Mickey Mike wrote: »

You must be kidding, it sounds awful, cracking and tearing is all I hear, don't know how people listen to it in the UK. Those were the days back when 500kw was used, it was fantastic, I really loved MW 567 when every radio had MW.

Thunderstorms? Worst time of the year for listening to AM, surely?

No crackling here at all, solid as a rock at nearly 50 db over !

When I was in Wales and up to Birmingham it was one of the strongest signals all over and sounded good in the Mitsubishi Outlander. 1 x Transmitter, it was great , I was impressed.

Listen to it on my SDR using external Whip antenna, the Bonito MA305, until I get the Megaloop back.

http://emeraldsdr1.ddns.net:8073

Or my other SDR using the Bonitp Megadipol

http://emeraldsdr.ddns.net:8074/

BBC R4 even belts in on my SDR's, Can pick up 198 Khz on portable radio also but obviously much stronger with external antenna.

I can receive it perfectly on a portable radio also.

Oscarziggy

Latest --
https://www.rte.ie/aertel/desktopxhtml/169-13.html

Oscarziggy

Link doesn't work anymore --- this one does.
https://www.rte.ie/aertel/desktopxhtml/169-10.html

dxhound2005

For anyone interested Algeria will probably be a good signal even during the day. And Denmark on 243 should be easier to hear. It is only on for a short time every week, and I can't find a current schedule. Very good signal with me, when RTE is nulled. I heard them on Sunday mornings with religious services.

This video shows reception in England.

Doblin

It's a pity 2rn don't put up some videos of the work, a lot of anoraks would be very interested to see it.

L1011

There was a decent amount of DRM+ kit on show at IBC in Amsterdam over the weekend

Absolutely none of it concerned with LW/MW/SW transmission anymore. All in to FM; primarily looking at it as a method to get additional stations in crowded cities where bands are full.

If DRM ever returns to use it won't be on high power LW transmitters blasting stations to many countries; it'll be as a cheaper setup than DAB, for smaller areas or tricky terrain.

It's only the beginning for DRM, they can't ignore the efficiency benefits, Remember my CNR screenshot above ?, I was able to receive it clear as a bell and with only 1 or 2 second breakups , with only 30 Kw of power that is astounding , however, conditions would not allow that every night but the potential is huge.

LW 252 is DRM capable and I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult to upgrade to the latest standards they could quarter the power of 252. But that won't happen, it will be switched off as soon as possible.

Future radios will have at least MW that are DRM capable, I got one already made by Gospell.

The distances covered by a single transmitter also can't be ignored as it can greatly cut down on infrastructure required.

The only issue I have with DRM is the audio quality is deliberately and unnecessarily poor, the technology allows for far higher quality but 11 Kbps stream no matter what codec they use won't be great.

L1011

The beginning was over a decade ago. DRM on LW/SW/MW is dead. The primary need for the long distance broadcasting that it was designed for has ceased.

It isn't even popular enough to be an anorak format. If it has ANY life, its on VHF Band II ("FM")

FSO_Polonez

L1011 has hit the nail on the head. DRM was over before it began.

NRK Finnmark is the latest casualty on the slow demise of LW. It will be closing in December. I'm surprised that Eur1, RMC & RTL are still going at all.

The decline of AM in the UK too seems to have stepped up a gear. LoveSport handed back their AM licence a couple of months back, Heritage Radio has gone over to FM. TalkSport want to close MW transmitters. So even where audio fidelity is not important MW isn't wanted anymore seemingly.

UK university stations are abandoning their LPAM frequencies at a rate of knots. Personally I'm surprised that this hasn't happened ages ago. After all, when did you last see someone of about 19/20 walking along while tuning in a transistor radio? Probably not in at least 2 decades.

Even in North America AM is on the decline. In Canada, radio stations are, in their words, "flipping" from AM to FM on an almost weekly basis. The only place in a 1st world country where AM makes sense anymore is the likes of Australia, which is so vast that tens of thousands of FM transmitters would not be viable, as opposed to AM where only a handful of transmitters can cover huge distances. Added to that, Australia is, after all, located in a very remote part of the world to the extent that interference from foreign stations is not really an issue, even at night.

I agree that there are some of the advantages of AM. Yes, very simple, immune from government censorship, TXs & RXs can be very easily be improvised by anyone with basic electrical engineering knowledge. But as a remotely mainstream means of broadcasting? Let's face it, AM is fckd.

I say this as someone who loved to spend each evening after school listening to the old Bush radio in its lovely timber cabinet, surfing the MW/LW/SW & trawler band dials. Those were the best of days. But the world has moved on now & so too has technology & how we get our information...

Indeed lets put everything on the internet and we'll see how that pans out in the event of a internet outage, or some kind of natural disaster. Or there's no electricity and the cell network goes down which can happen in the country.

The internet can't go into chaos ? really ? well, I work in the cloud and I can't even begin to tell People how fragile it is and that's not even the "internet" but the cloud but there's more and more reliance and dependence on the cloud and we're in the very early stages of the cloud.

Don't kid yourselves that digital is robust, it's far from robust, far, far far........and it's becoming more and more controlled and censored.

Johnboy1951

The internet can't go into chaos ? really ? well, I work in the cloud and I can't even begin to tell People how fragile it is

That brings up an image of Mad_Lad beavering away inside some server, inside a server farm, located somewhere remote and cold.

Do you find it crampred in there?

Johnboy1951

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

That brings up an image of Mad_Lad beavering away inside some server, inside a server farm, located somewhere remote and cold.

Do you find it crampred in there?

Cramped, on the contrary, the size of Data Centres and their power consumption is mind boggling, particularly the power consumption, all this talk about closing AM stations to save power, it just makes me laugh, Data Centres are exploding and they consume many, many MW's more power than even the strongest AM station , granted the number of services provided is vastly greater and we are only at the early stages, already there is vastly more than most people are aware controlled by data centres and the list is rapidly growing, some day will come when everything is controlled in some form in some data centre.

Gerry Wicklow

The internet may not go down but local access to it is very vulnerable, especially in rural Ireland. My mobile coverage goes at the first hint of wind. If a tree took out my landline... goodbye internet.

Gerry Wicklow

Deleted User wrote: »

Cramped, on the contrary, the size of Data Centres and their power consumption is mind boggling, particularly the power consumption, all this talk about closing AM stations to save power, it just makes me laugh, Data Centres are exploding and they consume many, many MW's more power than even the strongest AM station , granted the number of services provided is vastly greater and we are only at the early stages, already there is vastly more than most people are aware controlled by data centres and the list is rapidly growing, some day will come when everything is controlled in some form in some data centre.

I often wondered why they don't put apartments or greenhouses at data centres. Use all that waste hot air. Then again, I suggested the same for the Dáil and no one took up the idea

Sam Russell

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

I often wondered why they don't put apartments or greenhouses at data centres. Use all that waste hot air. Then again, I suggested the same for the Dáil and no one took up the idea

The trouble with the Dail is that they blow hot and cold alternately. It would be so unreliable.

Gerry Wicklow

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

I often wondered why they don't put apartments or greenhouses at data centres. Use all that waste hot air. Then again, I suggested the same for the Dáil and no one took up the idea

It would be difficult to harness the waste heat.

Gerry Wicklow

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

The internet may not go down but local access to it is very vulnerable, especially in rural Ireland. My mobile coverage goes at the first hint of wind. If a tree took out my landline... goodbye internet.

The internet is a web of connections but the companies that host them can and do go down, we only have to look at the recent outage of internet radios , the service that internet radios connected to to list the stations rather than inputting the ip address and port manually, imagine how long that would take ? but it caused a lot of problems world wide , this is why I say we shouldn't have all our eggs in the cloud, our our heads............

This service is a bit like DNS, DNS is by the way now in control of the UN since Obama decided to give them control the idiot and absolute clown of a man.

Basically DNS is what they call the keys to the internet and those who control DNS control the internet which is partly true, without DNS you have to type the IP address of every site manually and port.

Anyway, too much of our lives, services etc all going to the cloud and it's a disaster waiting to happen and because many people here believe the internet and all that makes it work is indestructible and can never fail has created a system where even thinking about a backup plan seems unnecessary and inconceivable.

Gerry Wicklow

"We had a massive power cut that lasted 2 hours" Terry Prone on Newstalk Fri 25 Oct. Awwww the poor thing. Hope she never has to live in the real world.

Johnboy1951

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

"We had a massive power cut that lasted 2 hours" Terry Prone on Newstalk Fri 25 Oct. Awwww the poor thing. Hope she never has to live in the real world.

I wonder what 'massive' means in this context?
The whole country?; the whole city?; half the city?; a big section of the city?; their building?; her studio?

I had not heard of any massive power cut that was newsworthy.

.... or maybe she could not charge her iPad .....

Mickey Mike

Since LW 252 returned I noticed a signal improvement, is this true or only my imagination. AM is definitely on the decline, the future of radio is FM and nothing else.

TAFKAlawhec

FSO_Polonez wrote: »

Even in North America AM is on the decline. In Canada, radio stations are, in their words, "flipping" from AM to FM on an almost weekly basis. The only place in a 1st world country where AM makes sense anymore is the likes of Australia, which is so vast that tens of thousands of FM transmitters would not be viable, as opposed to AM where only a handful of transmitters can cover huge distances. Added to that, Australia is, after all, located in a very remote part of the world to the extent that interference from foreign stations is not really an issue, even at night.

Even in Australia, MW/AM is in general decline. While the ABC local stations and some of the metropolitan commercial talk stations still score well with listener ratings, it is otherwise a largely forgotten band compared to FM. Several of the "heritage" stations in regional & rural Australia already have or are planning to switch to FM, only a very few such stations like 2WEB in Bourke, NSW (585 KHz) and 4KZ in Innisfail, QLD (531 KHz) continue to emphasise their MW presence as they otherwise serve quite large geographical areas based in small (often remote) towns. But these are the exceptions. Otherwise most MW stations these days in Australia except those mentioned above largely consist of horse racing info by the local TAB, sports programming, specialist non-English language broadcasting, radio reading for the blind and one or two "gold" music stations - but outside the state capitals those gold stations are heavily networked with a local breakfast show only.

Zird

When R1 extra & Dab cease, good old-fashioned longwave will be the only way to listen to Sunday morning religious programs like it were 2004

I was happy to hear DAB is going because it offered absolutely nothing better to the Public over FM. It made no sense to keep it going and they use ancient Mp2 invented long before Mp3 for Heaven's sake. So glad to finally see the end of it.

LW well, it just does what it's intended to do and one transmitter v the many more that would be needed for DAB nationwide coverage.

JUst wish they would put RTE Gold on FM, just wish they kept 567 Khz going, I bet they regret it because you will find it hard to find a radio today with LW, of course , I mean in the likes of Currys who mostly sell DAB/FM not even MW.

Mickey Mike

I am shocked and saddened with the forthcoming closure of the digital radio channels. This is a step backwards. I have always thought digital is the way forward, if it had to be, shut down trashy Long Wave and shut down the FM radio network and focus solely on Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB). The format is not been pushed. I never thought we'd be so backward.

Mickey Mike

Mickey Mike wrote: »

I am shocked and saddened with the forthcoming closure of the digital radio channels. This is a step backwards. I have always thought digital is the way forward, if it had to be, shut down trashy Long Wave and shut down the FM radio network and focus solely on Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB). The format is not been pushed. I never thought we'd be so backward.

DAB wasn't a step forward, it offered nothing, RTE thought by advertising "digital" it would attract a tonne of People but it didn't , yes they could just turn off FM but for what ? they national broadcaster in was it Sweden ? shut off FM and lost a tonne of listeners.

No other broadcasters in Ireland were interested in DAB either because why would they bother ? Who's going to pay for the infrastructure ?

Putting "digital" down in advertising doesn't really make much of an impact these days and without all the other radio stations on board it's never going to work.

Making a law to shut off FM won't work either, can't force digital on People who couldn't care less about it.

Digital has virtually no impact on people like HD TV so the interest is virtually 0.

I would like RTE to save Gold, it was one of their best stations, not plagued by the modern crap even RTE 1 are pushing more and more, not plagued by adds every few mins, News & weather every 30 mins to 1 hr repeat repeat repeat.

If RTE want to improve revenue then they need to improve content, the best platform in the world can make up for poor content in this day and age of streaming media, RTE are not the only Public broadcaster to be in difficulty.

The fact much more people were calling for the continuation of LW says a lot about DAB.....

It's about time Dee Forbes is sacked because she is sinking RTE.

FSO_Polonez

Zird wrote: »

When R1 extra & Dab cease, good old-fashioned longwave will be the only way to listen to Sunday morning religious programs like it were 2004

To be honest, I don't see why the religious programs can't be on FM. I may not exactly be the church's number-one fan, but that's not the point. After all, in the 2016 census, more than three-quarters of the population regarded themselves as Catholic, so it's not exactly as if the religious programs are only relevant to a tiny minority of people. Those who don't like it surely could find something else to listen to...

L1011

Deleted User wrote: »

and they use ancient Mp2 invented long before Mp3 for Heaven's sake.

MPEG 1 Layer II and MPEG 1 Layer III are not that different in age; or performance. Indeed Layer 2 is superior than Layer 3 at higher bitrates and is why it is used on DVDs and for stereo sound on digital TV through 4K even with Layer 3 having been long since available.

Layer 2 was first demonstrated in 1989 and Layer 3 in 1990

FSO_Polonez

Deleted User wrote: »

I was happy to hear DAB is going because it offered absolutely nothing better to the Public over FM. It made no sense to keep it going and they use ancient Mp2 invented long before Mp3 for Heaven's sake. So glad to finally see the end of it.

I don't think it's over just yet. I'd be interested to see just how much momentum the FreeDAB project can gather...

As regards the talk of Radio Nova taking over some of the DAB allocations, this I would welcome...

FSO_Polonez

FSO_Polonez wrote: »

To be honest, I don't see why the religious programs can't be on FM. I may not exactly be the church's number-one fan, but that's not the point. After all, in the 2016 census, more than three-quarters of the population regarded themselves as Catholic, so it's not exactly as if the religious programs are only relevant to a tiny minority of people. Those who don't like it surely could find something else to listen to...

Yes I agree 100% and I've said this before.

FSO_Polonez

FSO_Polonez wrote: »

I don't think it's over just yet. I'd be interested to see just how much momentum the FreeDAB project can gather...

As regards the talk of Radio Nova taking over some of the DAB allocations, this I would welcome...

Sure they can try.

JDxtra

RTE Radio 1 and RTE 2fm are actually both also carried in DAB+ format (HE-AAC v2 codec) on the RTE MUX. Even at only 64k they sound amazing, shows the potential of that format.

L1011

L1011 wrote: »

MPEG 1 Layer II and MPEG 1 Layer III are not that different in age; or performance. Indeed Layer 2 is superior than Layer 3 at higher bitrates and is why it is used on DVDs and for stereo sound on digital TV through 4K even with Layer 3 having been long since available.

Layer 2 was first demonstrated in 1989 and Layer 3 in 1990

It doesn't matter, the quality is crap and so are RTE's internet streams and the majority of Irish radio stations.

RTE chose to use very low bitrates for their MP2 streams and that was fine in the early days.

Most countries that had DAB have gone to DAB+

There's no point pushing a digital service just because it's digital, especially if the sound quality is crap and there's no point forcing a service that has no benefit on the public.

Mickey Mike

[Deleted User] wrote: »

It doesn't matter, the quality is crap and so are RTE's internet streams and the majority of Irish radio stations.

RTE chose to use very low bitrates for their MP2 streams and that was fine in the early days.

Most countries that had DAB have gone to DAB+

There's no point pushing a digital service just because it's digital, especially if the sound quality is crap and there's no point forcing a service that has no benefit on the public.

Do you think LW is good quality?