Star is a decent listen. The jingle is a resung copy of the “this is Heart” jingle from the UK network. In fact, aside from the local music features I often seem to hear when I’m tuned in, the output is very much modelled on Heart UK, with tight, short, snappy links and a distinctive female-skewed AC playlist.
I think it’s quite possible that Music 4 (who judging by their website, have previously done branding for Heart in the UK…and the launch/current branding for Smooth 95.3/91.5 here in Australia) or another UK-based company who specialise in station branding/music production could’ve produced those jingles for Star FM.
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So this basically confirms that NOVA Entertainment’s stations are all very closely modelled (i.e.: rip-offs) of Global’s UK stations - NOVA is very much like Capital, smoothfm borrows from the UK namesake, and FIVEaa is probably closest to LBC.
Yep. Pretty much.
I’ll post this here, because it may affect more than just the community stations.
Weather permitting, Thursday morning 9th June 2015, works will be undertaken to move RhemaFM Central Coast, from their old TX site, to the SEA FM site at Somesby.
It’s planned that sometime between 8 - 9am, the community stations of CoastFM 96.3, Radio 50+ 93.3, & Todays Country 94.1, will be taken off air, to enable replacement of the antenna array on the tower, & combiner additions. These stations will be off air for approx. 4 hours. RhemaFM 94.9 may be off air for all or part of this time?
SEAFM 101.3 will likely be on low power while the riggers are on the tower, the ABC stations shouldn’t be effected?
I will be at the TX site during this time, but won’t be able to give updates.
This will open up short hop DX’ing opportunities to Newcastle, Central Coast & Sydney. (Surrounding stations on the same or adjacent frequencies that would normally be receivable if these Gosford stations didn’t exist).
Personally I’d be interested to hear where TripleJ Taree on 96.3 is receivable, while Coast FM is off the air. My reception plot models, suggest I should be able to receive it in the car quite well, sitting at the transmitter site, while CoastFM is off air.
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Update on the central coast radio transmitter works.
Due to high winds & possible showers, the works have been put back till Friday morning (same times).
At 10:00 am no reception of Central Coast community stations in the work truck while driving around in Windsor. Sea Fm very weak and just above the static. No Triple J on 96.3 received here in Sydney.
I gather Power Fm will be even harder to get in Sydney with Rhena now broadcast from the higher Sea fm tower.
Getting the Central Coast communities again at Stanhope Gardens but signal seems to be weaker then normal.
Rhema seems to be stronger on the car radio only, and is causing more cochannel interference to Power fm.
Are the Central Coasts Communites on reduced power or is the new antenna producing a different radiation patern to old one? Or is combining Rhema reducing the overal strength of the other community stations in extreme fringe locations?
Community stations turned off at about 9:05am, SeaFM was turned down at the same time.
We all had to wait till after the 9 O’clock news for Sea to be turned down, the riggers couldn’t go up the tower till then.
Sea was turned down to roughly 5-6kW ERP, that’s why it was weak & just above the static.
Not sure they’re weaker, TX’s are running at roughly the same power output as before, (give or take 50W?
Could be weaker in extreme fringe areas though, the extra loss might reduce the power by about half a dB, which would only be noticeable in fringe areas.
Rhema hasn’t moved yet, their electrician couldn’t make it on Friday, to run a new power circuit for their transmitter. I could’ve done it, but they didn’t contract me.
The new combiner port has been installed ready for them to plug into, they will move to the SeaFM site, sometime over the next 2 weeks.
Funny you should mention a different radiation pattern with the new antenna. It should be identical, & I’m going to do more testing, but I’ve noticed some areas where CoastFM had co-channel interference at the North end of the Coast & around Lake Macquarie, now only have minimal or no interference as the CoastFM signal is stronger, but then there’s places that now have noticeable interference that didn’t have it before. I’ve also found one particular spot where the interference has been moved about 500m - 1km further North with the new antenna.
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Hi RF,
I have noticed some changes up here at Charlestown for Rhema Central Coast.
Their 94.9 signal isn’t as strong here as it used to be… Whereas outside at my place, all of 93.3, 94.1, 94.9 and 96.3 would register a signal strength of around 47-49 db on my Tecsun PL-390, Rhema is now receivable at only 41db (no changes for the others).
But interestingly, I am now getting an image of Rhema on 94.7, which wasn’t there previously.
ALSO… SEA seems to be a bit stronger than it used to be… whereas previously the best reading I could get was about 58db, but today I saw it peak at 61db. Conversly, 2GO may have dipped a bit… it used to read up over 60db, best I saw today was 59db (which is still pretty good).
In this location of Sydney, I’m mainly receiving a very weak signal of Power FM on 94.9FM rather than any signal of Rhema Central Coast at all. It’ll be interesting to see if Rhema again becomes the dominant station (most of the time, I can only really receive Power FM at all during tropo from the South!) when they move to their new transmitter in the coming weeks.
I think the signals of the other Central Coast community stations (93.3, 94.1 and 96.3) are mostly the same as they were before although as you’d expect the reception certainly isn’t crystal clear! And of course, the reception of Sea, Star and 2GO is generally quite good for the most part. It’s much easier to receive RDS on 2GO, but aside from that all three are generally quite listenable stereo signals most of the time.
Since my last post 96.3 Coast fm seems to have improved a bit and is back to similar signal levels as before.
94.1 Is weaker then before. 93.3 radio 50+ is at similar levels, and the strongest of the Central Coast Communities here at Stanhope Gardens.
Sea, Star, and 2GO almost as strong as the locals as normal.
2GO shouldn’t have changed, no work was done at the 2GO site.
I’ve checked my before & after photo’s. Sea is possibly 0.5kW lower transmit power now than it was before, CoastFM transmit power is slightly higher now, 94.1 & 93.3 are roughly the same transmit power as before, (note these are transmitter output power levels not ERP with antenna gain).
Don’t know why Rhema seems lower & not sure about the image on 94.7?
Bit of info just for interest, as it was previously discussed here (or on the old board), about 2GO & SeaFM installing new transmitters & now having RDS.
I can tell everyone, 2GO has an old backup TX, & the main on air TX is a Nautel Q series (solid state), that’s about 5-6 years old.
SeaFM are still using their original 2, NEC tube transmitters built in Jan 1990 (main & backup).
They have just recently replaced the racks at the SeaFM TX site, (they are still a work in progress though), the RDS encoder is in one of the new racks at the SeaFM TX site. They have 2 new Nautel VS300’s in the rack, awaiting connection for backups.
It is planned (hoped), that both Central Coast Austereo stations, will get new TX’s in the next round of bulk buy/replacement program, in 6-12 months.
Just for mention, KOFM & NXFM Newcastle did get new TX’s in the last round of replacement program, when they started transmitting RDS.
Bonus info, 2GO is the only thing transmitted from that site, it has been deliberately kept clean/vacant because that’s where they plan to install/transmit Digital radio from (assuming it ever comes to the central coast), also because of the different antenna arrays, 2GO has a 4 bay, SeaFM has a 6 bay, the 2GO TX has to run at a higher power output, & the electricity usage/cost per month for 2GO is roughly equal to SeaFM, the 3 community stations & the 2 ABC stations that are broadcast from the SeaFM site, combined.
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I can give some info here. I’m GM of Rhema Central Coast. We are stillon our Acacia Rd TX site, but our transmitter developed a fault in late April and we’ve been running on our backup since then while our main xmitter is repaired. So our signal is much weaker than usual. Probably putting out about 800w instead of our regular 2kw.
Our signal pattern will change when we move to SeaFM, as apart from the different location we’ll be losing our current mixed polarity and going to the vertical polarity being used by the other community stations. It’s still unclear exactly what the overall impact will be. We’re expecting losses in some areas, but hopefully gains in more areas than losses.
At this stage our main xmitter probably wont be repaired by the time we have to relocate, so the techos are working on an interim solution.
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Hi RhemaCC,
Do you know if there are any plans for the frequency of your station or the other Central Coast stations to change to resolve the persistent co-channelling issues with the Illawarra/Wollongong stations? Here in Sydney 92.5, 94.1, 94.9 and 98.1 are a mish-mash of signals from the north and from the south. Even in their intended markets, those frequencies up on the Central Coast or down in the Illawarra can sometimes suffer from co-channelling interference.
I can’t answer for Rhema, but can say there are no plans AFAIK for 94.1 to change, the ABC stations (92.5 & 98.1) would like to have higher power levels, but nothing formal has been done to change either or both stations in any way.
I have received initial approval from the management committee, to investigate options for CoastFM 96.3 to change tx site, tx power levels &/or frequency change. Early days, & anything will be subject to ACMA approval.
Hi tvcl,
No plans that I am aware of. It would be great if ACMA could sort this out, as PowerFM from Nowra are a constant pain in the neck for us, interferring with our signal in many parts of the Coast, way out of their supposed broadcast footprint. We have reports even from the Hunter/Newcastle region where they can hear PowerFM clearly. They are obviously sending way too much power to the north. It would be great if ACMA could get them to reconfigure. Our 2kw has no chance against their 38kw (I think).
Why ACMA have allocated the same frequency in two areas so geographically close is anyone’s guess!