I spent 4 hours yesterday afternoon listening to CoastFM & comparing it to 2NURFM, KOFM, 2GO, STAR104.5, NEW & Smooth95.3. The bass is all wrong & is annoying me, I got that sub bass issue solved, but have screwed up, the rest in the process.
I’ve gone through all the processor settings this morning & totally redone the bass frequencies, I’ve also tried to even out the entire spectrum, & it seems to be sounding quite natural now, it’s probably somewhere in-between NEW, Star104.5 & Smooth 95.3?
I’m going to do some more off air listening/assessment, & adjust anything that stands out. I’ll upload the new preset settings to the processor sometime between now & Wednesday afternoon.
I’ll post back here when it’s done, & you all can give your feedback about the on air sound & the web stream.
Ok all, I’ve totally re-written the bass settings, adjusted the mid range & top end, & uploaded to the CoastFM processor.
I think I’m happy with it now?
Have a listen to the CoastFM 96.3 sound on FM, via Tunein or via our web site CoastFM 96.3 & give me your feedback.
Unless I find something out of place, &/or get some feedback with things wrong with the sound, this is probably where it’s going to stay now.
Hope you like it.
Just remember at the moment there still could be some poor quality recordings being used, so it might not be the processing that sounds off, it could be the source.
I design them off line/off air on my laptop, then either upload it remotely, (like I did this afternoon), or I put the preset on a flash drive & upload it to the processor straight off the flash drive.
If I only have to do minor tweaks, I just do it while live on air. Major changes I do off air & assess the changes before uploading.
I have just spent three days on the Central Coast. How good is Star? Love the “this is Star” jingle, good news service, down to earth DJ’s and music. This morning they played Breakfast Club’s Right on Track.
I stayed at Kim’s in Toowoon Bay. Pretty exclusive accommodation and the Bose sound system was tuned to Star when I checked into the room.
I wish I could hear 104.5 in Sydney’s Surry Hills!
You’d definitely be able to get it in Surry Hills if you had a half-decent receiver/antenna. My car radio could get the Central Coast stations all the down at Wollongong. Even the lower powered community stations from the Central Coast are quite easy to get in Sydney.
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.
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.
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.
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.