I remember doing a bit of daytime AM DXing in Warrnambool in the 80s and also hearing these stations
558 7BU Burnie
900 7AD Devonport
963 5SE Mt Gambier
1008 7EX Launceston (when it used to be a proper commercial station, not just racing).
Don’t remember hearing 7LA or any others, though they may well have been received.
Yep, NW Tassie should be easy from the ‘Bool. 3YB is a local signal into Marrawah (NW tip of TAS) by day also.
Getting back to flying over Canberra in a plane, and Canberra fm being weak compared to Sydney fm.
When flying over Canberra at 30-40K feet in a plane, the 80kw / 20kw Fm services from Black Mountain are no match for the 150KW blowtorches from Artarmon / Gore Hill which propagate a very strong signal even at 300+km away.
Canberra is very weak even when flying directly overhead at 30k feet and suffer from interference from the Sydney FM stations on the adjacent frequencies.
It is a different story when flying to Canberra / Sydney with both Canberra and Sydney Fm stations being able to be received for most of the journey. As the plane is not flying so high Sydney fm is not able to dominate as it does at 30-40k feet.
And by night 5AA 1395 is a local/regular.
I always felt guilty using a radio when flying. But have done it before. 
. Wonder how far fm radio can go up if maybe you are physically outside the plane . Theoretical of course.
Sydney fm makes it almost to Albury in a plane at 40K feet, however as you get close to Albury the Albury fm stations take over. The Albury’s use the same frequency alotment for FM as Sydney. To the north in a plane Sydney makes it to around Coffs before suffering cochannel interference.
From Brisbane, River 94.9 is the last of the Brisbane stations to drop out on the flight to Sydney.
106.9 is shared by Hit 106.9 for half the flight and Nova 106.9 for the half of the flight. You can stay on that frequency for the whole flight and there is always something on that frequency.
Back on tropo, some late Autumn ducting today. Newcastle Fm coming in strong witk Ko the best of the commercials.
Newcastle tv knocking out Wollongong Tv at my location.
Back in 2010, I managed to DX DAB+ on a flight from Sydney to Perth using a Sangean DPR35. Sitting on the left of the plane on a window seat I was able to hear the Canberra DAB+ trial flying just south of Katoomba and flying over Mildura, I was able to get Melbourne DAB+.
I tried TX DXing on a plane using an old Citizen handheld LCD TV a few years earlier and found that UHF TV worked much better in a plane than VHF.
No doubt partly because the antenna length that could be used inside the plane would match UHF signals.
Sorry I’m a few days late to this, but I too noticed this in my travels over the years. It’s the same heading east, locations in Gippsland where you’ve almost completely lost 3MMM/Fox, you can still hear Nova and 91.5 very clearly. I had presumed it was due to these being at a different locationm but didn’t suspect it was because they were on the midget stick on Mt Dandenong
Thanks for the info team 
You’re never too late, it’s great to read information from previous conversations days/months/years later. It’s all added information. We’re a helpful bunch here as you know, getting to the bottom of it all.
I can confirm this, FOX/MMM significantly below signal strength of Nova/Smooth when in fringe locations such as Yarragon.
How did you find the ABC/SBS services? At Yarragon etc, they were similar to Nova but not much better.
I’ve often read of people in Gippsland and west of Melb such as Colac - Portland who would receive FOX and the old EON or 105.1 in the 80/90’s in summer, a regular occurrence during summer.
Their audio currently sounds like they’re feeding it audio that is not suitable for am broadcast (no frequency cut-off). There’s sibilance & the actual modulation is low/poor. I’m not sure if they’ve re-commissioned the other 2 masts ? For a period of about 7-8 months, RETE Italia on 801 kHz was splattering to the shithouse 100 kHz either side ( 700-900 kHz AM was listenable, and I was 12 KMs from the site .
Just got back from a 2 day ship cruise down the South Coast (from/returning to Sydney). The boat was probably about 30 kms offshore and I made the following noteworthy DX catches from my outboard cabin whilst facing the coastline.
Wollongong
Most noteworthy catches here were the Mt Cenn Cruaich ABCs, at least on 102.3, 105.5 and 106.3
Nowra-Ulladulla
Here I got SNOW FM over SBS Sydney, something I didn’t expect.
Though Far South Coast ABCs were only faint.
RN was still causing Power FM some grief on 104.3, but the latter won out pretty quickly.
Also got B Rock from Bathurst.
Canberra ABCs were received OK, Hit 104.7 and Mix106.3 were weaker but there.
Batemans Bay
Here got Power 102.5 at pretty decent levels. But the best “catch of the day” (no pun intended) was weak reception of the Gippsland ABCs on 96.7 and 100.7. That was a nice surprise.
Then the boat turned around and then being on the “other side” of the ship, reception was significantly worse meaning getting even the nearby stations was difficult, though Illawarra ABCs were okay from Nowra up to north of Wollongong.
I did some DX’ing on a cruise ship en route to New Zealand in October 2015. As I was out in the middle of the Tasman, there was no chance of any FM but at night, just about all of the east coast could be heard on the rear deck of the ship. Once we got closer to NZ, the NZ stations were fighting for space with the Australian ones.
Interesting observations. You did well getting Gippsland at Batemans Bay as it’s notoriously tough getting it on land down there, though I did get it weakly from Tuross Head on a very good tropo day in March (with Sydney DAB and Coffs FM booming in). Snow FM is usually dominant on 97.7 once you get south of about Milton; the same with Power vs 2MBS on 102.5.
And as an aside, I was unaware that short cruises to the South Coast even existed! I know ships call in at Eden from time to time.
It wasn’t supposed to be a short cruise in that sense, it was supposed to go north east out of Sydney for 3 days but was cut to a 2 day cruise south of Sydney due to the high seas on Friday.
And yes, being off shore seemed to help with the Gippsland catch to reduce to impact of terrain, at 200kw it was always a chance I guess 
That was my first ever Victorian DX catch into NSW (not counting getting Shepparton at Mt Parnassus Lookout in Gundagai which would be permanent reception there).
Gippsland easily sneaks around the bottom of NSW and probably to NZ in intense tropo; the path towards Batemans suffers from severe attenuation due to terrain as you point out.
I was wondering about those high seas; it’s definitely rougher out in the Tasman than what I experienced on Bass Strait in May.
Are you refunded one third or can claim via travel insurance?
I have been wondering about that… I will have to ask my travel agent, and yes, I do have travel insurance.
A cruise to New Caledonia or Norfolk Island would be mighty interesting in the warmer months. Rowdy passengers would definitely be an issue with the former, though, and I’m not sure a cruise to Norfolk even exists!
Some of these SBS retransmissions get out a fair way.
The Port Macquarie one on 107.7, I heard that on the car radio on the Pacific Highway just north of Taree yesterday and I am hearing it now at Coffs Harbour Jetty.
Still not bad for 250 watts I suppose.