AM and FM DX

This of course, raises the chicken & egg situation. Who’s gonna jump to 76Mhz 1st? You’d be hesitant since your ratings will likely plummet (esp for a commercial station). Very few radios I’ve seen cover the 76 ~ 88Mhz region. I know my car radio doesn’t & its a 2012 i30 model.

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I’d start by shifting all narrowcasters out to there - freeing up at least 87.5, 87.7 and 87.9 for more usage for commercial/national stations.

For the AM migrations you’d have a lengthy simulcast period - perhaps even indefinite, so it’d be up to each individual broadcaster when to pull the plug.

I would expect that the underlying tuner would be able to - just that they don’t expose a band selection switch to the user, because quite rightly there’s no need to right now. I think that if you codified it as being the new band - ideally with some other countries doing the same - it would be a relatively trivial change to firmware in a digitally tuned FM receiver.

Most phones I’ve seen with an FM radio have an option to switch bands.

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In Australia - 66-88 MHz is one of the Land Mobile allocations, regional Police, Bush Fire, National Parks etc use frequencies in the 70-85 MHz segment…

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Yes, although I think the usage of this segment is dwindling in favour of UHF allocations. It’s most popular in regional areas which need the greater coverage range of VHF. One could move these land mobile services to the old Band I allocations (45-70 MHz), if 76-88 MHz was to be used for FM broadcasting.

I can’t see the FM band being extended in Australia despite it being fairly simple to tweak receivers on the end user side. It would be a radical step for the ACMA to take; the faffing around with DAB+ allocations in regional areas suggests that it would be a too much of a leap into the unknown for the regulator.

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There was a station in Sydney on 77.43khz (Not Sure If They Are Still There) called Muse Radio so it is possible to broadcast there.

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Yes, and also 77.4 MHz on the Gold Coast (‘The 80s’, now defunct). These services were licensed as Narrowband Area Services (NAS) and used narrow, rather than wide, FM. In this they are consistent with other land mobile services that use this part of the spectrum. This small allocation around 77 MHz is still available for NAS- AFAIK. Most nFM NAS use VHF band II around 151 MHz.

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@RFBurns Great contribution, thank you.

The difference (on FM) in what I first knew as the ch 2 site to the 7/10 site was highlighted when DMG got Nova to air in 2001. (With TV, I’d discovered this in the late 80’s, ch 2 signal not good among the rocks of Berowra nor up at Katoomba where the Knights Hill VHF ABC signal was better.)

Incumbent FMs with a willing site owner, TXA weren’t giving Paul Thompson an easy start in the Sydney market with Nova I recall.

Fringe coverage along the Pac Hwy, F5 and over the Blue Mtns noticeably different I recall on various visits in the year of the launch. As you state @RFBurns, all of this outside the licence area.

Obviously, there’ll be locations within the Sydney basin where tuning in the stations from the Gore Hill site are a touch more problematic than Artarmon and I’m sure in reverse.

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Had 8HA Alice Springs and 3CS Colac coming in nice last night here just south of Port Macquarie

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2AD and 2LM missing in your area often?

Nulled 2LM for 7AD, booming in despite only being a touch over 20km from the 2LM sticks.

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reception is pretty scattered all over this area. 2RE and MAX get in fine most of the time, MMM and HIT boom. Sometimes grab MMM and Hit from Coffs and Newcastle stations, but the conditions have to be right.

I don’t think I’ve received 2LM or 2AD clearly for a while now. Will check again tonight.

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At one spot in Unanderra (approx 6km SW of Wollongong) whilst down in the region last week, I could get the Nova Ent stations from the Gore Hill site much clearer than those transmitting out of the Artarmon site (eg. 2MMM was just static) on my father’s workvan car radio, which has an after-market windscreen antenna. IIRC, The Edge 96.1 from Wentworth Falls came in loud & clear too at that same location, despite the Illawarra Escarpment getting a bit in the way, although its TX being in a very high elevation (nearly 900m ASL) does help.

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8HA! That’s a great catch.

I’ve never received Northern Territory or Western Australia AM radio here in NSW before (though I know others here have with WA).

Don’t take this as 100% correct but, I think when Nova started broadcasting in Sydney they were on a lower antenna &/or had a side mount antenna? I remember speaking to the engineer while they were doing the test broadcasts, giving them my reception reports for out at a distance listening i.e. in Newcastle, & he said OK we’ll try & get it a bit higher. Reception at a distance did improve over the early period of them starting, so I don’t know if they managed to up the TX power, get the antenna higher, or negotiate to use a higher antenna on the tower?

When Smooth (or Vega 95.3 as it was then) came along, they both (if Nova wasn’t already?) went onto the main FM antenna, along with the ABC & SBS FM’s.

When SCA moved the alternate site from Willoughby & ARN moved WSFM from Willoughby to Artarmon, & gave both WSFM & MIX106.5 an alternate site to Artarmon (all at Gore Hill), the main FM antenna at Gore Hill didn’t have the power capacity in it for all stations to operate at full TX power. Because Nova/Smooth were there first & have no alternate site, they get priority on the antenna, & can operate at full TX power, SCA & ARN have to operate at lower TX power, so as to not overload the main FM antenna.

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Thanks again.

Based on my reception observations from up here near Newcastle, I also note that there’s nearly always at least one, usually 2 (either ARN or SCA pair) that is broadcasting from Gore Hill.

Something tells me that Artarmon isn’t designed to handle all 4 SCA /ARN stations for long periods either? Would that be correct?

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Thanks again @RFBurns for a great recall of events and explanation.

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You’re pretty right with there’s nearly always 1 ARN/SCA station broadcasting from Gore Hill.

ARN usually go in pairs, SCA could have 1 at Artarmon & 1 at Gore Hill, but mostly they go in pairs too.

For reasons unknown to me, ARN seem to prefer Gore Hill, whereas SCA prefer Artarmon?

The SCA TX’s at Gore Hill are the oldest in the network, so perhaps that’s why they prefer Artarmon, (that may change as the TX’s are due for replacement soon). ARN has new (a few years old) TX’s at both sites, so it doesn’t matter to them.

Artarmon can handle all SCA & ARN services for long periods, it’s just as per what the networks prefer.

Though due to upcoming FM antenna works, all FM Radio services at Artarmon will be on the main FM antenna soon, this means all services will be on reduced TX power, but they won’t be any lower than Gore Hill, so network site preferences may change?

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Thanks again for the great info!

Yes, in the last year or two, it’s usually ARN at Gore Hill and SCA at Artarmon, but 2014 to 2016 ish, it seemed to be the other way around.

The new FM TX at Gore Hill sounds interesting - I wonder if that will allow some of those limitations that you referred to as having to operate at a lower power to be overcome?

And re all services having to be at Artarmon whilst the Gore Hill works are being done, is the need for reduced power to limit potential issues since there won’t be a back up site available?

SCA are getting new TX’s at Gore Hill, but no they won’t be any higher in power out, the Gore Hill antenna is the limiting factor, & that won’t be changed any time soon, (maybe never?). They will give SCA higher reliability at Gore Hill though.

When the SCA TX’s at Gore Hill are being replaced, SCA will have to stay at Artarmon, but that won’t matter, they have triple redundancy, 1 TX at Gore Hill for each station, & 2 TX’s at Artarmon, main & half power backup, for each station.

The FM antenna works are on the Artarmon Tower, not Gore Hill, & the need for reduced power at Artarmon is because the main FM antenna there, is at capacity & the added FM services that are being taken off other antennas on the tower, will overload it.

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Ah right, thanks also for the clarification re antenna works too.

AM 900 in Brisbane

No Alice Springs into Brisbane last night. The skywave from 2LM is too strong.

The handheld Sony world band radio I used is great for AM and was able to null 2LM enough to hear 7AD’s music programming, not as good as within the Lismore licence area where I could easily null 2LM over a much larger arc of rotating the radio.

No sign of 2LT Lthgow also on 900.

Interestingly, whilst driving, 100.9 from Lismore came in strong. The weather was perfect last night with that ‘after rain’ feeling of fog & warmer temp than usual, clearing to what was a fine start to the day.

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