Well, obviously there is none now from what I can see.
Guessing Goulburn is a smallish market squeezed in amongst other larger markets which took priority during the earlier frequency planning, with Goulburn frequency assignments squeezed in afterwards - purely guessing here.
The only explanation that comes to mind re RN with 5kW on 97.9 FM is that the ACMA can, so they have. Increasing power on other Goulburn ABC FM frequencies might cause issues, eg 99.9 with SWR FM etc.
What is current RN coverage like on 1098kHz in the Goulburn region?
Maybe because no radio national on FM for the Illawarra district. Where there is 90.9 FM abc news , 97.3FM ABC local and 98.9 JJJ. i dont think RN from Nowra, Wollongong has good coverage in the northern districts of the Goulburn districts. Maybe RN from Canberra may cover the south adequately as similar to 666 Canberra.
A good point, I’d have to see terrain maps, but I suspect the ABC engineering thinking is that RN on 97.9 with 5kW might also provide them with some coverage into the Southern Highlands area or western fringes of the Illawara.
Also with 5kW omni-directional RN would cover further in all other directions compared to existing 200watt ABCers on FM/AM from Goulburn
Just quickly put the RN Goulburn specs through Nautel.
The proposed 5KW fm conversion will cover from the northern shores of Lake George to Penrose in the Southern Highlands.
Car coverage will extend to Moss Vale / Bowral at the most northern extremes.
So 97.9 RN will fill the gaps between the 846 Canberra and 576 Sydney coverage.
It’s not really all that a complex antenna pattern & would be achievable, but to get that deep notch, the other directions mightn’t meet full power specs.
The Artarmon Commercial FM antenna has a 2 degree deep notch where it goes from 150kW each side to 55kW in the notch.
The ACMA proposes to make spectrum available for, and to vary the broadcast frequency of, the planned infill transmitter for the 7DDD commercial radio broadcast service in the Devonport RA1 licence area. The proposal aims to address an intermodulation issue between licensed radio communication services operating from the Broadcast Tower Hydro TAS site, Mount Roland.
The ACMA proposes to vary the technical specifications for the main transmitter for the 7AD commercial radio broadcast service in the Devonport RA1 licence area. The proposal aims to address a difference between the LAP planned maximum antenna height and the actual antenna height from the Broadcast Mast, 256 Waverly Road, Don.
They would have to do something like this if the Am band in Australia was to be shut down.
It may also preserve the suburban sub metro community radio stations which would have to be shifted to fit it in all of Sydney’s current Am stations.
I agree. Look at any mid size or larger city in the US and they cram in a huge number of FM stations and effectively use smaller spacing between stations in neighbouring and overlapping markets.
The US doesn’t have an ABC that hogs 5 high power FM frequencies in many markets. Imagine what some of the congested markets in Australia would be like if the surrounding markets did not have multiple ABC outlets (many of which are in mono).
What’s the point? How many radios in Australia can receive anything below 87/88 MHz? They’d effectively be hidden off band stations as the majority of people wouldn’t bother upgrading their radios - especially in cars, although I’m sure most modern cars could receive the lower frequencies with a simple firmware update. It would be just like the the switch from MPEG2 to MPEG4 TV.
I think it’s a good compromise deal in a full FM band market. It’s a substantial disadvantage as a starting point, but has better quality than AM.
So all stations on AM even in competitive markets could convert, and you could greatly expand HPON/LPON/Community station choices, perhaps some new commercial licenses similar to the MF-NAS ones that see commercial offband AM stations.
If it fails - no one has lost anything but their own investment. There’s no other usage of the band proposed - unlike for example trying to expand the DAB+ band, when that’s competing against use for trying to clear UHF of Television in favour of 5G mobile use.
I don’t see it happening - but it could be done with a stroke of a pen - and then up to operators as to how much they bother.
Maybe the ACMA should give AM stations in the capital cities the option of moving to digital only without losing their licence. In other countries (e.g. the US) some AM stations have moved to FM or handed in their licence just so they could sell the land that the transmitter was on because it’s value has gone up over time.
Maybe they should give FM stations in capital cities the same option. That way, an AM station could pay an FM station to go digital only and move to FM.