page_title: Athlone
section_title: Broadcasting
hierarchical_section_title: Athlone / Broadcasting
caption_attribution_description: English: It's the Town Centre and the Civic Centre in Athlone.
context_page_description: Athlone is a town in County Westmeath, Ireland. It is located on the River Shannon near the southern shore of Lough Ree. It is the second most populous town in the Midlands Region with a population of 21,349 in the 2016 census.
  Most of the town lies on the east bank of the river, within the townland of the same name; however, by the terms of the Local Government Act of 1898, six townlands on the west bank of the Shannon, formerly in County Roscommon, were incorporated into the town, and consequently, into the county of Westmeath.
  Athlone is near the geographical centre of Ireland, which is 8.85 kilometres north-northwest of the town, in the area of Carnagh East in County Roscommon.
context_section_description: Between 1931 and 1975 the main radio transmission centre for Irish radio was located at Moydrum, Athlone (53°25′14″N 7°52′52″W). The original call sign was 2RN, a wordplay on the song "Come back to Erin". The station subsequently became known as "Radio Athlone" and could clearly be heard throughout Europe, and as far away as Moscow. This changed as bandwidth allocations were accorded at the Helsinki Declaration.
  The station originally operated at a power of 60 kW, which during the 1950s, was increased to 100 kW. For antenna, a T-antenna was and is still used, which spins between two 100-metre tall guyed masts with square cross sections and which are insulated against ground. Many old radio sets in Europe had the "Athlone" dial position marked near the end of their tuning scales.
  In the late 1970s the station reopened on a new dial position of 612 kHz for "Radio 2", later known as RTÉ 2fm. Moydrum was also the location of Ireland's short-lived Shortwave international radio service, which was closed down in 1948 due to lack of money. Today, RTÉ's Midlands studios are located in Athlone, at St. Mary's Square. The local radio station is Midlands 103. Many also tune into the Shannonside station.
  A radio station, i102-104FM, was launched in 2008, geared to the 15–34 age group of the Midlands and Northeast.
  The Athlone Community Taskforce and several members of the Roscommon community radio station, RosFM, have begun broadcasting from the Athlone area under the banner of Athlone Community Radio. Their first broadcast was on 15 March 2008 and the broadcasts were originally set to run every Saturday and Sunday for the following 15 weeks, until their temporary licence expired. They received a 10-year licence on 14 January 2011 from the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, and they currently broadcast on the frequency of 88.4 FM.
caption: Athlone Town Centre shopping centre.
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