RTE radio1 LW

And it's gone

Now O Donnail abu and a how to listen message

That would make a niche pub quiz question…

What was the last song played before LW252 shut down?

Well there's just 198 now and if that stops I'm ducking and covering. The usual rumours about how the Royal Navy subs use it as an indicator that the UK still exists...

😮

This SDR in Finland has an antenna which is making RTE very strong and Algeria weak. Also very strong reception of BBC Radio Scotland on 810.

SDXL-KB1 hosted by PSO. Supported by Finnish DX-Association.

Kuninkaankylä, Loviisa, Finland 🇫🇮 | Grid KP30fo, ASL 25 meters, [map], SNR 45:44 dB

Antenna: Super KAZ @260° with Wellbrook FLG100LN

I now have the O’Donnell Abu tune in my head!

Satellite might be gone before FM.

As I said before at: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120332447/#Comment_120332447

Also, the constant buffering on the go would be enough to put me off entirely.

None of that points to a specific legal remit for RTÉ to serve the Irish diaspora other than to find a "best effort" way that is also somewhat cost effective. With internet connections around the world, streaming audio via IP worldwide pretty much addresses this for the vast majority of said people. There's nothing unusual or "typically Irish" about that, some other European broadcasters have scaled back or cut their international operations via traditional broadcasting (The Netherlands, Flemish Belgium & Sweden are three that spring to mind) in recent years with more emphasis being put on internet distribution. In fact the global Irish diaspora (i.e. not just those on GB) have arguably never been better served by RTÉ than right now. And just on a few more points...

(1) In the past RTÉ Radio 1 has also been available on satellite on Eutelsat Hot Bird (closed a few years ago) as well as previously on two satellites on C-Band frequencies that covered North America & the Asia-Pacific regions that were definitely available in the late 90's & much of the 00's (can't exactly remember the two satellites in question but they definitely existed as their tuning details were given in the technical pages of Aertel around this period).

(2) RTÉ's shortwave presence over the decades has been miserly, restricted to short evening broadcasts to Africa back in the 1950's as well as a short period in the late 2000's & early 2010's (this time broadcast from the Meyerton facility in South Africa), and aside from that special broadcasts of the All-Ireland hurling & football finals that were eventually wound down until they were discontinued a few years ago.

(3) There is nothing in the Good Friday Agreement, in spirit or otherwise, for RTÉ to improve their coverage in Northern Ireland. The only broadcaster mentioned in the GFA as to helping improve broadcast access to was Teilifís na Gaeilge i.e. today's TG4, which prior to DSO only achieved a small amount of additional coverage through a low-powered relay station on Divis mountain to serve parts of Belfast which opened in the mid-00's. The current RNI_1 DTT multiplex in operation in NI (previously known as the NI mini multiplex aka NIMM) has part of its costs covered by the UK government (as it funds TG4 coverage) with the rest funded by RTÉ on a commercial basis. DTT TV coverage is supplemented by other methods of reception available north of the border, including via Sky, Virgin Media and Saorsat (only the latter being FTA). In the meantime, from its formation as Raidio Éireann there has always been a 32 county view to coverage that they've tried with "best efforts" to achieve, but without actual transmitters in NI you can only achieve so much terrestrially.

(4) Attempts at an Irish diaspora TV channel in the last 15+ years have been hampered by arguments as to whom would fund this service. RTÉ got their hands burnt over 20 years ago over Tara TV and without certain guarantees to funding such a service I can see why they'd be very cautious. As it is with the international availability of the RTÉ Player and TG4's online offerings, again the Irish diaspora at large have relatively easy access to programming that both broadcasters can offer internationally. If a channel aimed at Irish emigrants & extended family in Britain wasn't commercially viable in the early 2000's, it almost certainly isn't now.

In the end, like the old occasional shortwave broadcasts, numerous satellite radio availability etc. the longwave service is simply another method of reaching the Irish abroad whose time has come to discontinue due to the lack of active listeners especially compared to the costs of running them. Time moves on and the ways of reaching your audience are now different & more cost effective to manage. When a service like this is withdrawn, there is almost certainly at least some element of "collateral damage" but IMO with respect to the LW switch off this is essentially as small as can be practical. Too many radio DXer's & anoraks are too emotionally attached to the idea of terrestrial broadcasting being superior to every other method in every way - the reality is that for people wishing to inform & entertain to the public at large, they will use the technology that is best suited to achieve this.

Not even close, even if you take longwave only. The current Polish Radio 1 TX site on 225 kHz was constructed & brought into service in September 1999 while the NRK Radio 1 transmission in the Arctic at Ingoy (now closed) was constructed & brought on air in 2000.

Expand that on to MW, and in NI alone there was "greenfield" sites for the Townland/Goldbeat 828 and Heartbeat/Radio 1521 services in Cookstown & North Armagh while they existed in the mid to late 90's, while over in Britain Virgin Radio (as it was then) constructed some low-power filler sites to improve their MW coverage on some non-1215 kHz frequencies (these were later incorporated into Arqiva's vast network of sites).

Progress always leaves some collateral damage. We don't hear anything about it now but RTE's closedown of their analogue TV service hit a lot of people in the pocket. My parents decided to buy a new TV rather than get a Saorview box and many others chose to do the same thing. Others who opted to keep their old TVs had to buy a Saorview box. Some people in areas with poor reception had to get Saorsat. Over in the UK the BBC did the same thing. I see they're now planning to close down their standard definition TV channels within the next year, meaning some people will again have to upgrade their set-ups. These things happen and either you move with the times or you lose the service.

Nobody seems to know how many Irish people in the UK have no other options for listening to RTE other than longwave radio. It seems to be a negligible number - certainly not enough to justify keeping Longwave going. It's notable how muted the protests against the closure were this time, and how little traction it got in the media. I think most people are looking around now at the elderly people in their lives and are seeing how that generation has embraced modern technology. Are there really that many ancient Irish people in the UK who can't use a phone, and have absolutely no contact with other people who might help them? The arguments for keeping Longwave going in 2023 are very flimsy.

I think you're arguing beside the point here. If people want to watch the foreign channels, that's their choice. Some people are perfectly happy to just have the Irish stations and wouldn't dream of getting Sky or having a dish. What I was talking about was what people had to do when RTE closed down its analogue service. If your TV didn't have an in-built digital tuner, you had no choice but to do something about it. My parent's TV was getting old so it was a no-brainer that they'd upgrade. Even if they didn't, they'd have had to go to the shop and buy a new TV box. That's the point I thought I was making. That when technology changes, it can cost you money. Broadcasting companies don't wait forever for everyone.

There is still a late 80s / early 90s snobbery about satellite dishes going around ("what do you call the box on a satellite dish? A council house" etc etc).

Sky spent huge amounts of money on making Sky News fairly reputable, something later destroyed and which Comcast is now trying to rebuild; and running Sky Arts etc to break that down.

would it have been worth it to put RTE Gold on LW and have ad's on the station ?

Just to note: The BBC are only planning to close their standard definition TV channels next year on satellite, which they have already partly done so by ending SD simulcasts of the BBC One & Two "National" regions & BBC One English regions, leaving just a UK-wide SD BBC One & Two on satellite. There's no plans to end the SD broadcasts of BBC channels on DTT/Freeview, at least none announced yet.

IMO it should be relevantly painless as there were few SD only Freesat receivers ever sold, and the amount of such receivers still running today must be very small. Additionally, the amount of SD only Sky Digital receivers that are still in active use with a Sky subscription will only be known by Sky, but they must know it isn't that big and if ITV's decision to reduce the amount of SD regional channels it broadcasts on satellite to make way for HD equivalent capacity, then we're probably looking at a potential DVB-S switch off in the UK & Ireland at 28 East in the near future, as broadcasters will want to make capacity savings using DVB-S2 & MPEG4 regardless wherever they broadcast in SD or HD.

A terrestrial switchover would be more of a concern in that there is likely a good bit of DVB-T only tuners/receivers still in use across the UK that isn't DVB-T2 compatible, and is logistically more complicated. I don't know if we'll ever see a switch over to DVB-T2 only in the UK before terrestrial TV is eventually turned off for good, the time to do it would have been around the 700 MHz clearance, but that opportunity has long passed.

P.S. I thought there was a DTT switch-over help scheme in the Republic? Maybe I'm wrong and there wasn't, there was one in the UK and for eligible NI viewers they were offered a free Humax Fox-T2, which was a decent bit of STB kit then and still isn't bad today where it's relevant (these were used in NI so that people could receive RTÉ & TG4 broadcasts either via Saorview or the NIMM/RNI_1 mux).

"Saorsat was a help for those who could get no free TV at all before the switchover"

There was free (satellite) TV available here of worthwhile TV channels long before Saorsat, just not any of the Irish channels.

Many of the unserved 2 percent or so for analogue terrestrial may have had watchable reception but below what was considered an acceptable standard. Others may have been served by small cable systems, and others again by self-help retransmission, both authorised and otherwise.

I do not know anyone actually using Saorsat. People I can think of who may be in blackspots (some coastal areas) have sky if they watch RTE. Maybe Saorsat has more use in Northern Ireland by those who cannot get RTE terrestrially?

Yes, I should have said no access to RTE with an aerial. Anyone who was not averse to the idea of a dish, could get free TV from many satellites, but not RTE. Cable would not have 100% coverage either. Saorsat gave an option which was not there in Analogue times.

The way Ofcom judged coverage in the UK, is that the 98.5% included the marginal reception areas. They must have recognised that 100% of population coverage is not a practical proposition with terrestrial.

Out of this total 95.6% were predicted to be fully served, that is to a high level of reliability. An additional 2.9% were covered but not to the same level of reliability, these addresses are referred to as “marginally served” .

R

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RTE kept the DAB flag flying in Ireland long after others had given it up.