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RTE Long Wave 252 reprieve ?


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Old 05-12-2016, 17:32
Vectorsum
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...Personally, I think RTE would have been better staying on 567 kHz rather than 252 long wave. Are the masts at Tullamore and Athlone still in place or have they been dismantled? It's a shame there's nothing on MW from the ROI apart from Spirit Radio on 549khz. DAB in the ROI also sucks. FM is still very much the norm in the country.
The choice to leave MW was a bit of a strange one; RTÉ1 on 567 and 2 on 612 (? I think - been many years) were easy listens on MW around Ayrshire and well on up the road into Glasgow, so it's difficult to see what extra LW brought, apart from a more stable night-time skywave and of course generally better groundwave propagation. AM broadcasting only returned at all due to the co-funding arrangement RTÉ had to make Clarkstown happen, there's no way RTÉ would ever have self-funded it even in the good years.

As to DAB 'sucking' by that do you mean the programming or coverage? Around Dublin coverage is pretty much OK but elsewhere other than Cork and stretches of the M1 forget it. Also, from a stint working with Securicor Ireland's PMR system back in the early nineties, I remember the country being the reverse of Britain's geography - Ireland has mountains all round the edges and a flat bit in the middle, which is going to cause fun and games getting interference-free DAB in the interior using an SFN, should RTÉ ever get round to a full rollout.

...RTE in Ireland are saying Radio 1 extra on digital platforms have the LW optouts so LW is no longer needed in Ireland. RTE have funding problems so is also why DAB has not been fully rolled out...In Iceland they are also testing MW to replace LW. But wonder if it is now more cost effective to get boat owners to get proper Navtext sets using MW rather than pay for expensive broadcast masts to cover a small number of users at sea.
It's been thrashed to death on this and other threads that this is a domestic argument for RTÉ withdrawing the LW service, while the argument for retaining it is a non-domestic, diaspora one. Apples and bananas, with the apples winning in the end.

Iceland's move from LW to MW seems very strange, as it's out of the frying pan into the fire. Only real rationale I can see is that combined MW/FM receivers are still available quite readily while LW receivers are increasingly difficult to find.

Most of what's being discussed on this thread in the SOLAS radio context is really only relevant to craft moving in coastal, inshore and littoral areas where they're unlikely to be more than a couple of hours from the nearest harbour. The shipping forecase per se is for shipping, i.e. large vessels traversing blue water where the nearest safe harbour or anchorage could be several days steaming away.

Of course these will have NAVTEX and all the fancy satellite goodies you could ever imagine but I daresay they'd still feel a bit naked out there if there wasn't the last resort of a mainstream broadcast shipping forecast available via the simplest possible means. Besides which, the opinion of the Met Office, who currently forecast for the MCA might be different from whoever prepares the satellite delivered forecast. Why am I thinking "Michael Fish".......
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Old 05-12-2016, 18:19
Fred Rickwood
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As to DAB 'sucking' by that do you mean the programming or coverage?
Yes, it's very poor even compared to NI, and with only one RTE multiplex the choice is appalling.

The experimental commercial mux has also lost stations in recent months, so I'd imagine sales of DAB radios in the ROI is pretty much non existent.

Digital radio in the ROI seems to mean listening on your TV via Saorview.

The choice to leave MW was a bit of a strange one; RTÉ1 on 567 and 2 on 612 (? I think - been many years) were easy listens on MW around Ayrshire and well on up the road into Glasgow, so it's difficult to see what extra LW brought,
Indeed, and with the heavy interference from Algeria at night the 500W 567 kHz transmitter at Tullamore would have had much better coverage in the UK. I do remember Radio Caroline volunteering to close down when they were on 558 kHz so listeners in London could listen to the GAA final, so it must've got well into the UK.

Spirit Radio had planned to use 612 kHz (not sure if it was from the Athlone site or not) but this doesn't seem to have materialised (likely due to costs).

I always thought the audio quality on 567khz was much better than 252 kHz. Radio 2 on 612 kHz was a bit ropey though, probably due to the age of the transmitter.
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Old 05-12-2016, 19:03
Vectorsum
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Yes, it's very poor even compared to NI, and with only one RTE multiplex the choice is appalling. The experimental commercial mux has also lost stations in recent months, so I'd imagine sales of DAB radios in the ROI is pretty much non existent. Digital radio in the ROI seems to mean listening on your TV via Saorview....
You have to imagine that this is what digital radio might have looked like in the UK, if it didn't have a strong champion to make the case for choice and (mobile) quality. The Irish radio market is different from the Brit one in more ways than it is similar; for one thing the locals and regional private stations have very loyal followings and folks outside Ireland don't really get the extent to which the Irish 'stick' to their local county.

If the minimux story in Britain pans out to cheaper and more reliable SFN kit I wonder whether RTÉ might have a crack at a more organic SFN rollout, using cheaper local sites rather than the hyper-expensive 'big iron' sites. 252 by that time will be sadly long gone, leaving folks stranded who are outside whatever corresponds to RTÉ's digital radio coverage by that time.

Spirit Radio is an interesting one, not the least because it's receivable at the croft up in the Hebrides albeit quite noisy. Over the course of the years they seem to have had more transmission plans that I've had hot dinners but the few kilowatts they have just now from Monaghan seems to be doing well. Spirit Radio on 252? Well after 2016 things couldn't possibly get any weirder!
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Old 05-12-2016, 19:13
MikeBr
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Edited comment now in the AM death watch thread, was following up the comment on Iceland, then realised was on the RTE thread and just seen that the Iceland article, which mentions FM gaps as well as use for fishermen, has been posted there.
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Old 08-12-2016, 12:27
35321
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Personally, I think RTE would have been better staying on 567 kHz rather than 252 long wave. Are the masts at Tullamore and Athlone still in place or have they been dismantled ?

Tullamore still stands, Athlone, which was a 'T' aerial between two masts - the 'T' and one of the two masts is gone, the remaining mast is in use for mobile operators etc, at least its still in use for something
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Old 08-12-2016, 16:24
35321
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In fact reception was still possible 82 miles from land on a portable Sony DAB+ radio.
Most of the coast of Norway is nowhere near facing any other country - So they could blast out DAB/DAB+ with as much ERP as they please out to sea and not affect (or be interfered by) any other countries with the same MUX channels.

Long distance Band III propagation out to sea varies with atmospheric conditions. It may or may not be the case that 82 miles can be repeated all year round. Also it was one particular area where perhaps 'constructive interference' from more than one transmitter in the SFN might have been occurring. Destructive SFN interference of signals from more than one transmitter might inhibit reception in other areas off-shore. More long term measurement and over a wider area would be needed to evaluate long distance off-shore DAB/DAB+coverage.
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Old 08-12-2016, 23:14
hanssolo
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Most of the coast of Norway is nowhere near facing any other country - So they could blast out DAB/DAB+ with as much ERP as they please out to sea and not affect (or be interfered by) any other countries with the same MUX channels.
Although Norway is planning to close it's national FM network next year, like the UK with 198, it does not seem in a rush to close the shipping forecast on 153 LW.

Looks like most boats in Ireland use RTE R1 FM or Navtext, rather than 252, http://www.irishlights.ie/safety-nav...formation.aspx
so if 252 closes in 2017 Irish shipping will not be affected.
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