Goulburn blasting into my part of Sydney again this afternoon.
GNFM again causing CCI to Triple M CC near the intersection of the M7 and Sunnyholt Rd Acacia Gardens.
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And there’s more…
At Binalong Bay (north of St Helens), had ABC Clas RDS on 95.7 over the top of nearby 7SD Scottsdale.
Also had weak Mt Wandera ABC News 100.5 and Classic 101.9 (103.5 and 105.1 blocked by St Mary’s Chilli/7SD).
A fair Wave and i98 were heard too, but no RDS.
Tried for Sydney but no dice, it’d be the 800 m elevation of Knights Hill that makes all the difference.
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Probably closer to 950m when you include antenna height too, very impressive getting Knights Hill into NE Tasmania.
The current Hepburn forecast map shows the current ducts between Knights Hill / NE TAS, and Canberra / Sydney.
Update GNFM now over Triple M CC in the car park of Swing City Bella Vista.
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This might be a question one of the MS Tassie techs might be able to answer:-
@Radiohead reported that Chilli 94.5 Weldborough Pass (in the Scottsdale region) is not on air & the other nearby Chilli outlets don’t have the 94.5 frequency in their RDS AF lists. Therefore have to assume the 94.5 Weldborough Pass TX has been off for a while. Does anyone have any news on this TX & why off air?
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The equipment was removed a while ago, I think they considered the site redundant when St Helens and St Marys were added a few years back.
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Late 2021 or early 2022
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Awesome DX from NE TAS and it confirms what I’ve long suspected with Knights Hill FM making it easily to the Devil State. You are very lucky getting intense tropo this late in the year; I bombed out completely in May 2018 up that way. At least I got some decent MW DX with 4QR booming in the middle of the day on the loop.
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Rockhampton into Brisbane tonight.
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A sample of morning tropo FM DX from Mon 22nd of April via the Melbourne TEF webserver.
90.9 7JJJ Mt. Barrow. All ABC outlets from this site strong this morning.
91.7 7NT Mt. Barrow
92.1 3ABCFM Warrnambool
92.5 7PNN Mt. Barrow
93.3 7ABCFM Mt. Barrow
94.3 3PNN Ballarat over 3SEA Warragul
95.3 3YFM Warrnambool
95.7 Another station underneath Golden Days Radio (Tassie?)
97.3 7ABCFM Currie
99.7 7RGS Scottsdale - strong but no RDS today.
99.9 Voice FM, Ballarat
100.7 3CH Kyneton, Vic
100.9 2PNN Deniliquin
101.3 3WWM (Mixx FM) Hamilton - good
101.5 Fresh Bendigo
101.7 3ABCRN Warrnambool
102.1 3MIL Mildura
102.5 2MOR Deniliquin w/RDS
103.3 3JJJ Albury
104.5 3ABCRN Alexandra, Vic
104.9 Lime FM, Mt. Gambier, SA
105.3 3JJJ Swan Hill
105.7 5PNN - Mt. Gambier & 2BDR Albury
106.5 Flow FM, Birchip, Victoria.
107.7 Mixx FM - Swan Hill & also 3PNN Shepparton
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I did a quick scan on the car radio atop Mt Wellington in Hobart today (whilst I warmed up after getting back in the car!).
Only non local stations I could get were 7MID Oatlands and the ABCs from Mt Barrow.
Not surprised given the amount of hash there was across the band.
Tried for Launceston DAB 9D but nothing there.
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That’s real DXing
… which is more than 24 billion kilometres from Earth.
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And it would be about 22.5 hours behind the actual broadcast by the time you heard it.
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They really took the motto of “Yesterday’s Music Today” seriously and flew with it.
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I had very weak 90.1 when I was up there in August 2023. Also the ABC’s but that’s it.
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Take into account the pattern of the commercials off Mt Barrow are very specific. The nationals are more omni.
If you get down the hill further, shielded from the Wellington services, you have a much better chance…
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Yes, i went 100 m back down the hill and lost DAB reception!
Agree it would be a much better spot for DXing a bit further down against the hill where the signals would mostly fly over you.
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Is the purpose of the sharp null to the NE to reduce overspill to Scottsdale? Pretty silly for Chilli since I think they run the same programme on 90.1 and 99.7, just with local ads?
It’s (Tasmanian) devilishly hard to hear 89.3 and 90.1 from SE NSW which is right in the null. The Barrow nationals are semi common even as far north as Bungendore, and semi permanent into the Bombala region.
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And LA and 7SD run the same programming too as the IDs were always “LAFM and 7SD”, even at breakfast too I think. Scottsdale is pretty small, took 2 minutes to drive through the town, though I know it helps having St Helens and St Marys in its licence area.
Surprised that Bicheno isn’t in the Scottsdale licence area, The St Marys relays was the only commercial FM reception I could get there when I stayed there on Monday night, and it was very scratchy stereo, 7BOD 98.5 “Star FM” community radio does a pretty good job though.
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Effectively Yes.
Launceston and Scottsdale are two different licence areas, however both have had common ownership for sometime.
LAFM and Chilli is in the Launceston Radio area. 7SD and Chilli North East sit in the Scottsdale licence area.
Happy to be corrected, but the extra FM sites for SD and Chilli NE are only maybe 5 years old. They went in about the same time the ACMA invited 7SD to convert from AM to FM.
This fell through with the 7SD FM’s being not as effective as the 7SD AM service in and about Scottsdale, and I think they were made to leave the AM service active.
So now ARN run FM and an AM service plus smaller sites at St Helens and South Sister/St Marys.
If you were to redraw the licence areas, you would combine the 2 areas now, and have a larger North East area, with similar powers and directions as the Nationals.
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Though they’d still need a null to the north west to protect Devonport, since Barrow is strong there too.
I thought the AM service was kept on air to cover Flinders Island, not so much for Scottsdale… FM from Mt Horror was fine from around Targa to Weldborough.
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