ZEE 103.25 Back On Air?

[Megawatts]

The Omeath Pirate is back on air.. but not from the Haunted Ardaghy House.. it was knocked down years ago...

Signal is not very powerful, looks like its another 150Watt rig, and a PC on repeat.

[Shane Pearce]

running at 25 watts with a domestic 3 element yagi

[scotty]

I remember Tommy coming across Carlingford Lough in a boat and making his way up to Ardaghy House.
I have some real good memories of the few months that I was involved with Zee 103, some nice people worked there.
Megawatts, when I was doing some live programmes there in August 1987, someone told me it was running 30-40 kw. Was this right?
I know there were some problems with the rig later, I can remember when it first came on air in late 1986 hearing the test transmissions on a crappy radio on the West coast of Scotland. Then the signal seemed to drop. What was their transmitter history?

[Megawatts]

Zee took a while to get on air. It was derived from my station KISS 103.1 in Craigavon(Raided after its first full week as a commercial paying station), One of the DJs, Roy McKee convinced his father to invest in the project, but working for the broken biscuit company at the time left me open to blackmail, which some exploited. Eventually the late Frank McCarthy installed a 2.5KW linear amp, driven by an ex Radio NOVA TEM 250 Watt exciter, that I got from Chris Cary.

The Yagii where far to low, and the site Ardaghy house was over 300ft lower down the mountain than the site I selected, but practical compromise had to endure.

The variation in the ESB kept blowing the valve, as it required a 3% tolerance. This was later sorted.

The station was a happy station, with a dedicated following, and gave many a good start in radio broadcasting.

With 2.5KW into 8 6 element yagii, you could say its erp was in rough figures about 150KW, But the lower 3 or 4 Yagii went strauight into the hill about half a mile away.

As the valve aged, and was abused .. I would say its average erp was around 80KW.

[Justin Speck]

Are they really on 103.25MHz?

Does anyone's radio tune in 50kHz steps these days?

J

[Mosfet]

103.2510934Mhz:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[Megawatts]

RTE stuck a big carrier on 102.7, just the mess KISS 102.7 up, (ie out of pure spite), As there was another station in Dublin on 103.5, and 103.1 at the time, Frank decided to pout Zee on 103.25 and yes radios do tune in 50Khz steps.
The Dublin stations were often loud and clear in Portadown, one of Zee's target towns, so getting a signal half way between what could be strong carriers in the Black North, was important.

I would have personally stuck it on 103.3, as the relative power on the next station up was not that of a problem, and Zees location, on the north / Newry side of Claremount Cairn, meant the mountain was more than an effective sheild for Zee's back radiated signal, down to Dublin.

Zee came back on air for a couple of months in Jan 1989, but pulled the plug after Cooke's second raid.
KISS 103.7 ran full cariier, on 104 (as KAY 104), for 3 full months.. LJ had planned to restart it, under his own steam... but alas the he did not anything on, until 1996, on any kind of power for a Belfast audience.