Spur Hill VHF

[Justin Speck]

I see from the ITU site that there is a proposal to change the frequencies of the 5 national VHF/FM services at Spur Hill.

Anyone know anything about this (has it happened yet?) or why it might be happening?

j

[Guest]

What frequencies are they proposing to move to??? They aren't really any clear frequencies with multiple signals for the national FM stations getting into Cork City from (as well as Spur Hill) Mullaghanish, Crosshaven, Dungarvan, Mt Leinster, Maghera.

BTW
RTE has taken down the old Spur Hill mast in recent days, so no more the sight of the 2 masts side by side!

BTW
Something which RTE are less concerned about nowadays is their Medium Wave transmissions. Here in Cork I happened to be tuning across the MW band last night and heard both 729 and 1278 with just blank carriers, and I know its not the first time such breaks happened in the recent past as well.
You will not find RTE FM transmissions breaking down too often! (with the exception of perhaps Raidio na Gaeltachta which I recall being off-air for a couple of days on 93.6 from Spur Hill a few years ago)

[Justin Speck]

Here are the frequencies from the

existing 89.2, 91.4, 93.6, 98.8, 101,0

proposed 88.7, 90.9, 93.1, 98.3, 100.5

Its quite unusual to change the frequencies of a main station. The usual reason for doing something like this would be to make space for another station which would either be on or near the old frequencies or have a 10.7MHz relationship with them.

At least you've answered one question I had; the frequencies have not yet changed!

Any further info would be most interesting.

J

[Justin Speck]

How I hate answering my own posts - particularly when it is to correct myself!

I've had a further look at the info from the ITU and checked out the locations. This is NOT a proposal for a frequency change at Spur Hill but for an additional relay station for Cork City. Its difficult to be exact with geographical co-ordinates but its likely to be the Collins Barracks site.

[021]

Correct about Collins Barracks.
It is strange that this is a proposal. It is true that Spur Hill coverage has problems in parts of the South East suburbs (and this is probably more pronounced now because the FM aerials are much lower down on the new Spur Hill mast than was the case on the now removed old mast (they were at the very top.))
HOWEVER these areas of Cork City which are a problem for Spur Hill are adequately served by Mullaghanish instead!
The fact that Spur Hill only has good coverage in roughly a 180 degree arc may have lead to complaints back in the days when RTE had its local radio opt-out service in Cork, but this closed over 2 years ago!

Certainly I can think of areas of West Cork with poor FM reception, for example Clonakilty town (where they have a TV transposer), where it would be much more worthwhile to put on more FM transmitters (rather than Collins Barracks) , if they have the money to do so!

[Mike]

Justin could you post a link to said page

RE: RTE sites I got a copy of a some DoC documentaton from the the late 1980's which gives a list of proposed allocations for National FM sites and there must have been over 100 of them.

Some were brought into service usually (but now always) on the frequency groups quoted but most have never been used (Thankfully as there would be very few frequencies left if they all were)

And yes Collins Barracks was on there.

If someone asks REALLY nicely I can dig it out and post it but it might take a few days for me to find it

[Justin Speck]

http://www.itu.int/ITU-R/terrestrial/brtpr/brific/index.html

There is an update every two weeks. I guess the GE84 files are the ones of most interest to people here as they cover the Geneva 84 Band II plan. AR11 covers stuff outside the European Broadcasting Area, ST61 is the Band IV/V UHF TV plan.

Going back up a few pages you will find quite a lot of background material.

Have fun!



J