Atlantic 252 - Any memories??

[Pete_1966]

Not too sure if this is the correct area for this thread but I just realized that the last time I tuned in to the above was almost a quarter of a century ago - so should qualify as vintage! I drove a beat-up Opel Kadett from 1994 to 1996. The radio was rubbish, an OEM Radiomobile MW/LW pushbutton unit but it was tuned to one channel only: A-252! I remember how I was able to drive the length of Ireland and also to the Isle of Man and Coventry, UK on holidays without having to re-tune. Sound was consistent, if lo-fi, through the equally crappy OEM fitted dashboard speaker. But they were good times - single and carefree in my mid to late 20's, listening to DJ's with contrived names like Rick O'Shea, Dusty Rhodes and Robin Banks belting out classics like 'Push the Feeling On' and 'Surrender your love' by the Nightcrawlers, 'Luv 4 Luv' by Robin-S plus a few more popular jams from the day. When I listen to those songs I am transported back to those days. I bought a used Lada after the Kadett, and all of a sudden, my workmates were transformed into music-hall comedians! While driving them from a pub one evening after a works party, I tuned into A-252 only to hear a drunken drawl from the back seat from one of the aforementioned funny guys: "What station is that, Pete; - Dubrovnik 252?" Still makes me grin when I remember that take on my Soviet era car! I remember visiting cousins of my then-girlfriend, now my wife, in Trim, Co. Meath back in 1997 and driving past the transmitter site in Summerhill. Pity to see A-252 gone now, but I think the site still transmits RTE Radio 1 (the only RTE1 AM service) and is popular with Irish abroad, especially those who rely on radio, as opposed to the more modern media, to keep in touch with matters at home. Hope this sparks a few memories!

[Beobloke]

Before Mrs. B and I were married, which must have been 1999/2000, we borrowed her father's car to take a tour from the home in Athlone round the south of Ireland for a week. The car was a 1987 Nissan Micra with over 170,000 miles on the clock and its only source of in-car entertainment was an FM/AM radio.

After exhausting the Irish stations on FM, most of which were awful, we ended up on LW and our soundtrack for the trip was Atlantic 252 - I even carried on listening to it back in the UK. It was sad when it went and, although RTE is on the frequency still, they appear to have turned the power down as I can barely hear it on the south coast of England - 252 used to be loud and clear.

[Richard_FM]

I remember 252 was popular when I was at secondary school between 1989 & 1994.

The playlist was an odd mix of old & new songs with some older songs seemingly on permanent rotation, such as Daydream Believer and The Whole Of The Moon.

I can pick up RTE Radio 1 better at home than Radio 4 LW.

[paulsherwin]

It was always a stretch to listen to it in S and SE England, which is one reason why it didn't make as much money as the promoters hoped. It had very good audience figures in the West Midlands, North West and the Scottish central belt though.

RTE1 similarly struggles to reach London, which is a pity as that's where a sizeable part of the Irish diaspora audience is.

[mark2collection]

Do I ever, aged 18, listening from the early 90's 'til its demise.

I drove a solar gold 2-door MKII Escort for aeons. Reception wasn't too bad, until the wipers went on ...

Enjoyed many maaany miles listening up & down the country (where I could) to enjoyable music and DJ banter, one female presenter always sounded rather nice, no internet for me back then and I cannot remember her name.

But yes, for the time & age, it worked great.

I'm sure I read somewhere about trying to revive Atlantic 252, but no success.

Mark

[paulsherwin]

There was a project to launch a music station on 279kHz LW from the Isle of Man about 20 years ago, but it came to nothing for a mixture of technical, financial and personal reasons. It would have had a service area similar to 252, though the promoters suggested huge potential coverage from Scandinavia to Spain. The economics of any large commercial music station on LW were looking shaky by then though.

https://paulrusling.com/Musicman_279.html

[Ian - G4JQT]

I remember it. They had a very restricted play list to start with, deliberate so that anyone finding the station recognised a track and might be inclined to stay. But it soon got tedious if listening in your workshop!

They also started with very limited advertising, and I think it was the add for Earex ear drops that was played over and over!

I rebuilt an old Heathkit DX40 while listening to Atlantic 252. Happy days...

Ian

[Radio Wrangler]

Originally Posted by paulsherwin

There was a project to launch a music station on 279kHz LW from the Isle of Man about 20 years ago, but it came to nothing for a mixture of technical, financial and personal reasons. It would have had a service area similar to 252, though the promoters suggested huge potential coverage from Scandinavia to Spain. The economics of any large commercial music station on LW were looking shaky by then though.

https://paulrusling.com/Musicman_279.html

That looks like the Crossed-Field Antenna thing was involved. A trial one had been built on the Isle some time before. Maybe the rather gung-ho predictions drew some broadcasters in. The structures would have looked rather scarily threatening to the layperson, so campaigns against it aren't surprising.

David

[sexton_mallard]

I remember Atlantic 252 well in the late 90's when I first started getting interested in collecting and mending valve radios. The signal in Dublin where I lived at the time was strong and all my radios were tuned to it on LW. I remember the station had a few straplines, none of which I can recall from memory unfortunately but one was of the effect 'we are different to the other stations, we bet the other way!'.

[G6Tanuki]

Atlantic-252 was a regular early-morning car-radio listen when I was driving up M6 for meetings in Edinburgh: apart from that the 'LW' button on my car-radio never got pressed.

[Laser 558 gave better coverage down in the South East UK though].

[Junk Box Nick]

I heard it the day it came on air. I'd heard about it somewhere – it might even have been on Laurie Taylor's 'The Radio Programme' on Radio 4 – so tuned in for the novelty of another English language station on LW. I distinctly remember hearing the disco song 'Ride on time' by Black Box.

A bunch of us used to go to Western Scotland and the Highlands and Islands a lot in the 1990s and A252 was very popular there. A superb signal helped which you could expect from a 500kW Tx. I remember us listening in a hire vehicle all the way from Oban to home in the West Midlands. I began listening occasionally at home. There were ads in a send-up 1930s accent voice by a Mr Chelmondly Warner for what I can't remember. One of these trips will be dated by a playlist which featured 'Sleeping Satellite' by Tasmin Archer, 'You are my Everything' by Lionel Ritchie and a slow accoustic version of 'Layla' by Eric Clapton. I was a bit beyond my 'pop all day' years at this point but it made a change when Charlie Chester, etc., was on Radio 2.

There was certainly a concerted advertising campaign in the West Midlands as plenty of bus-backs carried ads promoting 'Listen to the long waves of music on Atlantic 252'.

I don't think the commercial stations of the time were too happy about the arrival of Atlantic 252, having already taken something a hammering from Laser 558 and Radio Caroline in the 1980s though it was the north rather than the south that was suffering this time.

It opened an era that was the last hurrah for AM radio. With deregulation in the 1990s and a lot more FM stations it was struggling in the end and a move to dance music seemed to fail. Radio Luxembourg – RTL had been partners in the venture – had already closed its 208 English service. The last station before RTE took it over was a sports broadcaster based, IIRC in Leeds.

I listened to RTE1 a fair amount and it was fine until the Algeria transmitter was recommissioned, though with care I could null it out. However, despite installing a new transmitter in the 2000s, I think with a lower full power of 400kW, RTE have tried several times to close it. There was an announcement around the end of 2013(?) that it was to shut the following January that met with huge protest from the Irish diaspora in the UK and a reprieve. However, the wick has been slowly turned down and the last time I listened at night I'd say its strength was no more from what I would expect from a 50kW Transmitter.

Somewhere on YouTube there is a tour around the original Tx. It is a monster!

[llama]

Some off-air recordings here:

https://www.mixcloud.com/italad/atla...-and-al-dunne/

Graham

[Lloyd 1985]

I remember listening to Atlantic 252 back in the 90’s, I was around 10 in 95, and I’d badgered my Grandad into giving me one of the old radios in his shed, there were 2, one was a 60’s Perdio that didn’t work very well, and a Sanyo 8 transistor thing, and it was the Sanyo that I listened on! I can’t remember much of the content, I used to prefer listening to Classic Gold on 1359 MW, I lived in Daventry back then and I’m sure that MW and LW were much more lively back then, and I had many hours of fun listening, even the adverts seemed less irritating back then!

Regards
Lloyd

[Jonster]

It was a good station which continued the ethos of Laser 558 from a decade earlier. I often had it on in the car in the mid nineties.

[Graham G3ZVT]

Fun fact, the station was always styled "Atlantic 252" but in fact it was on 254kHz for the first month or two. The resulting sibilant audio when tuned to the advertised frequency made think something was faulty, and I even hypothesised they were using some sort of asymmetric sidebands! The truth is their allocation changed in as part of the 9kHz harmonisation in the same way as Droitwich had done earlier.

Does anyone remember their phone number? It was
010 353 463 6677 but the DJ's were clearly under instructions to parse it thus:
01 0353 463 6677. I remain convinced they did that to convince the adolescent audience it was some sort of (admittedly very strange) London number and not an expensive international call at all!

There was never any hint, apart from the accents of some of the presenters, that the station was in Ireland

Much the same as Luxemburg I suppose. Yes I know, the clue's in the name, but I don't think I even twigged that Danish bacon came from Denmark at a young age.

[Richard_FM]

I heard when it was the Sports station Teamtalk 252 they got in trouble from FIFA for reporting on games from the 2002 World Cup without getting the rights. As they didn't have the money to send anyone out to Japan & South Korea they used to do their reporting from watching the games on TV.

[Junk Box Nick]

Teamtalk called it 'off tube commentary'. ISTR they covered some games that weren't on R5 Live.

[paulsherwin]

Originally Posted by rambo1152

Does anyone remember their phone number? It was
010 353 463 6677 but the DJ's were clearly under instructions to parse it thus:
01 0353 463 6677. I remain convinced they did that to convince the adolescent audience it was some sort of (admittedly very strange) London number and not an expensive international call at all!

There was never any hint, apart from the accents of some of the presenters, that the station was in Ireland

They certainly never gave any indication that they were an Irish station. They had plenty of listeners in Ireland, but their target market was very much the UK - there were none of the commercials for odd Irish supermarket chains that you hear on RTÉ, and there weren't many Irish accents to be heard either. Some of the presenters were Irish, but they tended to put on Smashie & Nicey style mid Atlantic accents.

The fact that their signal didn't cover London very well was a major drag on their profitability.

[Junk Box Nick]

In theory, despite the problems of getting into London, there were enough centres of population within good reach to make it viable. It would have been a roaring success in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

However, by the time it came on air AM was beginning its decline. With the start of deregulation, the ILR stations were confident enough to split their AM and FM frequencies and Radio One finally started on FM in 1990 with the network complete in 1995. For RTL a tie-up with RTE was probably considered the final payday as Radio Luxembourg was in terminal decline – few were going to put up with fading and phase distortion as they had in the past when choices were few – and 208 would fall silent to UK targetted programming at the end of 1990.

Through the 90s more local and regional stations came on air and mainly on FM. AM was where you put the second-string operation playing golden oldies where older ears were happy enough with medium wave quality. Virgin was the only new operation music station to commence on AM. Given the experience with the offshore pirates the authorities were probably very reluctant to give a national FM licence to an independent pop station but declining AM was considered safe enough, especially with a problematic wavelength like 247m. (Classic FM was considered a reasonable risk as classical music on AM was a non-starter plus perhaps they thought it wouldn't last long. It is significant that it remains the only national FM licence issued. The BBC got worried about it in the 1990s but in recent years it has proved useful to the Corporation as somewhere for the older audience to go as programming for the older demographic has been steadily been removed from Radio 2 in order to concentrate on capturing ex-Radio One listeners.)

In my area during the Atlantic 252 era there was a lot of choice provided by 'home' based stations. In addition to the BBC, there were two the two original ILR stations playing pop, a regional FM music station targetting the 30s-50s, local FM stations targetting the 'urban' audience and XTRA-AM (BRMB) playing gold and WABC (Beacon) targetting the mature audience, plus Virgin which was a solid signal from Droitwich. In a nutshell, there was a lot of competition a lot of alternatives with good reception before feeling the need to flick to a distant station on long wave.

[AC/HL]

Two OT posts deleted, Atlantic 252 memories please.