Here’s an episode of Peter Luck’s The Australians on CHY Radio (in its pre-FM days) from 1981:
Youtube: Joe Smith
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Was it a coax/copper wire station like the St Kilda student training station?
If it was on AM, what was the TX site, wattage and frequency?
CHY used to be a landline operation until 1983 when it was granted an FM licence. It has never been on the AM band.
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Thanks @Mechsta, landline is what I remembered from reading a previous station history that was available online.
4MW Thursday Island featured on a report on ABC News breakfast this morning. Also note the branded vehicle.
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Hi Everyone, CHY for many has given a great start in radio, and has fallen to Bad managers in the past, but is currently being rebuilt from the ground up with a great manager and a great board, we are in the process of building new studios, and installing Zetta and a brand new panel to go in aswell, the new studio will be named after the founder John Townsend, and the station going back to the kids.
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Some updates to what’s happening with the Hawkesbury 89.9 FM frequency.
The ACMA has advised all current TCBLs that the the temporary solution of having multiple station on 89.9 will continue for the foreseeable future with a possibility of a long term license looked at in a possible 6 months time.
7 TCBL Licensees have been allocated to broadcast for the next phase:
- Pulse FM Radio (12pm Sunday - 12pm Monday)
- Windsor-Hawkesbury Community Radio (WHCR-CAMS) (12pm Monday - 12pm Tuesday)
- Vibe Entertainment (12pm Tuesday - 12pm Wednesday)
- Harmony FM (12pm Wednesday - 12pm Thursday)
- Starter FM (12pm Thursday - 12pm Friday)
- Hawkesbury Radio (12pm Friday - 12pm Saturday)
- Hawkesbury Gold (12pm Saturday - 12pm Sunday)
A personal note, as I operate Starter FM, I am confused why the ACMA decided to go with a 7 station idea, mainly because when we applied for a license back in 2020 we were told that ACMA was only going to allocate 4 licenses to broadcast.
Either way this will be a very interesting time for all involved.
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That’s a lot of competition for one community licence in a suburban area.
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It’s great to see you finally get a go on 89.9, when does this broadcast schedule start?
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Monday the 6th of December.
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A different station each day…interesting. Like a bag of carpet samples. Let’s hope they don’t all get stained.
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The Windsor TCL has become a real joke, seriously 7 aspirants time sharing with only 24 hours each per week. How is ACMA going to come to a decision on who to award the licence too. I bet they don’t issue a licence in 6 months time.
They are treating this as a joke themselves. Maybe they think if we keep prolonging this some of the aspirants will call it a day, and if there are only two left it will be easier for them to make a decision.
Anyway looking forward to hearing Starter Fm on 89.9 soon.
@TheChase which site will you be broadcasting from at Kurrajong Heights?? Will you have RDS???
What a mess the whole 89.9 frequency has become. Just goes to show you how toxic community radio can be.
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It’s stupid, but I can see a theory why ACMA have done it.
We’ve all seen the fighting between stations & even within stations in this area.
7 stations all fighting for the same sponsorship dollars is a problem, especially when they only have 24 hours per week to get the messages out to listeners, & take into account, very few or no one will be listening between 10pm - 6am & the area is only small too, (not like it’s the Central Coast, Wollongong or Newcastle) to get businesses to sponsor them from.
Only those with strong community support from good programming will survive before going broke, if natural attrition takes place, that’s less work ACMA have to do choosing who to licence full time. Take themselves &/or each other out in the process & ACMA might be left with 1 or none, & won’t have to worry about it.
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I guess the way ACMA have segmented the various community broadcasts to change over at each midday is to deliberately prevent any of the stations having any program flow through one continual day, just to make it that more difficult - in the perspective that only the strongest will survive.
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@TheChase can possibly elaborate further, but I hear at least a couple of the 7 have started talks about merging together already, to narrow the field, so ACMA’s intentions might be working?
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Yes, it possible it is having an affect, Hawkesbury Radio and Hawkesbury Gold have teamed up, WHCR FM and Vibe FM are operating under the same group, and Pulse FM and Myself Starter FM are working together, the only odd one out for now is Harmony FM which still claims Independence.
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Starter FM goes live to FM tomorrow at 12pm on 89.9 FM Hawkesbury/Western Sydney.
Feedback about signal and audio quality would be appreciated.
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What is the format? What genre of music will you be playing?