RTE ONE, TWO, TG4 now on Sky in NI

I used to listen to Radio Athlone in the nineteen-fifties in Cardiff. It definitely existed. Indeed, I've an old valve mains radio in this very room with "Radio Athlone" marked on the medium wave dial, down the bottom end, before the Third Programme and the North of England Home Service.

I'd post a picture, but I don't think I can get the radio into the scanner!

Its RTÉ Radio 1 in a previous incarnation. I believe its call sign may have been Radio Athlone for a short period in the mid-1930s, after the Athlone transmitter opened but before the Radio Eireann call sign was adopted (in 1936 from what I remember). It was definitely labelled as that on some old radios, long afterwards.

The transmitter was actually the RTE 2FM main AM transmitter more recently, after RTE Radio 1's Tullamore AM transmitter opened. 2FM closed medium wave down last year though, so Athlone's no longer in use.

The conditional access for RTÉ ONE and TWO was changed this morning... which allowed me to see The Afternoon Show. At 10am. With Dana. It's a 4:3 programme but the DOG generator seems to be locked to 16:9 so the DOGS are squashed and in the middle of the screen.

Hmmmmm. And why are the channel names RTE One and RTE TWO? How difficult is it to keep upper or lower case consistency across two whole channel names?

Has RTE been transmitting in widescreen up til now - cos if they haven't, they are now on RTE TWO!

Yes, there's a wide ranging mix of formats. 4:3 (inlcuding Neighbours), 16:9, and idents which are 14:9 in a 4:3 frame.

The DOGs however, stay in 16:9 format all the time, simply moving further into the centre of the screen and squashing when the output is 4:3.

Been transmitting in widescreen on Sky Digital since last week. Got a chance to see the Sky Digital feed at the weekend, the DOGs look really wierd, especially the RTE News one (on a news summary) which just looked silly.

On digital cable, its still the normal (4:3/14:9) feed, apparently NTL are just taking the off air analogue feed still and converting it to digital. At least RTE One and RTE Two are consistantly named on digital cable though,

The EPG appears to be 10 minutes ahead of what's actually on RTE TWO. Tweenies, billed as 12.30 has just started (in 4:3) at 12.40.

Tweenies eh?

How are 4:3 programmes broadcast on the new digital - the likes of the News or the Late Late etc? Are they broadcast in 4:3 and it's just the DOGs that are being broadcast in 16:9, hence compressed?

Also is it just on digital that the RTÉ 1 DOG is being broadcast as RTÉ One - because on analogue it's broadcast correctly as RTÉ ONE.

The widescreen switching is correct, but the DOGs do not switch. It's not the DOG which says RTE One and RTE TWO, it's the satellite channel name on the EPG.

Can you pick them up on "Other Channels"?

I remember that Home & Away was blanked out on RTE Cable in NI during the UK's year off.

I agree, it's pretty sloppy. Another example of this sloppiness is the naming of the BBC channels on satellite. We have BBC 1 NI, BBC 1 London on one hand and BBC THREE, BBC FOUR on the other hand.

It is a careless practice all right, one of those niggly unprofessional things that just sends out the wrong signals (excuse the pun).

From www.medialive.ie:

"RTE TV is currently received in approximately 48% of NI homes and it is anticipated that this will rise to about 68% with the addition of the Sky Digital homes."

That's a whopping increase given the comparitive suddenness of it.
20% extra homes equates to c320,000 extra people to crudely divide the population up.
Even if done more accurately, you're still talking a good boost for RTÉ's audiences, even if a lot of people don't watch due to the EPG ranking, or their own political reasons...