to think this will be the 1st summer where I probably won’t be bothering with FM skip much. Given I can’t have my big gun FM setup but can DX pretty well on MW, that will be my trend whilst I’m living in this unit. Concentrating more on MWDX
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Seeing as I’m back at Dubbo I checked on this. Cenn Cruiach “Central West Slopes” is noticeably stronger than Orange nationals. Car radio would be able to manage either easily but indoor reception of Orange wouldn’t be easy. Mt Dowe is not receivable at all so I suppose the allocated Dowe channels for in town repeaters will be fit for purpose. Yes only 95.9 is on the air.
CWS tx’s pretty much cover Walgett to Mudgee, Gunnedah to Nyngan. Out at Walgett CWS and Dowe run a close race but CWS is the better of the two. At Merriwa, Dowe was receivable but CWS wasn’t or was very weak. CWS 102.3 JJJ was also the only out of town tx receivable out at Cobar, the rest are right next to Cobar locals (as is 101.1 Bourke) which prevented them.
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Yes, that’s been my observation too.
But still not strong enough to provide prime coverage in most parts of Dubbo - I know that the Buninyong Hill relay frequencies were all reserved probably 10 (?) years ago now, don’t know why it’s taking so long to get anything other than 2WPR on there…
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Hi @matt86,
Seeing as you’re out at Dubbo, nobody has updated the RDS list for 93.5 Dubbo yet, since they recently changed from Hit to Triple M . Not sure if you have something like RDS Spy to dig deeper into the details or just the car radio? Any updates are good for dxers.
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And is Western Visitor Radio still on air? 87.6 or 88.0.
I’m assuming Dubbo is the same as everywhere else … Triple M ??
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Rockhampton very strong tonight plus Gladstone commercials and Yeppoon community. Also receiving Mackay commercial and ABC.
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Sorry @ozbark I don’t even have RDS spy at home but I can confirm what @Radiohead said, the RDS for triple M is “Triple M” which they seem to have standardised for all their regionals. RT changes between currently playing and temperatures. I can’t confirm, but I’d be happy to wage a bet the PI code is 2935, not sure if Eagle Goulburn is the same?
No RDS on anything else.
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Yes Visitor distortion radio is on 88.0 but typical it’s overmodding so much you can’t really listen to it.
Country music on 87.6 seems to ID as ‘the country mix’.
There’s also DCFM on 88.9 which has been a decent listen too, seems to be mostly well known AC music whenever I’ve tuned in.
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Thanks for feedback Matt 
Could well be right. Eagle FM chose their PI wisely & adopted the CRA PI code plan & chose 293C.
Does Western Visitor Radio exist anywhere else apart from Dubbo these days? Was an extensive FM LPON network 20 odd years ago, that seamed to fall into disrepair.
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back in 1994 when the ACMA first released the LPON licence format, we saw an explosion of tourist radio stations all over the country. Roughly 99% of them are all gone! Even Cooma had two on at one stage. Jindabyne had 88.0 & Thredbo had 87.9.
During intense Es, I’d just sit on either 87.6 or 88.0 waiting for IDs to pop up over the cacophony of signals. It was fun!
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Gladstone stations tonight include 94.3 TAB 200w. Mackay includes community 107.5 plus hit100.3 strong enough to wipe out local Bay FM
Later MMM Townsville 102.3 with partial RDS. 102.7 Power. PNN 94.3 4TTT 103.9
96.7 Atherton very strong in stereo
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Those QLD coastal ducts are pretty amazing, of course you’d expect it to be better coming from the tropics than what we get in NSW, but still, some 1,400 kms as a (very tired) crow flies is not too shabby at all.
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plus the terrain is pretty flat - even along the coast line. mainly the great dividing range for any terrain lift. I noticed when I travelled by train to Cairns in 1993 that the high powered ABCs on FM would be within reception range for 24hours of train travel.
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Yes, I did a Gold Coast to Cairns road trip in September 2001, and the Cairns ABC stations were there from Bowen all the way up.
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They don’t extend very far inland though, unfortunately for me. I’m probably 20km inland from the bay so I don’t hear a lot of the stuff here that you might on the bayside/coast
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One of you ‘toads should go on a mini DXpedition to North Stradbroke Island to see how intense the ducting is out there. It would probably require a night on the island due to the ferry times. If and when I go up there again, it will be on the list. I hate visiting SEQ in tropo season, though.
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only Bowen??? I had Cairns all the way to Rockhampton & that was just on an 80s boombox inside the train
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fixed my typo above - they didn’t have radio broadcasting in the dark ages…
if they did it would have been Castle FM
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This is the Rock of The Middle Ages, Castle FM. Taking your requests all Knight long. Don’t forget, if you’re a serf, you have to ask your master’s permission to call.
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