Wasn’t it a ACMA requirement they left AM 540 on? One I am sure they wanted to get out of…
I suspect the ACMA were skeptical about coverage of the New FM’s in the North East, and rightly so. The FM service for Chilli FM off Mt Horror (which would arguably be the location for the replacement for the AM service) struggles with the North East’s hilly terrain.
Experience tells me that elevated area of Flinders get Mt Horror and Barrow services fine, but the rest of the island is a bit of a dead spot, even the 540 7SD service. 3GG booms in!
I would have thought as part of this upgrade, that the ACMA would have made the relay both Chilli and LAFM in Flinders. An off air feed to Walkers Lookout on Flinders of Barrow would most likely work well and provide good coverage on the island…however not much ad revenue from the Island me thinks…
I think it was an ideal time for the ACMA to consolidate the Launceston and Scottsdale Licence area’s. The reality is zero content (apart from ads maybe) are localised for Scottsdale its just a relay of LAFM. Either compel Grants to provide local programming or dispatch the Licence area to history and allow a 360 degree transmission pattern off Mt Barrow with some reasonable grunt behind it.
Also a note to Grant Broadcasters, if your going to do an OB at scottsdale and promote the station, probably give the announcer the frequency of the AM service, hearing ‘500 odd on AM’ multiple times just sounds awful…
Apparently the Tas Talks Show is off for a East Coast Holiday next week, to promote the demise of the Welbrough Pass services and new services located at Flagstaff Lookout (St Helens) and South Sister (St Mary’s and Fingal Valley area).
Hat’s off the the Grant Broadcasters techo’s…been bloody busy in Tassie the last 2 years. DAB+ into Hobart, with two new services on that added, AM to FM’s on the coast, and now 7SD…With this lot completed its really only the second 7XS service to come…
Any news what that’ll be yet? Making it a Chilli relay with 7XS remaining in its current form would make the most sense to me, but I remember reading a post about it maybe being Hot Country instead?
Sea FM in Burnie/Devonport are now running the same music log as Chilli Launceston/North East most of the time.
They currently run the same music log as heard on LAFM/7SD (it previously carried the 7HO log), whilst 7AD/7BU carries a music log that originates from River 94.9.
From memory quite well, obviously there are spots where FM is scratchy but from what I remember it was OK.
Wasn’t him, but was the flagship TasTalks Show…As Brian keeps telling his audience he has about 4 million years of radio experience so you can imagine how poor it sounded…for the record, it 540kHz…
Martin now does arvo’s on 7AD and BU, his show is a super local show for the coast. Works well, its not as polished as the big boys in Launceston or Hobart however, but I reckon its nowhere near as well resourced.
My understanding is that the Chilli translator is to be switched off on welbrough pass, and a new frequency will be allocated at Flagstaff lookout with a supplementary FM freq allocated for 7SD.
Weldbrough works OK into St Helens, but flagstaff should cover a much larger area.
No I suspect your 100% right. I heard a rumor that the second licence will be KIX country, not even sure that extra frequencies were allocated for Mt Reid or Strahan. If a cheap install was the plan, I suspect you could get an off air feed of KIX Hobart on DAB+, at Mt Owen.
When I was down there, I found 7XS with the 7HO log a good station, while didn’t like LAFM nearly as much. I’d think for a single station town, the 7HO format covers a wider base of listeners.
Would they launch a new Sea FM station, or are those brands just the legacy arrangements? I suppose ‘Sea’ doesn’t quite work in Launceston, but that never stopped SCA.
I don’t get the approach of networking the playlists but having groups of separate odd branding. Just standardise the lot to ‘Power FM’ or something.
I would assume the goal would be to expand reach - have one buy for both stations, but hope that having two formats means more overall listeners.
But on the other hand, aside from tourism, surely everyone there would know all the businesses that exist by now?
When they are all just left in a pile to be summarised and then ignored in a report, does it really matter?
Public consultations from the ACMA almost never seem to result in an outcome that isn’t what the broadcasters wanted. In the absolute best case it seems to just result in nothing happening - like Gold Coast DAB.
Yes I tend to agree. I don’t get sharing logs on different brands. I’m all for local branding where appropriate but my OCD doesn’t like it when they’re sharing the same log.
Here is Super Radio Network’s submission to ACMA in relation to the Future Delivery of Radio Services in Australia paper, talking about AM-FM conversions in regional areas. Read Submission here.
There is nothing particularly compelling other then a plea to make it easier to convert via means that will cripple the ability to have competition and potentially cause issues with ABC and SBS radio
I’m curious as to whether anyone has seen any car radios without an AM band? I’ve been in various late model cars and they all still seem to support the AM band.
That’s been my experience too.
However not so with some new DAB+ tabletops with only DAB+ & FM supported.
RE mention of Single Frequency Networks (SFN) for SBS/ABC on FM, first time I’ve ever seen that mentioned for Australia. Why they would suggestively propose ABCRR as a SFN candidate indicates they don’t understand the difference in program content between ABCRR markets for that ABC network. Time zone differences for the other networks (eg 2ABCRN) for stations/locations in border markets adjacent to another timezone, where programs are delayed by the ABC, also creates a problem.
Not sure that stereo transmissions will work that well for SFNs (in the case of Triple J and Classic FM) as I think they would be more susceptible to co-channel interference - particularly in the event you are between two areas or if there is ducting.
There have only ever been a couple of AM/FM/DAB+ radios made available in Australia. And they were both pretty awful. Every other DAB+ radio (virtually all) are and were FM only. For ten years now.
I’m glad it sounds better than his b’fast effort, perhaps the hours didn’t agree with him.
Correct. It was the only way for years that TVT and ABT were relayed.
Correct. Sitting between the SCA offerings, it does the trick.
And this has always been the problem within Queenstown to sell airtime, convincing locals to buy.
Correct, they are ignored in the following steps of the process. Exactly, a zero result for Gold Coast digital.
Agree. All networks should be training staff at each station to schedule the music. The rules you supply the software help, it’s not rocket science. No reason they can’t all have their own. There’s enough programming experience within the Camerons to train staff.
