The Wollongong Licence area goes around Knights Hill but ends just East of Robertson.
With the ERP of 4KW towards the Highlands, antenna height of 69m on the old Win analogue tower, and terrain the signal for Wave and i98 does not go out very well to the west. On the car radio it is very patchy around Burrawang.
In Robertson the signal is strong on the car radio but quite weak on a portable radio with headphones as an antenna.
Phil Brandel, CD of Star, confirmed to me this morning that survey will be conducted in September.
How good is this! That’s great news! That would be the first survey since 2012 - I can’t wait to see those results 
Do you know if it’s being done by Xtra or Gfk?
I thought Phil was MD / On Air and Shayne Sinclair was the Star Content Director?
My Info from SeaFM was October?
September/October same difference, it’ll probably run over the 2 months?
Not sure who’ll win, but there’ll probably be a high Others figure, there’s quite a lot of over 40’s people on the Central Coast who listen to Smooth 95.3 Sydney in particular.
Excellent to hear that there will be a Central Coast radio survey this year! The results should be very interesting, although somehow I won’t be terribly surprised if the running order for the top three stations is…
#1: 2GO 107.7
#2: Star 104.5
#3: Sea FM 101.3
Presuming that Sydney stations won’t be included, I agree that there’ll probably be a high “Other Stations” figure especially in the over 40s demographics where Smooth 95.3 Sydney and 96.3 Coast FM would probably do well in if they were listed!
If last year’s Wollongong ratings released by Xtra is any indication, I would imagine the Sydney stations would get listed in the upcoming Central Coast ratings survey.
Interesting to read of Smooth’s popularity on the Central Coast on among the over 40s. Given that 2GO & Star doesn’t really play anything earlier than the 80s, it’s not really surprising.
Going Off-Topic, I imagine that it’s a similar story down in Wollongong for a similar reason, as evidenced by the post below made in the “Random Radio” thread back in May:
There was a time when the over 40s listeners on the Central Coast & Wollongong were well catered for by one of the local commercial stations, before pressure that’s caused by the competition force themselves to go younger.
yeah I meant MD sorry!
I think the order will come down to breakfast results for Star… IMO Rabbit and Julie Goodwin aren’t in the same ballpark as Sarah and Paddy, and I think Bree and Gawndy are superb. So if Star can get close at breakfast, they’ll go a close #2 I reckon.
I think it will be like the last Survey -
Here’s more evidence of an imminent Central Coast Radio survey
I capped this off NBN Central Coast a few mins ago
On the way back home late last night 1 - 2am, I switched between Newcastle stations and central coast stations (bar Sea FM as their playlist would be the same as NX) and is say Star had the best music followed by 2GO. Normally when they seperate playlist I find KO to play the better music.
Rhema are selling some of their old gear. Antennas, STL transmitters etc.
http://www.rhema.cc/equipment-garage-sale/
Star 104.5 are doing the Variety 500 countdown this week.
Here’s the song list from yesterday (Monday), which covers #500 to #397: http://www.star1045.com.au/sites/default/files/variety_500_-_monday_songs.pdf
Absolutely love Star 104.5. I live in Sydney and it is a very good listen. 2Day should aim to be more like them.
Now that’s what I call music. WOW!
It’s almost worth moving to the Central Coast just to be able to listen to Star 104.5
I thought that it’s pretty easy to receive Star 104.5 in many parts of Sydney, in my area it’s basically semi-local reception.
In any case, there is also online streaming of the station for those who can’t get reception on FM…
I agree. It would be a good point-of-difference from KIIS & Nova. Of the local commercial FM stations on the Central Coast, Star seems to have a more local feel than the SCA stations, 2GO & Sea.
Or alternatively, you can invest on an external FM antenna & aim it towards the Central Coast if you have trouble just getting it with a normal antenna. 
I live near Campbelltown & get Star 104.5 (as well as 2GO & Sea) no worries without the need of an external antenna.
For anyone to get an idea of what a typical playlist of Star 104.5 looks like, especially to those from outside of Sydney/Central Coast/Hunter region, this link provides the station’s music log from the past 7 days: Free online radio stations – listen for free at OnlineRadioBox.com
I honestly can’t see why everyone’s going Gaga over Star. From Kesha’s awful “Tik Tok” into Mr. Big is straight out of the K-Rock playbook.
From the little I’ve heard of Star 104.5 in recent times, music wise it’s an OK station I suppose but nothing to get overly excited over IMO.
