I agree mate. I’ve just spent 3 days in Gympie and all I could pick up was Zinc. Personally I quite like Zinc and I am in their age bracket but I feel the under 40’s are missing out in Gympie. If they combined Gympie and the Sunny Coast, I would think Grant Broadcasters would be happy to put a Hot91 repeater in Gympie and have Zinc covering all the Sunny Coast.
As for Rocky and Gladstone, they really need to convert one of the AM stations to FM, or even both. It would give them a option to have Star FM in the listening area and it would give Triple M and Hit a bit more competition. At the moment it is weird hearing both stations 4RO and 4CC using the tag line Classic Hit.
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I’ll be back up that way tomorrow and will check it out.
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The AM transmitters are still on but at reduced power
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If I recall correctly the AM TXers are on until the end of this week or end of this month.
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Wonder why they’d do that? You’d think they’d want to get the word out to those who don’t listen every day. Maybe the AM plant(s) are so stuffed that they were about to die!
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Just the masts which successive owners have not included money for maintenance.
Yep, back home again now, 7AD didn’t notice much difference with but certainly didn’t seem to be getting 7BU as clear as before. Very noticeable difference though between the AM and FM!
Which is pretty much the same thing… scary thought, we’re already a quarter of the way through the year!
I’m curious about that power reduction now, a way to convince late adopters of the benefit of the FM transmission.
Anyone down in Victoria care to comment on how well 7BU and 7AD are coming in? I know from my time down there they usually belt into to Melbourne and anywhere close to Bass Strait, wondering if that’s changed at all?
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I know that RC at Mount Waverley was struggling to hear 7AD.
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Hi dxnerd. 7BU-AM is now inaudible in central Melbourne. Used to have no trouble receiving it.
Late last night the only station audible on 558 was an ABC station that was pretty strong driving around the burbs. Was amazed to find it was 6WA in Wagin, WA.
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Thanks guys, sounds like it very much has changed. Both Tassie stations were commonplace day and night in Victoria in the past
@Vidiot I’m surprised 4GY from up here let you hear anything from WA, that’s a good catch
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Even as recently as mid February, both 7AD and 7BU were at normal strength, as heard from Wilson’s Prom. Either a very well timed tx fault or, more likely, they are saving a bit of money by turning down the AM power ahead of the switch off.
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That’s interesting. According to the ACMA transmitter database, 7BU’s AM tower is used to support an FM antenna for another commercial station at the site. I’m guessing it’ll also be used for 7BU(U if that’s what the callsign becomes)-FM. So it must be in reasonable shape.
Certainly the 7AD mast has got FM array on it, I was under the impression however that 7BU would be on a new/other tower
The 6NW, 6KA and 2BS callsigns didn’t gain another letter when they moved to FM, so I’ll be surprised if 7AD and 7BU do.
Likewise for 6MM.
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3YB is still 3YB as well
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Ah good old ACMA. Consistent as usual. I know there is one instance of an AM station with three letters (2WEB), but surely they could stick with the two for AM and three for FM arrangement. Few stations use their real call signs anyway so they would continue to say 2BS etc.
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Don’t forget 2RPH which, although it now has an FM repeater, has its main service on 1224 AM (ex 2WS). It used 1539 (ex 2JJ) before that as well. The other RPH stations all have xRPH callsigns and all use AM for their primary transmissions.
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5UV (Radio Adelaide) never changed its callsign when it converted to FM in 2002.
4TAB is also an example of an AM station with a FM callsign
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