Historic Athlone transmitter site

[standunmj]

hello all, im sure all you guys would be familiar with the heading on the dials of vintage radios, namely athlone,
rte the irish national broadcaster have closed this station some time ago and have left the medium wave, they now operate three stations on f,m,they also transmit on longwave 252,and this can be received in the uk ,
there are three transmitters lying idle in the building in athlone town, one is a historic 1932 marconi set, also there's a brown bovery, all in good condition, it would be a shame if these sets were quietly ripped out and dumped and the building sold ,it is hopeful that a committee might be formed by radio entheusists to vollinteer and run the building and its contents as a museum ,it would make a good point of interest as a tourist attraction,

[Refugee]

If they do want to sell the building the kit could also be shipped to another established museum for a static display.

[Old Sparky]

Not strictly 'on topic', I know, but didn't another broadcaster take over the Athlone Transmitter (or were they just assigned the frequency)? I'm sure I read somewhere that this was planned. BTY, I haven't checked recently, but is RTE Radio 1 still on 252kHz LW?

[colly0410]

Ah remember Athlone on the dial of my Murphy U130, about 539 metres or thereabouts, faint reception in the day but became quite strong with fading when the skywave came online. Sometimes there was morse code in the background, never did find out where that came from.

Good luck with the museum project Maitiu..

[Joe Guilfoyle]

A photo of the nameplate on the 1932 Marconi transmitter.    

[ppppenguin]

Joe, what a wonderful bit of kit - do you actually have it in your museum in Dublin?

[Terry]

Joe, what a wonderful bit of kit - do you actually have it in your museum in Dublin?

In his first post he said:  

"there are three transmitters lying idle in the building in athlone town, one is a historic 1932 marconi set, also there's a brown bovery, all in good condition, it would be a shame if these sets were quietly ripped out and dumped and the building sold ,it is hopeful that a committee might be formed by radio entheusists to vollinteer and run the building and its contents as a museum ,it would make a good point of interest as a tourist attraction ..."

... Sometimes there was morse code in the background, never did find out where that came from.

Probably poor selectivity in your receiver. There is or, at least, used to be, a marine band immediately below the broadcast medium waveband.

As Athlone was close to the band edge and the tuning gang near maximum capacity, the Q factor was at its lowest, so selectivity would be poor.

[Murphyv310]

it is hopeful that a committee might be formed by radio entheusists to vollinteer and run the building and its contents as a museum ,it would make a good point of interest as a tourist attraction,

Hi Maitu.
I really think something should be done to ensure none of this is scrapped.
One thing though is a " committee". That's a big mistake, guaranteed they will hum and haw, disagree with one another and just hold up the process while RTE bin the lot! Forget the committee and get writing letters yourself, then when you need backing look for other sensible like minded people.
Good luck. 

I've just contacted Paul Irvine who is ex RTE to see if there's someone he might know who can help.

[Murphyv310]

  Trevor out 140915.docx (Size: 10.91 KB / Downloads: 18)
Hi.
After some problems with E-mail I have at last got an E-mail from Dr Paul Irvine who is EX RTE.
He certainly has the contacts but in a separate E-mail said progress is likely to be slow.