BANDSCAN THREAD

Dublin's Irish language station RnaL was being relayed on 1206kHz MW for a while last Sunday night. ( 1206 kHz is 249 metres on vintage radio dials in m)

Having a listen around the band lately and the last of the 8200's have been retired from the airwaves of Dublin!

East Coast FM sounding as loud but significantly cleaner, they appear to have stayed within the Optimod stable but not sure of model. Sounding nice. Their 8200 was possibly the loudest on the planet but they've not gone for extreme loudness at all costs this time.

Nova similarly sounding a lot cleaner, no more thumping and pumping, another Optimod from the sounds of it.

While Dublin City FM appear to have gone with something from the Omnia stable instead which is tuned a lot more competitively than the 8200 was.

Yes. Energy Power AM has been on today. From 1pm, they relayed Retro FM (also on 91.9FM).

A new station was reported in England on Sunday 06 August, still on at 6.30 pm Monday. Relaying Caroline Flashback also like Daniella on 1197 kHz. It is an offshoot of Radio Caroline, on DAB around Norwich and Cambridge, as well as online. The only SDR hearing it in England as far as I can tell is in Pulham Market in Norfolk, with a good signal.

http://www.carolineflashback.co.uk/#home.html

To allow long distance listeners / DXers to try and hear it. It wouldn't interfere with it within its service area.

I have tried 1206 at night for Big L Radio London and heard nothing (it is reportedly on until August 14th). It is reportedly difficult to hear them even very locally!

1197kHz is also very clear at night since the closure of Absolute on AM. It was used for multiple filler transmitters for Absolute and before that fillers for the BBC R3 mediumwave network until that was closed in 1992 and went FM-only.

It was also the MW frequency of the original/ pirate WLR (referred to above by DublinsABC)

The two wooden poles (since gone) seen in this 2009 street view are remnants of their 1197, it was a T-antenna strung between the poles:

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.2592692,-7.1523334,3a,25.2y,311.53h,98.47t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sK3rtzysudy13aTu9Oiiy_A!2e0!5s20090401T000000!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu

A station in Co. Louth (Telstar) also used 1197 in the 1980s according to DX Archive

Daniella on 1197 were playing recordings from the original (1980s) Radio Nova, Sunshine 101, and NRG 103 a couple of nights ago

No sign of Radio Daniella the occasions I tried last weekend on either recent frequencies 1197 or 1206 kHz

On Saturday night I heard Energy 1440 relaying the webstream for the 100 year commemoration of the extremely shortlived (3 days? ) Dublin station 2BP - which appeared a few years before the forerunner of RTE (2RN) in 1926. Being played out I heard a documentary about the establishment of the BBC in the 1920s. The relay went off the air at 11PM. The MW relay would have allowed reception of the webstream on vintage radios (on 208m of their dials) !

A bit of significant MW news, in the UK , Gold Radio is due to close its London AM 1548kHz (194m) at the end of this month - which originally carried Capital Radio, then Capital Gold AM.

This is audible at night in Ireland

News – Ydun's Medium Wave Info

8-Radio test transmissions on FM tonight, this time around returning on a multi-city basis for temporary licence

99.5 in Dublin is a nice sounding FM version of Energy 1440.

High pressure bringing in the usual BBC stations - BBC Cymru and others on RDS at Dundrum Town Centre

Did a spot of anoraking this morning. Some quirky atmospherics with the hood spell of weather but was picking up the Galway tx from 8radio on 87.9 in Stillorgan. World domination @SimonMaher !

The death of Long Wave:

Had a tune around in the south of the country to see if any obvious casualties from storm there today, - Classic Hits from N0WEN HILL 95.4 is gone blank (still transmitting but silent)

I noticed today that there was 1960s music being played on 98.4 FM when driving around south Dublin. That is the frequency normally used by The 90s Network. I assume that it is the same people behind this '60s station.

I presume because of their friends over on Freedom (who cater for 90s) being available on FM licence for this month they are trying something different?

There is very little 60s music to be heard on radio in Ireland nowadays so maybe there is some audience for it?

In the UK, 60s music is more likely to be heard on radio, and still playlisted to a significant extent by 'Gold' (albeit Gold gone from nighttime 1548kHz MW over here as of a few days ago) and there is the 'That's 60s' music TV channel available on free-to-air satellite receivers as well as Sky etc

Always interesting to read of long distance reception of Irish transmiters

the lift conditions continuing this morning, Heart (south Wales) 105.4 coming in relatively well (RDS levels) on car radio, French on 104.7 (no RDS), Nation on 102.9 (Carmel) an unusual one to hear amongst others to the south coast of Ireland

Very long distance DAB reception during such exceptional conditions are going to be over long sea paths, and unlike most of the rest of Dublin, you have a straight line across sea - from Dublin 5 to Cornwall. (DAB 11B)

Last night near the south coast around 1AM moving about aerial (a weak spot for Newstalk 107.6 transmitters) I was getting an unusual French station on 107.6 FM from "Morlaix/Langolvas" . It was noisy, and no RDS decode but I heard the station name Radio Bonheur. Its from the northwest of France and their 107.6 listed as being just 1kW.

Surprisingly the music was all in the French language, no English - it seems to be their format from some info online about the station.

I think these conditions have greatly reduced today though.

.

The big SSB amateur radio contest of the year, CQ Worldwide, will start at 0000 UTC Saturday 28th, 0100 Irish time. A flavour of the 2022 contest in the video below. The contest bands will be filled with signals depending on the time of day. 10 metres should be lively.

Anyone tuning the bands should set tuning steps to 0.5 khz if possible. Those without HF receivers can listen on the Kiwi receivers, of which there are a few in Ireland. There is a drop down menu to select the Amateur bands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5rFn4g9BUw&t=261s

http://rx.linkfanel.net/snr.html

Spirit is decent