Re: Ireland’s Longwave Station RTÉ 252 Spared from Imminent Closure.

I haven't attempted much listening on longwave, but Europe's transmissions are interesting, and how it's used to cover large areas. I haven't gotten a sense of how much range they really have, but it seems to be better than anything on mediumwave, covering Britain from Ireland.

My first thought was that someone who cares about being professional on the air should fire the team that seems to purposely hobbling the station, turning the power down and shutting it down at random times to frustrate listeners. Then get a team in there that cares about providing maximum service.

Too bad the USA never got into longwave broadcasting. I have an idea in retrospect, if, back in the 1920s when the FRC started to regulate broadcasting as it was going bigtime and commercial, they could have given as a concession the longwave band for carrier current use, so that small towns could have an unlicensed way to broadcast community radio in a range restricted way.

The signal would stay close to the town, and not interfere with ships and beacons. They could have even run separate radio wires along the poles, instead of using power lines, and that would work in places without power yet, just a simple wooden pole system.

Long live RTE, I hope they do well and continue.

Boomer