New station on LW ? (Identified as RTÉ1)

[MurphyNut]

I don't know if anyone has picked up on this but the other day I was tuning through LW to find Radio 4 and picked up a presenter with a strong Irish ascent playing folk music. At first I thought it was Radio 4 but it wasn't.

[paulsherwin]

Sure you weren't hearing RTÉ1 on 252kHz?

[MurphyNut]

Originally Posted by paulsherwin

Sure you weren't hearing RTÉ1 on 252kHz?

It was certainly on LW I was using one of my pre-war Murphy sets, when I get home I'll see if I can find it again, I usually only pick up radio 4 and a french station, this was very unusual.

(Added) Paul, I've just looked this up on the internet and it's Atlantic 252, strange that all of a sudden I'm getting this loud and clear.

[Nuvistor]

Atlantic closed down many years ago, the frequency was taken over by RTE1 in 2004, it’s recently had maintenance to give the station a further 2 years of life. RTE seem to keep extending the deadline by a couple of years, whether this is the last extension time will tell.

[paulsherwin]

The Clarkstown 252kHz transmitter does get to Hertfordhire, though the signal isn't particularly strong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarks...io_transmitter

[MurphyNut]

Thanks frank, mystery solved!

[Hartley118]

Originally Posted by paulsherwin

The Clarkstown 252kHz transmitter does get to Hertfordhire, though the signal isn't particularly strong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarks...io_transmitter

It certainly reaches Cambridge at good entertainment value, given a decent aerial.

Martin

[MurphyNut]

Originally Posted by Hartley118

It certainly reaches Cambridge at good entertainment value, given a decent aerial.

Martin

I've got a decent aerial and the set working very well, it's certainly a respectable signal here in Hertfordshire without much background "mush".

252kHz is 20dB down on 198kHz here, still an adequate signal for 'speaker listening.

[paulsherwin]

It's perfectly listenable here in Oxford on a standard 4 valve superhet with a ferrite rod, though it does sound a bit 'distant'. The signal is much better from Birmingham up to Glasgow.

[Station X]

RTE comes in at S7 here in Ipswich compared to S9 plus 10 for BBC R4 LW.

Reception of RTE would be good were it not marred by local interference, probably generated within my own premises.

[Hartley118]

Originally Posted by paulsherwin

It's perfectly listenable here in Oxford on a standard 4 valve superhet with a ferrite rod, though it does sound a bit 'distant'. The signal is much better from Birmingham up to Glasgow.

Here in Cambridge, a directional aerial helps enormously on LW, particularly in rejecting local interference. I use an outdoor loop aerial, and I guess that a carefully oriented ferrite rod is similarly useful.

Martin

[Ken Taylor]

Also in Oxfordshire, it is good strength but there is a French speaking station co-channel. I can separate them with the Roberts portables little turntable.

At 1800 the French station is winning...

Ken

[paulsherwin]

That's the (in)famous Algerian station with a stonking great transmitter. It reaches North Africa and the western Med plus southern France during the day, all of which have substantial French speaking Arabic populations.

After dark the signal gets a lot further north and interferes badly with RTÉ1. In many places you can null it out with care, but there's an area around Bristol and Somerset where Dublin is roughly due north and Algeria is roughly due south, and RTÉ1 reception is effectively impossible there.

[boxdoctor]

Long wave being as empty as it is, I would have thought that RTE would be able to get permission from the international regulatory body to move to the always-clear channel 9Khz higher in frequency than it's present one.
That would solve the problem Paul refers to above, and at the same time keep the station easy to find for its regular listeners. Tony.

[Gridiron]

Fairly strong in the Dudley area, picked it up this morning on 2 valve Burndept Ethophone Duplex of c. 1925 I was playing around with (interesting programme on Irish history).