dunno about u but Rebel RDS here on the coast is being interfered with right now, sould be a 4AAA thing
Yeah it sounds like utter dogshit too - very distorted audio and so much louder than all other stations. I canāt imagine anyone could listen to it like that for any extended period.
And itās good again now, weird how it keeps dropping in and out. Either way, seems like it needs some technical help.
Iāve contacted 4AAA but not heard anything.
My uneducated guess is faulty equipment somewhere in the chain.
Yes, if it was a moron behind the desk that thought you had to push the fader all the way up, the AGC on the processor would cover that, & the while audio might be distorted, whatās going out to the transmitter would be at normal levels & not driving the exciter to be over-modulating.
Its terrible⦠it keeps messing up my reception of Rebel 99.4 and im on the northern GC
EDIT: Ive decided to report it to the ACMA as its now interfering with other broadcasters, tried to contact 4AAAās office twice now and its a voicemail.
Iāll be curious as to whether you get a responseā¦
One wonders if thereās any functioning office staff working there these days?
You guys are talking about this 4AAA yeah? Triple A | Brisbane QLD As I checked the number on the Facebook page and was able to talk to someone.
Pulse 94.1FM in Wollongong has been on back up tape all day.
I could be wrong, but it appears itās an hour long tape played on repeat (the same Ed Sheeran and Switchfoot song at the top of the hour)
Probably a TDK D60 on a player with auto reverse.
Letās hope it does amazing things to their system too.
It would be interesting see if ACMA has any field officers left in Brisbane now - they use the occupied bandwidth function on a FSH portable anayalser to check FM modulation levels. From memory its the -6dB point has to be no further than 75kHz out. (I havenāt given Bessel nulls any thought for a couple of decades myself)
Gents, Just hold off contacting ACMA
I just spoke to somebody who looks after them and he was unaware of what was going on.
he is heading up to Broadcast park tomorrow morning.
Wow! Well thatās a major breakdown in communication involving the office admin/station management.
Good to hear.
Thanks for your help.
I wonder @Rubbishman if the tech is also aware of the RDS PI code & dynamic PS problem?
Should be:
PI: 4989 (Not FFFF)
PS: āTriple Aā (Static)
as both were in early in 2023.
Iād be sceptical if many community stations even had a technical volunteer left these days: There are a few contractors around but most community stations are permanently broke and unlikely to want to pay.
Too late I have already reported it. It was getting out of control. I left a dozen voicemails on their ACMA contact phone number. I think I did my due diligence. I tried the ACMA email address they had listed. Nothing.
I dont bother with Facebook as social media is evil.
In my opinion, you cant interfere with broadcasters licences. They have a business to run and if things degrade their signal it could be lost revenue. Rebel and Breeze have enough issues with low power problems without this getting in the way. (aint I correct @AJ1)
Good point & good that you raised it too.
I am aware that some community stations donāt have one.
I am also aware that some so called volunteer techs arenāt even covered for their costs, eg fuel to drive to transmitter site, repair costs ect. with waning enthusiasm in some cases.
And several stations are very keen to attract volunteer techs.
I donāt know the finer details in other cases where contracted techs or volunteer techs/engineers provide their assistance. Iām sure thereās a whole spectra of different tech support arrangements depending on the budgets or not of community radio stations.
Agreed. I offered, Iām sure you did @gordo92. I went on for over a week if not more, today was the final straw, when i couldnt get Rebel properly and then couldnt call anyone, I went into report mode.
I am retired, live near Broadcast Park but donāt volunteer for community stations - firstly there is zero likelihood of them reimbursing any expenses and secondly they will likely demand you do oncall. Too many community radio people are aspiring commercial broadcasters and try and use those places as stepping stones to a career. Some of the old hands hail from commercial radio and TV and are still living in the past where techās were janitors. Come to think of it most commercial broadcasters are no better.
Once they have burned and churned anyone who knew what they were doing they get foreign IT workers in and turn them loose - hence things like over-modulation.