Community Radio

Is’nt it Strange that Hamilton in Western Victoria has around 9,000 Residents but no Community Radio Station of their Own.

A lot of towns and small cities around Australia with the same situation

7 Likes

Ipswich QLD is the one that boggles my mind. Yes it has a local commercial station (playing a playlist heard all across the east coast) but for a community so distinct from others it has no community station. Every other LGA in SEQ has or did have one.

2 Likes

Web streamer West Bremer Radio has tried to pick up the slack.

3 Likes

ACMA has released its consultation paper this week in regards to 4CRB Gold Coast wanting to change its community of interest from ‘senior citizens’ to ‘general’.

See: https://www.acma.gov.au/consultations/2022-08/changing-4crbs-community-interest-consultation-272022

8 Likes

What a fascinating indictment on the ACMA (and the agencies before them). Commercial, community, national: a station should be free from interference within its service area. I wonder whether Life FM (105.1) or Phoenix (106.7) have ever been wiped out by the high-powered Melbourne stations on those frequencies? In car, Life - and presumably Phoenix - drops out well before Kyneton where 3MMM blasts in.

Speaking of Kyneton: drove up to Bendigo on Sunday afternoon and caught some of Fresh 101.5. In quite a long sponsorship block, I noticed several sponsors based in Kyneton. Felt quite unusual on first thought, but consulting the RRL and sure enough, Kyneton is within Bendigo RA4.

Looking at the maps further raises some anomalies:

  • As you might expect, Bendigo RA1 (Hit 91.9, MMM 93.5) has the widest footprint, with the licence area extending north to the Murray River - encompassing Echuca and Kerang - as far west as St Arnaud and Maryborough in the south. It stops short of Daylesford, yet the spa town is included in Bendigo RA2 (Vision Aus 88.7).
  • Bendigo RA4 (Fresh 101.5) encircles but does not serve Daylesford. Uniquely, it does however cover Woodend - home of Highlands FM.
  • Bendigo RA5 (Life 105.1, Phoenix 106.7) is limited largely to Bendigo and surrounding suburbs, stopping short of Marong to the west and, perhaps short-sightedly, the rapidly growing Huntly to the north. The smaller licence area at least makes sense when considering the frequency choices for these services, co-channeling with high-powered Melbourne FMs.
  • Bendigo RA3 (KLFM 96.5) is most peculiar: another frequency not in line with other Bendigo services, yet with a wider area to the west and east of the Bendigo urban area than Bendigo RA5, along with the enclaved inclusion of Castlemaine - albeit one that requires the 106.3 repeater.

The precedent of DAB+ in Hobart suggests that, should the rollout ever extend into Bendigo, all five community stations would be eligible for spectrum on that multiplex, with the service area matching that of Bendigo RA1. For Life and Phoenix, this would represent a significant extension to their current licence area; for Fresh and Vision, this would at least theoretically be a reduction on their FM service area (in excluding Woodend and Daylesford respectively).

And this is before we even venture into Maryborough…

7 Likes

How utterly ridiculous that a town like Bendigo has five different radio licence areas. I can get the need for maybe two - a wider area one and a narrow area one focusing on town - but five is just excessive.

4 Likes

And by comparison, the community stations on the Gold Coast all serve the same area as the main commercials, which is entirely sensible.

This change would seem to make sense. 94.1 is a pure music station (really a quasi-commercial) that specifically targets an older demographic, why compete for listeners there? The programming on 4CRB is entirely different in that they do provide a more general format with talk, interviews etc as well as music. Unless them doing this is a sign of further changes to their format to come?

2 Likes

The ACMA trying to justify its existence?!

I agree, there is no need for such bureaucracy.

1 Like

Speaking of 94.1 - will they ever get a permanent licence? What is it with just a temporary transmitter licence?

2 Likes

‘General’ makes no sense for a market as large as the Gold Coast. Hopefully the ACMA rejects this and if the license has slipped into ‘general’ content, that they are required to shift back.

I can understand a ‘general’ community license in a small town - where the localism is in contrast to region wide services, or where it is the only community station thus doing a ‘bits of everything’ format that’s tough to listen to all the time, but allows all voices on air.

In a market with as many stations as Gold Coast, both community and commercial, all should be focused on a niche group that is underserved by commercial and national radio - “people” isn’t a niche group in a city of 500k.

2 Likes

94.1 would be a good frequency for a new high powered commercial FM service for Brisbane - either a new service or an AM conversion.

3 Likes

Actually the population of Gold Coast metro is now 720k.

1 Like

Agreed. Move the GC community licence to 93.7 and move Rebel Canungra to 91.3 with specs given so as not to cause interference with ABC in Northern NSW.

3 Likes

I’ve installed a new audio processor for Koori Radio Sydney in the last few days, so the FM has a new sound, the FM’s still fed off their DAB+ transmission though, so it’s the best I can get it.

2MBS are also getting closer to moving transmission to Artarmon, they’re moving their smaller backup TX on Monday, & will get that up & running probably over the next week, using that temporarily at a reduced normal power, while they move their main TX to Artarmon, then once that’s set up will be from Artarmon at full power, I’d expect that to happen before the end of October.

They really are serious about broadcast too, they have more redundancy than some of the commercial stations. Their STL runs across 2 fibres, (different providers & different routes between studio & transmitter), & also have 4G backup on one of them, they can also switch multiple transmitters to multiple places, including a backup alternate antenna, (still only a provision at Artarmon).

7 Likes

Thanks for the update, i had suspected 2MBS hadn’t yet moved as when I was down at Chatswood earlier in the week that 2MBS and 2SER were the weakest of the Sydney wide community stations from there.

4 Likes

Something’s happened to their audio feed in the last hour or so though. Very faint audio. Hopefully they can invest in a quality direct audio feed in near future. They often have audio problems. Another step in the right direction for them with the new audio processor :+1:

UPDATE: Audio restored at 1.35pm

Noted 92.1 2MFM carrying a DW English program titled; ‘In Good Shape’ running a little past scheduled 1pm finish according to website schedule.

4 Likes

The redundancies explain why 2MBS so very rarely goes off air; I can only recall them doing so once, in about 2008. There was a big CBD wide power outage which also knocked out Koori Radio and Skid Row from memory. Luckily tropo conditions were OK and I received Power FM Bega.

4 Likes

Except they didn’t buy it, TXA bought it & still own it, unless they decide to pay for it.
HOPE 103.2 wanted their processor back, that was on loan to TXA for Koori’s use.

3 Likes

Koori radio sounds fantastic since the upgrade. I’ve found the reception quality has also improved, as it’s not fading out like it used to.

2 Likes