St Patrick’s Day [17 March] will see the launch of a daily shortwave radio broadcast from RTÉ to the Irish in Africa. This link with home is in response to many requests from Irish people scattered throughout the continent, and working in fields such as aid, peace-keeping, construction projects, and missionary work. According to the Irish government there are many thousands of Irish working in Africa.
Although RTÉ has long been available on satellite and via the Internet, those in remote regions of Africa have asked for shortwave transmissions which will reach portable radio sets in areas that do not even have electricity supplies let alone easy access to satellites and the web. The main coverage area will be West, Central and East Africa.
From 17 March, every evening they will be able to hear a one hour selection of RTÉ radio programmes from the day at 1930-2030 UTC on 6220 kHz. The transmission will be provided by WRN, the London headquartered international radio and TV transmission company that has been transmitting RTÉ around the world since 1994.
Said JP Coakley, RTÉ’s Head of Operations, “RTÉ ceased its worldwide shortwave service in 2004 due to the growth of technologies such as the Internet for serving the diaspora. However, Africa obviously presents particular challenges and in 2004 we also introduced a specific service based on delivery to small satellite radios called WorldSpace. However, this service has effectively ceased for the moment so we are reintroducing a shortwave service to Africa – we want Irish people there to know that RTÉ values the connection with them as much as they do”.
(Source: WRN)
on Mar 16th, 2009 at 22:48
Considering RTE’s FM signal is still virtually no existent in parts of Northern Ireland, (including parts of Belfast) despite promises to the contrary, I hope that their target audience in Africa get a better deal. BTW isn’t this the first anniversary of RTE’s TV promise to go FTA on satellite via Freesat?
on Mar 17th, 2009 at 08:22
Yes Joe last year on March 17th the minister for communication was in Paris, he announced that by today (March 17 2009) Diaspora TV (RTÉ International) would be on freesat. The downturn in RTÉ’s economy halted RTÉ Int.
this is a sad state of affairs. A week later RTÉ shut down all MW transmissions. Incl the 567kHz.
RTÉ used to broadcast on SW to Africa daily, but they pulled the plug on that in 2004 asking people to switch to WorldSpace. see http://url.ie/1bp2 But as JP points out above WS is fading and SW is returning.
This move indicates that RTÉ can go back on previous bad decisions, They will re embrace old technologies again. So there is hope for MW to return and be a stepping stone to digital LW 252 ? No.
I welcome the return of Shortwave and hope the field workers can hear 6220kHz often. As this captive audience is known and locatable, shouldn’t RTE WRN and the aid agencies Irish Army and Missions all meet, discuss the options and try upgrade the SW to DRM for greater reach and quality. Its not as if they are trying to catch new listeners in central Africa on analogue. Perhaps they did meet, but i think i would have heard about it.
FTR SW from RTE was driven by the engineers with out sanction from management, they hired SW time from the BBC and got permission to broadcast All Ireland GAA finals live to the world on shortwave, This is something RTE later decided to do annually. They have even tested these in DRM mode. Likewise RTE online was driven by fans via RTE To Everywhere FTP audio demand downloads before RTE got on to the www proper.
on Mar 17th, 2009 at 13:49
Why does’nt RTE Television go Free to Air on astra just like BBC and ITV have done - instead of us having to pay money to SKy to see RTE !!!
on Mar 19th, 2009 at 09:19
RTE cannot broadcast RTE1 and RTE2 free-to-air via Astra2D to the UK and parts of Western Europe on the Sky EPG and via Freesat because of programme rights issues.
on Mar 19th, 2009 at 10:03
With WorldSpace going under SW is the only way to fill the gap that WorldSpace has left in RTE’s continental coverage in Africa.
on Mar 20th, 2009 at 19:32
There is another problem still : On the frequency there is Mystery Radio which will cause quite much interference ….
As for 19th none could be heard except after ca 2015 when Mystery radio stopped