UP to 25 per cent of the State's population will be unable to receive Teilifis na Gaeilge unless they buy and install new UHF aerials, according to an RTE spokesman.
Those affected include communities in counties Galway, Mayo, Clare and Limerick and most of the Gaeltacht, including TnaG's Connemara base.
The head of reception investigations in RTE, Mr Tom McCarthy, said the average cost of the aerials, including installation, came to under £30. However, a community arts publication in Connemara has claimed that householders in the region have been asked to pay up to £60 by television agents to install the new aerials.
A spokesman for TnaG confirmed that householders in the region would need the aerials, but insisted the station would reach its target of 90 per cent national coverage from day one.
Cable companies in major towns and cities were preparing to transmit TnaG on a "must carry" basis, at no extra cost to the consumer, said the spokesman, Mr Padhraic O Ciadhra. Mr McCarthy said communities in the west which received
RTE on a VHF frequency would need to switch to UHF to get the new station.
He said RTE planned to upgrade its western transmissions from VHF to UHF and that those affected would need to buy she new aerials to receive RTE, regardless of TnaG. TV3 would also be broadcast on UHF when it came on air.
He dismissed suggestions that RTE could broadcast TnaG on a spare VHF channel in the west and said the channel was unsuitable as it was only available from a 35 year old transmitter operating on low power. "All our system improvements on RTE in the past few years have been on UHF."
A similar change over in reception systems had already taken place for technical reasons in a number of towns, including Clonmel, Cahir, Limerick and Youghal.