psp radio from ilikeradio.net download onto the PSP here

Is radio better for kids than TV? asks Zoe Williams in the Guardian. No surprise I love radio. But no matter how hard i try I can’t force my children to listen to radio. I scanned the band today 88-108 30+ stations 2 played music, the city is Dublin Ireland. very metro, how odd, 2 played music. Ads and chat and talk & news and bloody phone ins. the kids want music. They want their music, not Larry Gogans choice or Ian Dempseys choice [old DJ syndrome]. Their own their music is what they want, they have it on little memory sticks with headphones. They are more into that and DVDs and over repeated crap on telly than any stale radio. Even making it digital means nothing, what you can’t get DAB in the car daddy? chuckle. not fitted as standard.

When i was young, C60 was hi tech. 7″ was played on the stack system long before stack meant separate hi-fi units to a tuner amp. Stack meant an arm held 45’s aloft the turntable dropping the next disc down on the platter like a jukebox. The point isn’t, think of how quaint it was, we didn’t own much media thats the point, we shared media (record radio tapes) with siblings and friends and parents (yes we played their radio stations and they ours).

If Disney put Top 40 radio as a soundscape in Club Penguin or Mattel put pop princess format radio as a soundscape to the Barbie website or Bebo would listen up and put radio into the social network then the kids will be getting radio as we know it and an audio channel for ad men to xxx dream about. But don’t hand the kids a plastic box with knobs on, and expect them to care, or find it interesting or entertaining. My band scan says they will find (old) men talking at them like the Rolling Stones song goes

.. And that man comes on to tell me
How white my shirts can be ..
I can’t get no, oh no no no
I can’t get no satisfaction

expect a generation gap - expect rejection of service as old hat - when from their ears it is very old hat. I was shocked to hear on Sunday morning VibeFM Enisskillen on air full time now, just 1 month old, with an 80’s soft rock playlist and a radio production mentality and sound to match the same decade, at least they are consistent. I get scared when the BCI advertise these safe as houses niche formats as licences. Remember even houses aren’t safe in times of revolutionary change.

sneak preview a soft radio @digdeeper & @dojodub are building from the ground up.

icecast shoutcast podcast podseek MP3 finder & player [beta testing now] you can log in - share - vote - swap and soon network while listening to realtime live and autopilot radios all over the world on your PSP via wifi. gocam not required. [separate blog post needed to explain all]

I am interested greatly in this project of the EU called Euranet. A Pan European multilingual radio service of the EU contributed to by 16 broadcasters in 13 countries in 10 languages rising to 23 by year 5. Due to launch April 2008 and online from July 1st it is set to broadcast on FM bands in the host countries as well as internet streams and on demand podcasts. I am surprised its not looking to Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) on high power from a few sites across Europe to reach its full potential (i have a DReaM). Costing €15,000 per day or over €26Million over 5 years, Euranet is not in Ireland or the UK with the English service being provided by Radio Netherlands. What does it sound like? think Euronews for radio add a dash or WRN and have a listen to its Polish output that is on a pre web service page here.

isn’t the Euranet logo a bit like the DRM logo?

On the eve of RTE shutting down a 500KW medium wave in favour of many many sites x 5-10KW DAB I thought I better record what DAB sounds like in my house, or down my street or inside the shops. Walking down the street was OK to bad - Shops not possible at all.

This is a recording inside my house (where there is no signal) so I go to the west facing window where Three Rock is visible from, and at a height of 1.5M I record RTE News on the RTE MUX.

The result is typical of all the DAB sounds I can hear in my area, except indoors where there is zero signal & no noise and no sound at all.

listen here to DAB in Dublin From Dublin

listen here to DRM in Köln from Meath

Verdict, DAB has great difficulty reaching Baldoyle & Portmarnock from Three Rock. shame as I used to reach Three Rock on 4w UHF no problem. We have the line of sight, we are about 14KM away but we are sea level, and DAB struggles down low. Building penetration at these signal levels is a joke. DAB here at this location is a joke.

Sentence: as DAB is aging (its 18 going on 23 years old and getting on) it would be best to lock it away and not let it be left around for broadcasters to play with anymore. It had its day, I was on the fringes of a group that had the foresight and great plans to kick start DAB in Ireland in 1994, from offices in Baggot Street Covenberg tried to interest all the broadcasters in the state to wake up to Eureka 147 D.A.B. - there was insufficient interest to sustain itself.  Going at it now, where there are plenty of affordable sets spilling in from the UK fails to make DAB any better when compared to modern rivals. It does help adoption where programming alone will not move people from FM to DAB (btw MW to DAB is crazy). But with reception like above no one will move. Retailers beware ~ you will need a good returns policy on sets sold or DAB MUX holders like RTE NL need to increase power fast. While I was writing this I got a call from Dave Evans in Balbriggan. He is using a pure €70 DAB set up there and getting the Three Rock DAB (not Louth) with the whip up, when asked did he listen to FM with a whip up the answer was no.

My comments previously on DAB on the Organgrinder Blog on Guardian Unlimited

also Media Network Blog Radio Netherlands1 & Media Network Blog Radio Netherlands2

Trackback [20.03.2008 first posted on silicon republic]
A huge portion of Ireland’s emigrant population  not to mention 600,000 listeners in the greater Belfast area  will be disenfranchised when RTÉ switches off its analogue medium-wave services without making a clear, determined switch to digital.

Despite last year’s broadcasting legislation allowing for licence money to be spent on radio broadcasting for the Irish abroad, RTÉ is moving ahead with plans to switch off its medium wave but keep its long-wave signal open until it introduces digital.
However, prominent podcaster Brian Greene and the Emigrants Advice Network (EAN) have held meetings with the Department of Communications arguing the folly of shutting down the medium-wave service.
“The shutdown is a reversal of recent trends in which Ireland has acknowledged its debt to the Irish abroad, and the need for maintaining strong links. Medium wave and long wave are complementary solutions for the Irish abroad  long wave on its own is inadequate and presents problems for the future. The move is premature it will make the transition to digital more difficult,” EAN said in a letter to the Irish Emigrant newspaper.
It argues that RTE should be working to improve access to its services for the Irish abroad, particularly the most vulnerable who will experience the most difficulty in making the transition from medium wave to any other format.
It says that while most people in London cannot get medium wave, there are large parts of big cities like Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester that can and they should be allowed to listen to a service that has existed for decades.
“On 24 March, after 80 years of service and with just five weeks’ notice, RTÉ will shut down its medium-wave service,” said Greene. “They will be turning off an important service to the Irish abroad, as well as an analogue signal that will act as an important stepping stone to digital.”
Greene described RTÉ’s decision as “illogical” and said a staged report is required. “Their approach is flawed from the start. There are stages at which they should approach a digital switch-off and they should do both the analogue shutdown and digital switch-on in parallel. This would encourage people to listen to digital and then turn off analogue.”
According to Greene, RTÉ says that less than 10pc of its listeners listen through medium wave. But the national broadcaster is not taking into account the emigrant listenership.
He says that while RTÉ is planning to move to DAB (digital audio broadcasting), this is now an old standard and the national broadcaster should be focusing on world digital radio standards like Digital Radio Mondiale or DAB-plus.
“The French have withdrawn funding for DAB. RTÉ need to be moving to DAB-plus rather than an old standard like DAB,” Greene argued.

To listen to a Brian Greene podcast about the looming shutdown of the 567Khz medium wave service go to: http://www.briangreene.com/wxtc31.mp3
By John Kennedy

So you are driving down the long mile road or the autobahn and you turn on the DRM radio in the car and tune to a station ~1000KM away in a different country, it sounds like this.

video flash from drm.org

Hats off to RTÉ who see a future for MPEG4 on DTT. RTÉ don’t do visions they receive apparitions. There has been mention of MPEG4 in the tender docs for the 3 commercial mux. It would seem that RTÉ favour MPEG4 and the possibility of HD. This is a good thing and is forward looking. It means that UK hardware (cheap now and mass produced) will not work in the 26 counties. But the suggestion of MPEG4 does not make it a minimum standard and as I read it it is being set as a maximum. If RTÉ applied this logic on MPEG to radio they would run a mile from DAB, but they want DAB so much they’re shutting down MW to help fund DAB. Crazy. I wonder though if the spectrum efficiencies are lesser our greater with HD mpeg4 (not standard definition mpeg4) versus mpeg2 standard definition.

The RTÉ mpeg4 argument also makes a laugh of the RTÉ DRM argument, RTÉ know they need to innovate and lead DTT MPEG 4 to drive down STB prices on new tech. The same logic applies to DRM which RTÉ now stall in favour of analogue half power LW with no MW fallback. [i note that RTE are neither members of or supporters of the Digital Radio Mondiale consortium DRM.org, something they are entitled to not be, but odd when the own a 300KW LW DRM transmitter that they had tested in DRM mode August 2007]

RTÉ do not have limitless resources, but that is no excuse for the differences in transmission planning between TV & radio, between analogue & digital & between old & new. RTÉ have a clear mandate from Gov. (March 2007) for International TV and (added at the last minute) International Radio. We need a viewers & listeners association that has teeth (and will bite), the suits in RTÉ are playing a numbers game as the only thing they seem to care about is share and competition with the commercial TV & radio companies in Ireland.

On reason given for MW shutdown was not many listen to it anymore. Based on this logic RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Concert Orchestra, Philharmonic Choir, Cór na nÓg and the RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet should expect the P45 any day. This line of argument I don’t support. What is needed on the lawn of Montrose is 12 foot letters reminding the organisation that they are a public service broadcaster not commercial. This means both taking unpopular decisions but also deciding to serve the unpopular.

RTÉ claim Longwave has more reach that medium wave. LW travels further than MW during the day, but not at night. But more reach? Reach means getting onto more radios. As MW radio ownership in so much greater than LW radio ownership (based on manufacturing figures researched here) Medium wave will always have greater reach until LW outpaces MW on radio sets made for lets say 30 years. LW is being depreciated faster than MW in car radios made for the continent of Europe by the 4 big car makers. Reaching people is what radio reach is all about not balance sheets and old technology.

There is a technology older than RTE’s new toy (23 year old DAB), that is the old MW TX they use in Tullamore on half power. If they had the foresight to invest in a modern MW TX designed this century rather than in the middle of the last century, this would bring savings from energy efficiencies equal to 65% at same power. Millions of € could be saved, and think of the green house gas that would not be created on both the old clapped out MW & not yet deployed DRM LW TX where the energy efficiencies grow up to 90% where the TX needs to run at -7DB to cover the same ground plane / service area.

Killing MW to fund DAB is a crazy move by RTE.  crazy crazy crazy. RTÉ intend to switch off 567kHz on Easter Monday 24th March 2008 after 82 years on MW.

in reply to Wave of protest engulfs RTÉ

to the persons who commented and doubted the validity of the British Journalists claim on NI reception of RTE. The 600,000 people in the Greater Belfast area knew MW was the only way to hear radio 1 on a portable radio. RTE knew this and were forced to concede moving LyricFM 87.8FM to 95.2 & RTE Radio from 95.2 to 87.8 due to adjacent Radio Ulster signal on 95.1 from North Antrim coast.  This a move RTE could have made any time in the past number of years (15years), the move is effective 9am 14/03/2008.

Yesterday I learned from the Department of Communication in Dublin, who were informed by RTE, that the MW shutdown on 24/03/2008 is happening so that they can direct cost savings (€1M p/a?) into DAB roll out in Ireland which despite it being on trial is been aggressively rolled out countrywide. I kid you not. This is what I was told, on further examination it seems to be part of RTE’s very short term strategy. A medium length strategy they do not have, and soon they wont have a medium wave to put it on if they ever do get a medium to long term strategy. FWIW DAB is 23 years out of Demo mode. They are killing off 80 years of MW just before it may breathe new life with DRM in favour of mpeg2 DAB which is failing on a tech & business level in our nearest neighbours market the UK.

the following text has been passed to me by the very respected broadcast engineer Enda O’Kane who campaigns for the research group Irish Overseas Broadcasting as part of efforts to improve Ireland’s radio links with Ireland’s emigrants.

On March 24^th, RTE’s national medium wave service will be switched off.

Starting 1932 Radio Athlone from the centre of Ireland brought news down the years to every home in Ireland. Our senior citizens, those who served Ireland well, will be badly discommoded. RTE - the national broadcaster - are making a major error. Is it believable that this could happen to a vulnerable and ageing audience in this the information age? We respect the needs of our Seniors with free travel, electricity, receiving licenses, alarms etc in an age of plenty. Following our national holiday a generation of Irishmen –southern, northern and UK based - will be unplugged.

RTE Radio One is the backbone national service since the birth of this state – it is the voice of this nation.

• It is a link to our fellow Irishmen north of the border and in the UK.
• Its core output of news and current affairs is speech-based.
• Adequate for speech, frontier crossing MW is upgradeable to FM quality DRM.
• MW is available on all dual-band radios, fly drive hire cars, longwave is not.
• We must continue with personal portability on Walkman and iPod.

Senior Citizens choose what is user-friendly and relevant.

• AM Medium wave is easier to tune in than FM.
• Medium wave gives predictable and stable reception.
• These cuts deny reception to parts of N. Ireland including Falls, Belfast
• It contradicts the Good Friday agreement and is now a political / media issue.
• A service to Emigrants for 75 years is now threatened by cash rich RTE.
• The Broadcsting (Ammendment Bill 2006) requires RTE provide a radio service to emigrants.

The simplicity of MW is particularly important to those with limited vision – the FM dial is cluttered with stations – tuning is a distraction - a factor in accidents.MW is also most useful for fishermen and those on the move – in cars, ferries, or on holiday, MW stays on the same spot on the dial.

Medium wave continues to be relevant - In Ireland and abroad it is experiencing a renaissance, Spirit Radio joins RTE on MW this autumn using 100kW with the option of digital medium-wave - DRM - with a lowering of carbon emissions.

The BBC has just opened a second digital medium-wave station. Its current AM offering, Radio 4 Droitwitch, is a service to Senior Citizen. UK regulator OfCom predicts the growth of DRM across the UK while France like Germany is converting its MW system to DRM digital.

RTE’s 30 year old MW transmitter is obsolete with muffled sound.

RTE must support both standards as happened with the launch of FM.

RTE’s Dublin MW site - sold to developers – a windfall of €13.8M.

Cork’s site now land filled by developers is expected to follow.

Is the sale of these unique sites – the family silver - taking precedence over service?

RTE have abandoned a principle which served then well over many years. When a new technical standard was introduced the existing was maintained during the transition period to allow the public time to switch over. That has not happened.

MW is a stepping stone to digital longwave now available on Longwave 252.

These disposals to developers have echoes of CIE’s dismantling railways in the 50’s.