AM and FM DX

Now in Sydney (last stop before home tomorrow).

At Parramatta, my accommodation 32 floors up faces north-west.

Did a band scan, best results were all Cenn Crauich ABCs at weak levels, mono only, except 107.9 was blocked by narrowcast, so no Move FM either. Also had KRR 98.7 in fair stereo too.

Storm approaching! Been very mild here today too, 21 degrees, a heatwave compared to what I had in VIC!

And it’s now a dead link.

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Some slight tropo here in Melbourne tonight. Getting King Island at fairly strong levels for winter.

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ACMA have finally released updated transmitter listings! (and not before time!)

As at July 2025

https://www.acma.gov.au/list-transmitters-licence-broadcast

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More intense troppo from the north into SEQ tonight but only as far as CQ so far; hoping for more.

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Waiting on more info.
I’ll tentatively enter it in the RDS List & mark as such.

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Bits and pieces of Star 92.1 receivable this morning starting from Jugiong. Sooner than expected and seems to be stronger than 102.1.

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IMD here in Gundagai is absolutely horrendous. Triple M Wagga with RDS on 107.1 mixed with another, 102.3 and 103.9 also with strong IMD. Weaker IMD on some other channels as well.

Noted 2TVR weak on 93.7, sounds like a genuine signal. Is there a new translator? Might be just a spur of 94.3.

In Euston tonight just across from Robinvale.

I can confirm 3HOT/t 90.7 is running RDS ā€˜HotFM’ but will confirm the PI code tomorrow once I charge my TEF.

DX conditions are flat as there is a front with a bit of rain moving through. The best I managed was aircraft scatter from 101.9 Orange around Hay, and Coonabarabran between Wagga and Narrandera.

MW was good even on the car radio. When tried at Hay, 3WM Horsham was like a local signal (1089) and 2WEB was fair under splash from very strong 3WV on 594. 5RM could also be heard clearly and 5CK 639 weak, though strangely not much from Adelaide. 3AW was also strong. The Hay Plains are like an inland sea where ground wave is concerned.

Only two FM stations in Balranald: God Squad 88.0 and RN 93.1. The RN can be received from about 40 km out of town.

I’ll be in Mildura briefly tomorrow before heading to Broken Hill in the afternoon.

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Nice caches, with Adelaide the only AMs I get are 729 RN and 891 Local Radio. Both are fairly weak, Cruise1323 really only shows up when it’s a clear afternoon. 1395 5AA only comes in on the greyline.

As you’ve discovered, 5RM has very good coverage here. In the past I’ve had it as far east as West Wyalong in the middle of summer on my dad’s Jeep, long after Easymix 1467 had dropped off. I do remember it was very weak but audible. 594 3WV at the same spot was there also.

Mildura FMs I’ve found to be variable at Euston. Hit 99.5 and Triple M 97.9 might be a hard ask, I always had trouble getting them starting around 15km out of Euston on the Mildura side. The ABCs should be there loud and clear though.

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When I was out Mildura way in 2020, I seem to recall 2RG Griffith having good daytime reception towards Mildura too.. is that still the case?

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I’m currently on the sunshine coast for a holiday and have been doing some dxing.

On the flight here, I did a bit of dxing with the TEF. There were a few interesting catches such as Melbourne + Sydney and Sydney + Brisbane stations with rds at the same time. The FM band was full with stations for the pretty much the entire flight as well.

Today I went up to the Emu Mountain Lookout and tried some dxing up there. Conditions seemed completely flat, so most of the stuff I received is probably permanent up there.
Some noteworthy catches were:
Hit 89.1 and 101.9 with full RDS
Bridge FM 99.7 at 30 dbuv with full RDS
ABC classic 88.5 and 101.7 in stereo
Triple M 93.1 in stereo

I also setup a temporary webserver at my accommodation on the sunshine coast. Reception isn’t great but it’s mainly a test of my setup for future holidays.

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I had 3MA and Star FM OK between Balranald and Euston, but reception variable. Yes I like to use the old names :slight_smile:

First sign of Mildura ABCs was east of Hay, 100.3 only and mainly via aircraft scatter. As seems to be prolific here, possibly from jets on the Melbourne Asia routes.

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I guess that DXing on a plane is really fun and I think a while back you did some and put it on YouTube. I do wonder sometimes what you could pick up if you bring a TEF up Mt Everest?

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Well within the Mildura licence area too. Presumably isn’t the population to justify a repeater… and yet the community station has!

I wonder why the two FM stations are so undercooked? 20kW seems asinine compared with 120kW for the Bendigo blowtorch and 100kW each on Mounts Major and Baranduda.

Imagine it’s to do with protecting Swan Hill - which itself struggles to get out west along the Calder, yet is given no such protection from Bendigo which romps it in at least as far as Kerang - and to a lesser degree the Remote zone.

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Yep, 963 still comes in fairly well here. It’s actually one of my benchmark stations for radio sensitivity, as a lot of the lesser units or ones with dodgy aerials won’t pick it up. At night it does unfortunately get severe CCI from 4WK, which sounds very choppy over the top of 2RG. I haven’t seen this type of AM CCI anywhere else.

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It’s all got to do with the terrain here. As it isn’t totally flat but rather slightly undulating and with no significant hills to put the TX on, it drops off fairly quickly. While the mast at Yatpool is fairly tall, it’s still not as good as sticking the TX on a mountain. The same issue with quickly fading reception also happens to TV, both analogue and digital.

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Agree, even though Sunyrasia and NW Slopes in NSW are both 200kw and cover fairly flat terrain, the fact that the the TX in NW NSW gets to sit atop Mt Dowe at 1,500 m ASL gives it incredible coverage.

I did notice when I was in Mildura that the Yatpool ABCs would taper off around Ouyen (80 km south), whilst Mt Dowe can still be heard 200 km north past Goondiwindi in QLD.

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Robinvale has a population of 8000 and Euston only a few hundred. But in the context of the region, probably enough to justify a translator I suppose.

Balranald is in a bit of a dead zone for commercial radio also; Swan Hill 107.7 was the strongest but only the Goschen ABCs were at truly local strength there.

An interesting part of the world and this is my first visit to the region. Obviously it’s a winter only affair for me :wink:

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As do the FM commercials at 1/10th the power!

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