Community Radio

ozbark · August 13, 2021, 2:16am

Spotted a new & revealing RDS RT update for Hawkesbury Radio 89.9 as follows:-

Hawkesbury Gold and Hawkesbury Radio working together

(The above aspirants are two of the four currently serving the community on 89.9 FM)

TV-Expert · September 2, 2021, 3:35am

https://radioinfo.com.au/news/31-australians-now-listen-community-radio-cbaa

When asked why listeners tune in to community radio stations, the top reasons are:

49% listen for local information and/or news
38% like to hear music that is not available on other stations
34% like their local personalities / voices
33% because they support Australian or local musicians

The new survey has an expanded reach, surveying more markets than ever before, including Greater Newcastle, Greater Wollongong, Orange/Bathurst, Greater Tamworth, Greater Wagga Wagga, Greater Townsville, and the Central Coast.

ozbark · September 3, 2021, 7:46am

Radio Blue Mountains 89.1 should be returning soon according to their Facebook posting on August 30th re essential antenna repairs.
https://www.facebook.com/891RBM

ozbark · September 3, 2021, 10:18pm

They’re back on air now.
From the latest photo it’s clear the station has upgraded their colinear antenna from a 2 bay vertical folded dipole array to a 2 bay mixed polarisation antenna.

Ant5476 · September 4, 2021, 12:04am

No change in signal strength here. I thought going to mixed polarization would have increased the signal strength to allow RDS to decode.

matt86 · September 4, 2021, 5:01am

If anything changing from 2x vertical to 2x mixed would reduce coverage, particularly in the fringe area. Mixed is probably a better option for local reception in the hilly upper mountains.

Having a horizontal only receive means it should come in better as anything with vertical only tx would be being nulled.

Ant5476 · September 4, 2021, 5:25am

Yes my fm antenna is horizontal only so I thought mixed may have helped abut.

dxnerd · September 4, 2021, 7:42am

Not many community stations use horizontal. KRR FM Kandos is one of the few that do: it was easily receivable 24/7 to some degree on my H Yagi beaming WNW from Oatley, but I rarely if ever had a sniff of it on the car radio. Tropo would bring it in like a local signal. I’ve also had it reasonably well from Bungendore on the H Yagi.

ozbark · September 6, 2021, 6:18am

WHCR 89.9 Hawkesbury missing from the airwaves today & no transmission carrier.
Their website is also missing.
http://www.whcr899.com/
Has WHCR ‘thrown-in-the-towel’?

Also re 89.1 Radio Blue Mountains:-

Also note a change to this station’s RDS data. They are now also including a TP flag.

Suspect the change in their transmission antenna might now also provide better local reception in motor vehicles & as per @matt86 feedback.

ozbark · September 6, 2021, 9:37am

They’re back on air now. But much weaker than usual.
Does the station have a Facebook page?
I only find dated Twitter & Instagram pages.

Ant5476 · September 6, 2021, 10:47am

Extremely weak and just above the noise floor. Probably less then half the strength of River fm, must be having transmitter problems. barely spitting out a watt ERP.

Ant5476 · September 10, 2021, 11:17am

Has SWR been having some transmission issues recently?

Up until tonight the signal has been very weak with hissy stereo or even mono. Tonight it is at full strength with full RDS decode.

dxnerd · September 10, 2021, 11:50am

Paging @matt86

ozbark · September 10, 2021, 10:24pm

@Ant5476 Looks okay atm. The RDS subcarrier is a few dB stronger compared to when I last made an observation of it.

Laoma · September 11, 2021, 1:03am

These days in my car, I have tune in via an app in the
Hornsby area due to the HHH enhancements or changes on 100.1. It interferes with SWR on my car radio.

Ant5476 · September 11, 2021, 11:25am

Very interesting, SWR 99.9 signal is poor again tonight at my location in Stanhope Gardens. Last night it was perfect stereo no hiss with full RDS decode.
Tonight very hissy stereo with no RDS decode.

I do have an obstructed path with the Acacia Gardens water tower in its path. In areas of the Ponds / Quakers Hill the Horsley Park towers are visible.

I could not imagine at such short distance Tropo would have an impact on the signal. Tonight 2SSR is splattering on top of SWR. @matt86 are you aware of any transmitter issues?

Radiohead · September 11, 2021, 11:50am

It’s interesting re SWR as I had reception this morning up here near Newcastle, it was still about where I expected it to be in comparison to my reception of other Sydney community stations.

matt86 · September 11, 2021, 11:33pm

Hey all thanks for your comments

@Ant5476 Nah no TX changes for SWR. My guess is something local to you interfering with it (possibly something generating 100MHz hash). Whatever it was might have disappeared for 24hr?
Had a similar situation here on AM with an annoying buzz wiping out the whole band that would occasionally go. It conveniently went when the neighbours moved out. Anyway there’s been no changes to the FM tx. Btw SWR is vertical only (4x sidemount) which isn’t ideal for horizontal receive - and yeah the water tower shadows it into Stanhope

@ozbark Well spotted re the RDS subcarrier. We have 2 STL paths, analogue and digital which both pass MPX. The RDS subcarrier is slightly higher on the analogue link and we’ve been switching between them lately for testing. FYI the analogue link is currently on-air.

@Laoma yes HHH did an upgrade a while ago, I think they may have moved premises. Since these upgrades it appears they’ve been overmodding which will cause adjacent channel IF no matter how good your tuner is. (Most modern car radios are DSP based and very good at rejecting adjacent channels). I know @dxnerd had a similar issue at Oatley with 2SSR.

@dxnerd Do you mean 2KRR is mixed or horizontal exclusively? I don’t know of any FM (in Australia) that’s horizontal only these days. If it is maybe a legacy arrangement?

Ant5476 · September 11, 2021, 11:49pm

Thanks for clearing that up.
The vertical polarity, the water tower, and my fm antenna being horizontal would be responsible.

I also recently moved my fm antenna slightly lower down the mast to allow better spacing between the UHF antenna and the VHF tv antenna. This could also have had an impact, but this actually improved by reception to the south particularly Power fm / i98’/ Wave.

Now SWR seems to be impacted by tropo at very short distances if that is possible. Today there is enhancements from the south and SWR is back to full RDS decode, interesting.
Thanks @matt86 for your information.

Laoma · September 12, 2021, 11:21pm

Thanks Matt. Yeah it is annoying a bit since they “upgraded”. HHH has not improved its coverage to the south of Hornsby where I live. I do listen to them, I like the live rock report. Whilst the reception has not improved. The audio has improved for both FM and online. I live in an apartment block now and struggle to get decent reception of HHH FM, Chatswood Northside FM is the best community station reception wise.
Its a shame for me, two of my go to community stations are so close to each other on the FM Band. No point complaining RE SWR as I am well out of the license area. HHH if they can fix the overmodulation, should move the transmitter to the top of one of those apartment buildings in Hornsby. They really struggle to cover the Hornsby Shire considering you should hear it at Brooklyn .