Forgot that the Sleepy State’s borders are still shut. But surely investigating the groundwave coverage of an emergency broadcasting station qualifies as essential travel?
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Only if I could convince them that I work for the ACMA!
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I am totally envious of your trip. Great reports!
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Might be a good idea to escape Broken Hill quickly.
Just looking at the Hill FM facebook site this evening,
a Ch7 news story was posted up about a furore over sale of Golliwogs
at a Broken Hill Newsagent.
Especially with concerns of race riots/protests in
current climate…
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That was on the 7 News Adelaide 6pm bulletin tonight too.
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Had to go to Canberra (Philip) & received 104.1 Albury at good levels on the Numeralla River bridge near Breadbo again (so must be a perm signal there - a gap in the “Mt Roberts” range).
Could receive WSFM 101.7 & 104.1 Albury good over Red Hill & could receive (when parked in Botany St Philip) a weak pop station on 103.1 (UNID) & 103.3 2GCR Goulburn. Botany St seems pretty poor for DX though though given 88.3 Riverina & 95.7 Wollongong weak
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Power Ballarat?
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more likely one of those mp3 transmitters but the signal was stable (not fluctuating as in a moving vehicle). Possibly even a pirate FM !
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In Mildura now.
Found a good DX spot roughly halfway (Popiltah) down from Broken Hill
Bendigo again, 90.3, 91.1, 91.9, 92.7, 93.5 - all weak though
Renmark - 93.1, 93.9, 95.5 (Radio TAB), 101.9 and 105.1 - all clear. Community station 5LFM 100.7 also received.
Menindee - 95.7 and 97.3 both ABC stations though faint
Griffith - weak Hit 99.7, something weak on 98.9, possibly RN?
Mildura - all commercial and ABC stations 97.9, 99.5, 100.3, 101.1, 102.7, 104.3 and 105.9. 106.7 HOT there too. By stroke of luck RDS received on Triple M MMM 97.9 (but not Hit), though the Mildura stations didn’t become consistently clear in the car until about 80 kms away, the terrain undulates a fair bit, it’s not as flat I thought it might be out there.
Swan Hill - 102.1, 103.7 and 105.3 ABCs received though weak, 106.9 HPON just heard
On AM clear 5RM 801 from about 60 kms south of Broken Hill.
2CR 549 was still hanging on! Though hard to hear through the AM fuzz.
594 3WV Horsham was clear now too.
Weak Adelaide ABCs on 729 and 891, but not 972. No commercials from there.
Clear 639 5CK from Crystal Brook, 1044 5CS fair, scratchy.
1332 3SH Swan Hill was weak.
Faint 621 RN from Melbourne, but no 774.
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Another good report. I have found that 97.9 Mildura gets out better than the others, at least to the SE. I had it clear from One Tree Hill Lookout, Bendigo, yet nothing much from the others.
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From what I can recall you can get 801 5RM in Mildura without any problems, the signal gets out pretty far
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Haven’t checked here in Mildura yet for it yet, will try tomorrow morning before I head east.
But I’d say it’d be pretty good here too.
But I did notice that your Magic 93.1 was pretty scratchy around Wentworth / Merbein areas.
Your ABCs from Loxton were a bit better, not by a lot though.
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5RM’s daytime signal keeps going all the way east across the plains to Narrandera. Had no trouble getting it indoors on the pl390 at Balranald. In fact between it and 3SH they are pretty much your local stations there.
93.9 seems to get out best of the Loxton txs, certainly better than Magic. No doubt being the ABC it will be 400x the power of everyone else.
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Because it has my AM “Impact Cow” preset on air out there… The audio has been setup to really get out but not be fatiguing to listen to, barely covered 20km when I first went out there.
Glad to hear it is still getting out well since I was last out there
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Yes, well done!
And it gets out well to the south too, it was clear for at least the first 100 kms towards Mildura.
Not bad for a 500 Watter.
Some 2,000 watt set ups don’t do as well.
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Thanks mate
Me and the manager of 4WK Paul have a little joke that you know where in the SRN I have been as all the AM stations sound loud and get out well… Just so happens they all have my “IMPACT COW” preset on the Orbans. Wish I was able to go do it to each station so everything sounds consistent network wide… Been suggestion the idea of a network wide AM preset and a FM preset
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Haha, most of the guys here wouldn’t know about this, but some of the preset names on audio processors out there can be really funny, like that one of yours.
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Impact cow… I love it! You’re inspiring me to come up with something other than “modif rock loud MX”
I think SCA distribute presets around the network with compatible processors. It’s a bit like programming though, one size fits all isn’t necessarily best, probably moreso for fm. Have to take into account the competitions sound in that particular market.
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In Stanthorpe for the weekend and unfortunately the FM dial is still a mess here from the local translators on Mt Marlay - I can get RDS locks on the spurs from the Hit and Triple M translators.
Also interesting to note how poor the local AM reception is, I guess a granite belt isn’t much good for ground conductivity? But a bit sad that I could listen to Griffith at night behind the local 4WK signal coming from only 50-60km away
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Eudunda in S.A would be a really good area for AM/FM DXing, driven through there before and Magic 93.1 is crystal clear there. The very elevated terrain in Eudunda would play a big part in that
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