I think if you were to reassess the North East licence areas, you would do the same for the North West.
I would advocate Tasmania really only needs a few areas. Hobart, North East, West Coast and North west.
Amalgamate the Smithton, Burnie and Devonport areas.
The 7SD (from my experience) doesn’t really work on Flinders, your better off going for the Gippsland and Barrow services. Gippsland’s 3GG…nice.
3GG and 7SD would smash each other on Flinders wouldn’t they? (531 and 540). A small scale FM repeater on Flinders would have been more appropriate; given that there are some mountains on the island I reckon a direct off-air relay from 95.7 would be viable.
Though a Flinders relay might retransmit ABCFM Knights Hill at times when tropo is really good 
Now in Strahan….
Some DX notes…. Hobart FMs had good coverage for about 180 kms out this way, before the descent down to the West Coast, being about 700m ASL helped there. Can still even get some weak Hobart around Strahan too, not bad at 300 km by road, Also had some patchy DAB about 120 km NW of Hobart too.
Conversely, 7XS and 7AUS only started to be receiveable about 50 kms east of Queenstown, a lot of hills just east of town too. RDS appeared 40 kms out.
7AUS “KIX Country” 95.3 Queenstown on air, stereo but no RDS, the 103.5 relay in Strahan not on air, and doesn’t look like 105.5 Rosebery is on air either (as I can get 107.1 here with fair reception). I can’t get 95.3 in Strahan though. but I can get 92.1 okay. Odd.
Some self help JJJ notes… 88.9 Queenstown NOT on air, 101.9 Strahan is on but broadcasting dead air, 102.7 Rosebery sounds like it’s on air with audio, it is weak here so will confirm on Sunday when I pass through town.
Also heard this station around New Norfolk, not heard of them before, must be a TCBL?
Yes, it’s indeed a TCBL. 
They’ve been around for a good while. I first heard them via E-skip in Numeralla in the early 2010s, and I recorded them locally in 2018:
From memory, Hobart FM is strong until about Derwent Bridge on the Lyell. I have only been there once, though (way back in 2000)!
One that you didn’t mention; 94.7 7SBSFM Strahan. I’m guessing that’s not on air either?
Looking at the map Strahan is a much smaller place than I envisioned. Hope the motel is comfy?
Doesn’t look like that’s on air either!
Not surprised, most of those SBS self help services have been switched off everywhere I’ve been in NSW and VIC.
It’s cool here, but okay 
Not really. The mountain range on the south of the island seems to block most everything.
I suspect that its a bit of a left over Flinders doesn’t have some sort of repeater. I can imagine 711 when it was running covered the island well. I can’t imagine the commercials would be interested, zero $$$ to be generated to justify the expense.
I am surprised that Flinders didn’t help it’s self (some what like King) with a community station however.
I was amazed that Strahan had any FM radio back in 2000. It’s still very much a frontier like place, a little town carved out of the wilderness.
Still only three stations here on air though.
I went up to Ocean Beach near Strahan a short while ago, it’s right on the coast, a first for me to see the ocean to the west whilst being in the eastern states!
Not much to report on FMs there, weak ABCs and commercial Hobart FMs, and ABCs from Mt Barrow, but also heard the ABCs from Lileah and Savage River.
AM was more interesting, probably helped with dusk approaching (4pm today), so did a log on the car radio
531 3GG Warragul weak
585 7RN Hobart fair
594 3WV Horsham weak
621 3RN Melbourne good
630 7RN Queenstown strong
693 3AW Melbourne good
729 5RN Adelaide weak
747 7PB Hobart fair
774 3LO Melbourne good
828 3GI Sale fair
855 3CR Melbourne fair
864 7RPH Hobart weak
882 3RPH Warrnambool good
891 5AN Adelaide weak
927 3UZ Melbourne weak
936 7ZR Hobart fair
981 3HA Hamilton good
1008 HPON Launceston fair
1026 3PB Melbourne fair
1080 HPON Hobart fair
1089 3WM Horsham weak
1116 3AK Melbourne fair
1134 3CS Colac fair
1161 5PA Naracoorte fair
1179 3RPH Melbourne fair
1224 3EA Melbourne fair
1242 3GV Sale weak
1278 3EE Melbourne fair
1332 3SH Swan Hill good
1341 HPON Geelong weak
1377 3MP Melbourne weak
1422 HPON Melbourne weak
1476 5MG Mount Gambier fair
1503 3KND Melbourne fair
1521 2QN Deniliquin weak
1593 HPON Melbourne weak
1602 3WL Warrnambool weak
WA should be strong from Strahan at night on MW. I reckon FM is doable too during strong summer tropo.
729/891 Adelaide were strong into Marrawah in the middle of the day with the loop. Didn’t stay there for long as there was a gale force westerly blowing the loop over and showers- typical weather for that part of the world.
Yes apparently the nearby Franklin-Gordon National Park gets 3,000 mm of rain a year. Should be the Wet Coast with rainfall like that, not West Coast.
I should probably feel lucky I’ve only seen a few showers here, and some drizzle.
I always use the ‘We(s)t Coast’ when describing the region! It’s one place where you never have to worry about drought.
NZ’s Wet Coast easily beats Tasmania’s though, 8000 mm p/a in the wettest spots around Milford Sound. The much higher mountains in NZ produce intense orographic rainfall. The warming Tasman Sea is likely to produce even more intense rainfall there.
Some more West Coast DX notes
Rosebery
101.5 7SBS on air, no audio, stereo pilot
102.7 7JJJ on air, but broadcasting Double J, no stereo pilot, mono audio
106.3 7QN and 107.9 7ABCRN on air as per ACMA lists
107.1 7XS stereo with RDS, sheets updated with PI and AF info.
Edit: No 7AUS “Kix Country” on 105.5 either.
Now at Cradle Mountain Hotel, in hotel room only weak patchy Mt Barrow ABCs can be received. Nothing else. Solid ABCs signals around the area in the car though. Haven’t tried DXing anywhere else yet. Hopefully tomorrow. Time to cheer on the Sharkies on 9Gem
I was on the South Coast yesterday and on the Princes Hwy heading north from Bomaderry to Sydney, 2ST 91.7 was stronger in places where 94.9 Power FM wasn’t, and vica versa.
2ST was very weak on the Princes Hwy coming into Kiama, and even in Kiama not nearly as good as Power 94.9 or Wave and i98.
It seems the 88.5 translator for Kiama would make a big difference for 2ST if it was activated. Saddleback mountain is huge, so even at 5W it would get a good signal there.
I was in Queenstown a bit over a month ago and 88.9 was transmitting very glitchy audio of the VAST info channel, at about 300% modulation. It pretty well wiped out 88.5 to 89.5 (on a modern car receiver).
There was a weird sound on 88.9, I wondered if it was a mixing product or some kind of spur, or maybe a faulty TX, but the car radio didn’t pick it up on auto seek in town, so I discounted it as a real signal.
Yeah that would have been it. It’s over modulating so much that the carrier is too wide to scan in - hah…
Interesting, ARN North East Tas (Chilli NE and 7SD) are now being fed over an 850mhz link from Launceston, via a hop at the TFS site on Mt Dismal to the tx at Mt Horror (which also feeds the relays at St Marys and St Helens).
According to ACMA the licence was issued in January, and these yagis appeared on the roof around the same time (this pic taken today).
Both stations were previously fed over IP with a tieline, I think using a Ubiquiti link and possibly later Starlink, into Omnia 9’s at Mt Horror.
They were always low bitrate & didn’t sound the best (and about a second behind the Launceston Chilli and LAFM), so a good change!
