We look back at the stories that were making the headlines in the Andersonstown News this week in 1981
RTÉ aerials getting in the picture
MANY residents in the West Belfast area have recently been making a big effort to receive RTÉ on their television, but quite a few have been bitterly disappointed with the results.
There have been a number of firms and individuals advertising to install the necessary equipment, and while most of these are genuine, competent engineers, it would appear that there are also a few “cowboys” interested only in making a quick financial killing.
The main source of discontent seems to be that in some areas, even with the new aerials, the sound is very bad and the picture so “snowy” as to be unwatchable.
However, customers have been advised to keep the equipment, and have been assured that once the transmitter at Carlingford has been switched to full power the quality of picture and sound will increase dramatically. From the enquiries made by this office, it is clear that people who continue to believe this are only deluding themselves.
The first point to make is that RTÉ’s new UHF transmitter at Clermont Carn was never introduced for the North – it was built to provide coverage of RTÉ 1 and 2 in counties Louth, Monaghan, Meath and Dublin. There is certainly enough power to provide a very good service in the Six Counties but under international law only a fraction of this power can be directed northwards. The transmitter is now almost at full strength, and any further increase in power to the North will be negligible, and will certainly make no material difference to reception in the North.
This does not mean, of course, that many people will not be able to get satisfactory RTÉ coverage, so we asked Gerry McCann, a technical officer at RTÉ what practical measures could be taken to ensure maximum affect. He stressed that we were in a fringe reception area where picture quality can vary from very good to unwatchable depending on several factors, eg, location, height above sea level, proximity to tall buildings, trees etc.
The ideal situation is to be located on some high ground with a clear view of the mountain (and mast). When negotiating to have an RTÉ aerial installed, it is best to proceed on the principle of – no proper picture – no deal.
The Westrock Whiterock Senior Citizen's Christmas Dinner committee relaxing in St John's Hall after all their hard work
Editorial
CHRISTMAS time should be a time of reconciliation, tolerance and peace. But the injustice and deprivation so prevalent in our society make it difficult for most people to look on it as such.
Many people will be sad this Christmas as they remember loved ones, prematurely removed from this life because of the political situation here. This sadness will not be confined to any one section of the community, or to any one nationality, because violent death is no great discriminator.
But, as one approaches Christmas, we are glad to hear that a section of the most forgotten victims may be at last getting the publicity and recognition that has long been denied them. We refer to the hundreds of innocent people killed because of their religion – the vast majority of them Catholics – over these past twelve years.
These people were not members of any military or paramilitary organisation, they had no political associations, and the majority of them went to their grave unsung and unpublicised, and quite often forgotten except by their closest relatives.
We welcome Cardinal Ó Fiaich’s statement recently after meeting members of the Silent Too Long organisation, that he was horrified by the statistics presented to him. Quite well he might be, because the Roman Catholic Church, with some exceptions, allowed hundreds of its flock to be killed, without raising anything near the same furore that is has raised in condemning murders of members of the British security forces.
Nowhere was this Church negligence more in evidence than in the diocese of Down and Connor.
Letting their hair down at the Westrock Whiterock Senior Citizen's Christmas Dinner in St John's Hall
South Link Depot: Never heard of it!
THE Belfast City Council has denied all knowledge of a new cleansing depot, to be built shortly in South Link in Andersonstown. The construction of the new depot has been delayed for some months because of residents’ objections. But Belfast City Council whose Technical Services Department will be in charge of building the new depot, says it knows nothing about it.
An Andersonstown News reporter contacted the Technical Services Department and the Public Relations Office at the City Hall to get some facts and figures for a news story, but neither Jack Ewart nor Peter Johnston of the Department were available for comment.
“They’re in the building,” our reporter was told, “but we can’t find them.”
In another attempt at getting some information, our reporter contacted the Press Office, which rang back in an hour’s time with the information that no one in the City Hall knew anything about the new cleansing depot.
“And we have gone right to the top with this one,” said the officer.
In the meantime, people in the South Link area await with interest further information on the phantom depot, and the Andersonstown News commiserates with the Technical Services Department on the disappearance of Mr Ewart and Mr Johnston and hopes that they turn up safe and sound. Who knows?
Maybe the facts about the new depot got lost in the same place!
Margaret O'Neill, Martha McKeaveney, Mary Murphy, Madge Boyle and Maureen Marlowe at the Senior Citizen's Function in the Cardinal O'Donnell's GAC Hall, Rockmore Road
