I’m curious why would neighbouring DAB+ services need to be on the same frequencies?
Wouldn’t it be more prudent to do the following:
Sydney:
9A - ABC / SBS
9B - Commercial / Community
9C - Commercial / Community
9D - TBA
Central Coast:
8A - ABC / SBS
8B - Commercial / Community
8C - Commercial / Community
Katoomba:
7A - ABC / SBS
7B - Commercial / Community
Lithgow:
6A - ABC / SBS
6B - Commercial / Community
and so on, is this logical or am I completely wrong.
Looking at the licence area maps, I see a few problems such as Interference during Tropo, this isn’t like Analog Radio where you null out a station and another appears during openings. This is a system that literally cancels it out due to interference. In other countries that use DAB, there are no VHF television stations causing this. Having only 8 frequencies used in this system in Australia and in close proximity to each other will be a recipe for disaster. I will not be shocked once the DAB system launches and people from Wollongong will complain about the lack of DAB reception because of interference from Gosford.
The issue with those specific ones is that TV covers up the 6A/B and 7A/7B - you’d interfere with the SBS and Channel 9 Sydney transmissions respectively, and pretty much every regional area far enough away from VHF TV you are in such a small town you don’t have the spectrum problems anyway.
DAB channel numbers are 1 below our TV ones up until TV channel 10.
So that means in metro areas DAB 5A through 7D are used by TV on 6, 7 and 8, and DAB 11A-12D are used by TV on channel 11 and 12.
That leaves the ‘DAB Band’ of TV 9 and 9A - which is 8 blocks from 8A through to 9D, and TV channel 10, which is assigned for TV use, though unused in most markets, making it the most likely spot for any expansion, but even then you wouldn’t use it to have two full blocks in a place like Central Coast - even Adelaide and Perth only use 1 commercial multiplex.
That sounds like there wasn’t good planning around a true future for DAB+ for areas other then major capital city’s.
Digital Radio in this country is basically a sham and we are all the losers - it doesnt help that there’s been no real movement for what will be rolled out in areas outside of the heavily populated areas (where DAB+ will be effective) and a raft of single owner commercial markets combined with little to no government funding to expand means that the industry holds all the cards
There are quite possibly resolutions to some of the issues that perenially keep coming up when determining allocations if there was flexibility (like, but not limited to consolidating/aggregating or adjusting digital licence areas) - but that would be to the industry’s detriment so we are stuck with this mess because we have a regulator that has no intestinal fortitude to force change.
The only way I can see DAB regionally becoming even remotely viable would be once the next round of Digital TV restacks occurs- even then assuming they don’t try and shove two different blocks onto VHF (6-8 and 10-12).
In a scenario where we have 3 multiplexes per block the best way to facilitate DAB through this process would be something like:
6-9A reserved for DAB+
10-12 Block A VHF
28-30 Block B UHF
31-33 Block C UHF
34-36 Block D UHF
37-39 Block E UHF
40+ reserved for 5G from 611Mhz onward
Should this happen we would have a lot more open frequencies for DAB+ without stepping on the toes of Digital TV.
If we can get DVB-T2 happening, you could probably add another VHF channel in for DAB.
Very interesting, thanks for the info!
I don’t think it will matter too much if Gold Coast is on high-power from a single site, as Toowoomba city centre is about 180 km from Gold Coast (Southport). So Toowoomba could also use the same channel as GC on high-power on a single site without any interference problems.
NSW is an interesting one. Goulburn, Nowra and Wollongong on the same block. Not sure how that would work if they were all on high-powered, single sites?
Yes, this is true. It will most likely be Sunshine Coast, Newcastle, Wollongong, Bendigo, Geelong, Ballarat. Possibly even Cairns, Townsville, Toowoomba and Central Coast in the longer term.
I agree with your list of candidates, except Cairns, Townsville and Toowoomba are all quite a bit bigger than Bendigo or Ballarat. Also Central Coast should be in the same group with Sunshine Coast, Newcastle, Wollongong and Geelong based on its population.
A DVB-T2 transition would likely rely on using VHF10 as a first step, in order to run a test broadcast in the metro areas. So if they were to start a transition, you’d likely not free up anything for DAB use for another decade.
At this point I expect that you will just see a scheme where networks can voluntarily go to sharing their DVB-T mutliplex in exchange for cash - much in the way that you saw the spectrum incentive auction in the US where they are sharing ATSC 1.0 in MPEG-2, rather than a rollout of ATSC 3.0.
So I suppose that means maybe DAB has an opening - in that as DVB-T2 is increasingly unlikely it would reduce the need to allocate the 6th channel spectrum in the VHF markets to being a placeholder channel for that.
The problem though - why give it away for free? There’s spare DAB channels right now and no demand, and no where near enough money in digital radio, or even radio - to sell it for nearly as much as it’s value in assisting to maximise the amount of 5G spectrum that can be sold.
Thanks for the information. However I have a question.
According to the planning documents, ABC&SBS are supposed to be on 8B or 9C for the whole country. How is that supposed to work? For example, if Melbourne is on 9C, do Ballarat and Bendigo, Shepparton and Gippsland all share 8B? What about Echuca which receives FM radio from both Bendigo and Shepparton?
I guess that means that the ABC local stations in regional areas would have to be on Category 2 licences (5 commercial slots, 2 community slots, 2 national slots). Ditto for ABC Sports if you have AFL in some regions and NRL in others.
You could free up two VHF channels and 8 UHF channels by doing the following:
That would free up more than 1 channel’s worth of data.
Then you would have to get the ABC, SBS and commercial channels to share multiplexes
Eventually, you might be able to free up another VHF and four UHF channels by switching to DVB-T2. You could do this in stages:
The final step could be to re-organise the commercial multiplexes so that each of the three networks gets half of one multiplex’s bitrate, with half of one multiplex’s bitrate reserved for future use or community TV. Instead of having an unallocated channel, you’d have unallocated capacity.
Each of these steps would come at the expense of some older TVs not receiving some, or any, channels, without a set top box.
The short answer is - they won’t.
The ABC have complained and sought access to more spectrum and to have a spectrum planning process distinct from that of the commercial license areas, and I suspect it forms part of their reason for running trials of DRM/DRM+ - as those have the flexibility to supply local radio.
The plan in theory is a mixture of category 2 licenses and the ABC/SBS running an SFN across a wide region, however no license in category 2 has been allocated, and the ABC have never sought one - including on the Gold Coast, choosing to instead lobby for additional allocation of category 3 spectrum, such as by merging commercial license areas.
In their submission about the Gold Coast they proposed for example merging the Murwillumbah and Lismore license areas on DAB and using the would be Murwillumbah frequency for the ABC service in that area - allowing NSW timezone content on the border area.
But basically that seems to be the pattern - the ABC complain each time there’s not enough spectrum to do DAB properly, the ACMA ignore them and plough through with what the big commercial broadcasters agree to, and thus we get left with the ABC in an unworkable position.
I’m of the view the ABC will not launch regional digital radio unless there’s direct additional funding for it - I don’t know if we’ve heard for sure if the ABC/SBS will even launch a DAB service into the Gold Coast - they aren’t to my knowledge running a service in Mandurah despite it being allocated (in SFN with Perth on 9C).
The ABC’s website gives a very strange answer here:
When will digital radio be available where I live?
“That decision is a matter for Government and requires amendment to legislation so ABC Radio is not able to expand services until legislation changes.”
The Gold Coast is a strange place FM wise with the Commercial radio and TV at the Golf Course(TxA) on Mt Tamborine and the ABC FM’s on another site(BA) at Lower Beechmont. The Lower Beechmont site is a white elephant as it didn’t have any other services or even tenants such as two way operators but it would give better DAB+ coverage into NSW than Tamborine does. Tamborine DAB+ will overspill into Brisbane even if you use a directional antenna but at least the Gold Coast stations may no longer have a valid case to complain about overspill and have the Mt Coot-tha DAB+ turned down.
I know it’s not about DAB+, but does that mean the ABC FM stations from Lower Beechmont have better coverage to the south than the stations at Mt Tamborine? Curious as the commercials got a bit scratchy at times on the car radio heading towards OOL. Thought that was a bit strange.
In my experience, the Tamborine FM commercials get into NSW better than the Lower Beechmont ABCs do.
Its an easy position to hold given their budgetary pressures but I do wonder whether it may contribute to a bit of a circular argument that ends up with regional digital radio (regardless of flavour) with the commercial sector potentially using the ABC (and possibly SBS) not rolling out digital radio as a reason why they may elect not to roll it out as well.
Write to the ACMA about this Matter.
Australia lags world in using latest TV broadcasting technology Read it and Weep
Without getting too much in the weeds - changing from DVB-T to DVB-T2 is not going to be straightforward and would require a decent amount of effort.