Thanks. 95.1 is a mix of Eagle FM (93.5) and the TAB (94.3). Could you tell if 107.7 added to the mix at all? Maybe not, because it’s not on a ‘Canberra’ channel?
2 Likes
That’s a pity I was hoping the Capital Radio engineers would have fixed it with the GNFM fm conversion.
That could be the reason the intermod was not resolved with GNFM being on a Central Coast / Newcastle frequency and not on a Canberra frequency.
My guess is with the XLFM conversion what ever they did to combine XLFM with Snow and 2KY fixed the intermod. Are there any Capital radio techs on here, and is so want to elaborate???
It now looks like the intermod in Goulburn won’t ever get fixed.
5 Likes
How easy is it to get to the XLFM site for the public, I’ve never been around there, maybe if anyones close they can go look & report back on how many FM antennas are on the tower now?
This is just a guess, but I’d say prior to XLFM going on air, SNOW FM & 2KY had seperate antennas & each station went to air straight out of the transmitter & up the tower with no filtering, when XLFM moved in, they probably now all use the same antenna & are all combined with tight frequency filtering &/or they did some tower works at the time & replaced some rusty parts on the tower that may have been re-radiating a mixed interned signal, though more likely pre XLFM one of the transmitters wasn’t protected against the other properly & RF from one was getting to the chain of the other, (RF leaking out of somewhere it shouldn’t have been), but yeah more likely different antennas & no filtering & one or both stations bleeding out past their 200kHz channels bandwidths & blending to create intermod on another frequency.
Combining all stations & using one antenna probably can’t be done at Gouldburn because of the ridiculous radiation pattern 2GN has to have. What ACMA initially wanted was impossible to achieve, so the pattern was changed to something that was near impossible to achieve, I’m not sure they ever actually could achieve the licenced radiation pattern with the new 2GN FM antenna, they may well be running reduced power, so they don’t go over power in the null areas that they couldn’t create with the physical build of the antenna array?
In this case there’ll still be seperate antennas & the intermod won’t have changed & 107.7 won’t have made it worse, because it’s too far away from the others (in frequency) to have any noticeable in-band affect (there may be some increased intermod somewhere out of band?).
It’s been about 3 years since I last went through Goulburn & even then I didn’t listen to any FM stations I was listening to 2GN on AM (& didn’t have time to FM band scan), just out of interest what’s Capital Radio got on their narrowcast licence on 88MHz there & what’s Kevin Blyton (owned himself) got on his narrowcast licence on 100.7MHz?
88MHz is an LPON licence, 100.7MHz is a Narrowcast (Fixed Tax) licence.
3 Likes
100.7 is Kix
4 Likes
Access to Mt Roberts is via a series of fire trails off Shannons Flat Rd. I did see a trip report online from some 4wd enthusiasts who did a day trip to Mt Roberts. They reported the fire trails where in very poor condition and the driving was quite challenging even in 4wd.
I won’t be trying this drive in my front wheel drive Tucson!!
From what he photos I saw on line the views are fantastic over the Monaro plains and the snow capped mountains to the south.
XLFM has completely different specs to Snow fm so I assume they are using a different antenna.
From Sat view on Google maps it looks like there are about four or five towers up there, but you can only see two from the Monaro Hwy near Bredbo, the Capital tv tower, and the 2XL tower.
These towers are very small ,30m or less and are not that easy to see on the summit of Mt Roberts. If they were any higher XLFm and Snow fm would overspill into Canberra quite significantly.
Anyone got a 4WD and keen to go and check the site out?
Also I heard there are some very good mountain bike tracks going off the summit of Mt Roberts too.
3 Likes
I went up to Mt Roberts for work in 2019. The fire trail (back then, at least) was poorly maintained but not difficult in a 4WD. My colleague didn’t want to drive it though and asked me to drive both ways. It’s a slow drive.
The view
The TV tower and hut (the brick building to the left), which SCA sold to Axicom. All of the TV transmitters are in here.
The only internal photo I have where equipment owners are not identifiable. I have better equipment photos but I don’t think I can share them, sorry.
I can’t be 100% sure but I think this building is the old analog TV building and still houses some link gear.
8 Likes
Great photos!
3 Likes
Excellent photos. I can’t get up there myself unfortunately. Even the 2BRW site is impossible to do in anything other than a 4WD, though the adventurous and fit can walk up the mountain.
There is nothing at all on 88.0 in Goulburn, and yes 100.7 is Kix Country.
8 Likes
Thank you @SamuelGS for the great photos of Mt Roberts, the tv tower, and the hut.
Awesome views to the south, it would look spectacular in winter with the snow covered Alps.
That tv tower is quite small in size, and it looks very directional with the UHF panels on the southern side of the tower, and only one on the northern side of the tower.
Are you familiar with the 2XL tower and it’s setup for XLfM, Snow fm, and 2KY?
It is great to finally have some pictures of Mt Roberts, very hard to find much on the internet as very few people must go up there.
Another site of interest is Jindetboine Hill but the locked gate prevents public access. I went exploring up there a few years ago but the gate prevented me from getting very far. Would be great mountain bike riding especially on the return downhill run.
2 Likes
Mt Roberts would get some snow itself and the chalet style design of the main building seems consistent with this. I’d imagine there’d be some modifications needed for rime ice on the towers as well***. I think the elevation is around 1450 m so more than sufficient for deep snowfall, though the location in the Monaro rain shadow moderates this somewhat.
***Rime ice occurs when fog/drizzle droplets freeze on contact with surfaces that are below freezing.
2 Likes
I agree, & it looks like the top of the tower has shielding around it, to stop ice forming on exposed cross members of the tower. There’s also ice shields above the microwave dishes, so any ice that does form & fall from the top of the tower, doesn’t hit & damage them on the way down.
2 Likes
I have seen snow on the peak of Mt Roberts a few times when heading down to the snow, particularly when there has been more cold outbreaks from the south which allows snow to get through the Monaro rain shadow / shield.
I have only seen snow at the very top where the towers are visible.
I do remember reading a post on Snow Fm’s Facebook page sometime back, when a big lightning strike hit their antenna and took them off air for quite some time. It also took Bombala off air as they receive their signal off air from Mt Roberts.
It is very exposed up there with vey few trees so lightning could be a real problem if the towers are not well grounded.
I was wondering what that was on the top of the Mt Roberts tower, and around the microwave dish but that makes sense.
I wonder if there is any shielding on the 2XL tower which broadcasts Snow / XLFM / 2KY?
1 Like
Not that I noticed, I only checked very briefly.
On a slightly related note, you can sometimes hear audio from Eagle leaking through during quiet program content on GN. That would be studio related though, not RF
2 Likes
Unfortunately I’m not familiar with the 2XL tower. Field work wasn’t a usual part of my role but occasionally my department had opportunities to assist in the field.
I’m glad people have found the photos interesting though. It was a nice couple of days out of the office visiting Bombala and Mt. Roberts.
3 Likes
Has that only started recently, i.e. it’s only on 107.7 it was never on 1368 AM?
If it’s only started since 107.7 started that’s interesting & it possibly is RF related?
They might be doing something funky in the studio, but I can’t see how anything in the studio could be blending 2 different audio chains, they should be totally seperate from source to transmitter, unless using AoIP through the same routers etc. but should still be totally separate streams, there could be a faulty analogue audio switcher in the studio somewhere, but then if that had a fault where audio was blending, you’d hear it both ways & one wouldn’t be quiet under the other, they’d both be at the same volume always I’d think?
The only possible studio thing I can think might be a possibility is if they are using Zetta for playout of both stations from 1 Master server & there’s bleeding in that server PC between audio cards if they use analogue out or AES audio, not sure how that would occur if they use AoIP though, similar if they have a digital STL & run both data sources down the same path, they should stay separate, as it’s no different to running 2 or 10,000 different audio streams over the internet.
Big Edit: Just another option to this I’ve just thought of, I don’t know what panels/desks they are using at GN/Eagle, but years ago at CoastFM Gosford we had semi-digital/analogue panels & there was an audio bleed in the panel from the 2GB/News feed, & the audio could be heard faintly underneath the main program during quiet spots if you listened very carefully, it didn’t matter whether the 2GB/News feed fader was all the way down & the channel turned off, the audio bleed was still there & could be heard, both studios had the same panels & the same issue, I spent months trying to find out where the bleed was occurring but never did find or fix it, those panels went to the scrap yard when we upgraded the studios to Wheatstone AoIP.
If GN & Eagle have the 2 studios linked through the panels so they can be either or (studios swapped for each station, or used as 2 studio for one station), there may be a bleed in one of the studio panels. By the sounds of this issue it’ll be the GN studio panel bleeding the Eagle program from the other studio. This is the only place I can think the 2 audio program chains maybe linked/crossed & the only place in the studio (making it not RF related) it could happen?
2 Likes
They have ELAN Harriers which I believe are indeed linked so that either studio can go to air on either or both stations.
The culprit could also be the delegation switcher in the control room which takes the audio from all on-air studios and can switch which goes to air.
4 Likes
I can confirm that what sounds like faint audio is on the GN FM stream as well
4 Likes
Nah it’s been like it for ages. And as @Mechsta mentioned it’s audible on the stream too.
It’s analogue crosstalk somewhere, maybe not actually in the studio itself but somewhere in the studio complex. More specifically I’d guess it’s a record bus, or cue channel getting back into GNs PGM feed because it seems to be spoken content that’s there sporadically, not continuously. Ie sounds like bleedover of someone recording or listening back to voice tacks. Come to think of it, pretty sure I’ve heard something similar before on Eagle.
4 Likes
…up the Radio division of the group with all General Managers and staff of Radio Stations in the network reporting to him.
Josh is currently General Manager of the Capital Radio Network Radio stations in Goulburn.
3 Likes