The Clarkstown radio transmitter is a

longwave In radio, longwave, long wave or long-wave, and commonly abbreviated LW, refers to parts of the radio spectrum with wavelengths longer than what was originally called the medium-wave broadcasting band. The term is historic, dating from the e ...

radio

transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which i ...

County Meath County Meath (; gle, Contae na Mí or simply ) is a county in the Eastern and Midland Region of Ireland, within the province of Leinster. It is bordered by Dublin to the southeast, Louth to the northeast, Kildare to the south, Offaly to the sou ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. It is located some 3.5 km east of the village of Summerhill, in a field south of the R156 regional road at Clarkstown. At 248 metres high, it is more than double the height of the

Spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires are ...

in Dublin. Constructed in 1988 for the transmission of

Atlantic 252 Atlantic 252 was an Irish longwave radio station broadcasting across Ireland and Great Britain on 252 kHz (1190 metres) from its 1988 purpose-built transmission site at Clarkstown radio transmitter, County Meath, which provided service to Atlan ...

on 252 kHz, it uses one 248-metre (814') high guyed steel framework mast with triangular cross section, insulated against ground. The original transmitters were two 300 kilowatt Continental Solid State transmitters built by

Varian Associates Varian Associates was one of the first high-tech companies in Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1948 by Russell H. and Sigurd F. Varian, William Webster Hansen, and Edward Ginzton to sell the klystron, the first vacuum tube which could amplify ...

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

. These were replaced in 2007 by a single 300 kilowatt

Transradio TRANSRADIO SenderSysteme Berlin AG was a German radio communication systems producer, specialised in research, development and design of AM, VHF/ FM and DRM such as military and commercial broadcasting systems. Intermediate they w ...

TRAM 300L transmitter. The ground around the mast and the entire transmission site bed are lined with copper for conductivity. The site has an ITU-cleared transmission power of 500 kW by day and 100 kW at night but is now only capable of operating at 300 kW by day and 100 kW at night. Atlantic 252 ceased operations on 20 December 2001 and sports radio station

TEAMtalk 252 TEAMtalk 252 was a short-lived UK national commercial sports radio station, based in Leeds in West Yorkshire with long wave transmission coming from the Clarkstown radio transmitter in Trim, County Meath in Ireland, formerly used by Atlantic ...

briefly took over the frequency for a few months in 2002. The transmitter was later taken over by RTÉ Networks Limited (now 2RN). It is now used for the AM version of

RTÉ Radio 1 RTÉ Radio 1 ( ga, RTÉ Raidió 1) is an Irish national radio station owned and operated by RTÉ and is the direct descendant of Dublin radio station 2RN, which began broadcasting on a regular basis on 1 January 1926. The total budget for th ...

on 252 kHz, and has been the sole source of

on AM since 24 March 2008, when the

medium wave Medium wave (MW) is the part of the medium frequency (MF) radio band used mainly for AM radio broadcasting. The spectrum provides about 120 channels with more limited sound quality than FM stations on the FM broadcast band. During the daytime ...

Tullamore transmitter Tullamore (; ) is the county town of County Offaly in Ireland. It is on the Grand Canal, in the middle of the county, and is the fourth most populous town in the midlands region with 14,607 inhabitants at the 2016 census. The town retaine ...

on 567 kHz was taken off air. In 2007, the transmitter was carrying a

Digital Radio Mondiale Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM; ''mondiale'' being Italian and French for "worldwide") is a set of digital audio broadcasting technologies designed to work over the bands currently used for analogue radio broadcasting including AM broadcasting—pa ...

multiplex overnight, featuring Radio 1, RTÉ Digital Radio Sport,

RTÉ Digital Radio News RTÉ Digital Radio News ( ga, RTÉ Nuacht Raidió Digiteach) was a digital radio (DAB) station from the Irish state broadcaster, RTÉ. It began broadcasting on 30 May 2007, and was launched as part of an expansion of RTÉ's digital radio netw ...

and the

World Radio Network WRN Broadcast, formerly known as World Radio Network, is an international broadcast services company based in the United Kingdom that works with television channels and radio broadcasters, media owners and brands enabling them to deliver content t ...

, before reverting to AM transmission for the daytime. DRM tests have since ceased, and AM transmissions now operate full-time once again. On 24 September 2014, RTÉ announced that broadcasting of RTÉ Radio 1 on 252 kHz would cease on 27 October 2014, however following representations from Irish listeners in the UK and others, that date was postponed and as of 2022 the transmitter is still on the air.

Timeline

* 1988 - Construction of Clarkstown Transmitter by Radio Tara (RTÉ/RTL) * 1989 - Launch of

on 1 September 1989, pop station aimed at UK and Irish market * 2001 - Closure of Atlantic 252, 20 December 2001 * 2002 - Launch of

aimed at UK and Irish market * 2002 - TEAMtalk 252 ceased broadcasting on 30 June 2002 * 2002 - RTÉ take over the running of the Clarkstown Transmitter following demise of TEAMtalk * 2004 - Official launch of

on Long Wave 252, January 2004 * 2004 - While the

was offline for maintenance Clarkstown provided Radio 1's AM service * 2007 - Major upgrade of Transmitter * 2007 - RTÉ run DRM tests, in parallel with Analogue AM service * 2008 - 24 March, Closure of RTÉ Medium Wave service leaving 252 Long Wave as the only AM Broadcast by RTÉ, services which were on Medium Wave transferred to Long Wave. * 2008 - 1 December, launch of

RTÉ Radio 1 Extra RTÉ Radio 1 Extra is a digital radio station produced by the Irish public-service broadcasting service Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ). History Initially launched on 1 December 2008 as RTÉ Choice RTÉ Choice was a digital radio stati ...

which was extra content not broadcast on FM was now relayed on Long Wave 252 * 2014 - RTÉ announce plans to close Long Wave 252, September 2014 * 2014 - RTÉ announce postponement of closure plans until 2017 * 2017 - RTÉ announce postponement of closure plans until June 2019 * 2019 - Oireachtas Communications Committee announce the rebuilding of the antenna system and postponement of closure plans at least until 2021

Gallery

Image:01b-Clarkestown mast 2007-09-06 CROP. jpg.jpg, Close up of the mast Image:01a-Clarkestown mast 2007-09-06.JPG, Wider shot of the mast Image:02-Clarkestown mast 2007-09-06.JPG, Guy lines stabilizing the mast

References

External links

*https://web.archive.org/web/20070929125352/http://tx.mb21.co.uk/features/252/summerhill.shtml – pictures from mb21 * *http://www.skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?b45496 * IAA information on the mas
here
(page 20). *https://web.archive.org/web/20041113154742/http://members.lycos.co.uk/gregsradio/newpage0.html {{Main broadcast transmitters in Ireland, state=collapsed Buildings and structures in County Meath Radio masts and towers in Europe Mass media in the Republic of Ireland Transmitter sites in Ireland Towers completed in 1988 1988 establishments in Ireland

Timeline

Gallery

See also

References

External links