Yeah only so many times the techs will be screwed over and with SCA massive everyone must go round of lay offs a few years ago a lot have been burnt
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Correct - once people get laid off a couple of times they eventually find another line of work and never return, even if the work picks back up. Another big problem in broadcasting has been juniors and trainee’s being laid off before they pick up skills and obtain paper qualifications - the loss of younger workers skews the age profile of the workforce up and I suspect in broadcasting its well north of 50yo.
Telco employers have done the same - one good trick they excelled at is forcing people who want to stay into ABN work. Once they have been ripped off a couple of times by prime contractors delaying or not making payments they pack up and never return. NBN Co is textbook for this and broadcasters have also tried this on.
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The Australian is running an article about the ABC running “futile” digital radio trials - sorry, but can’t bring myself to giving the paper a click
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Spencer Howson finished his show the previous weekend saying they’re moving within the building. At Cannon Hill.
Opening break of LGM this morning mentioned they’re in a temporary studio.
Listen to the extended news bulletin at midday and compare the audio quality on digital from 4BC to 4BH. There is a clear need to improve the audio quality of 4BC.
@dutymainttech, newsroom remains at Cannon Hill from what’s mentioned on air. There was articles at the time of Nine’s acquisition about the radio newsrooms sitting in on the TV news editorial meeting.
Agree with your sentiments @dutymainttech and @gordo92, engineering staff need to be treated with respect and realise that engineering facilitates their business to operate. Especially in a world where if a service is unavailable, audience will switch online and likely never return.
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They probably did what they did in Sydney a couple of years ago, built new studios in the other end of the building where the offices were, then moved in & made the old studios into the offices?
Nine Radio Sydney is moving in with Nine TV at North Sydney HQ however, next year they’re hoping.
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Correct @RFBurns, seems to be the case here.
Was the work in Sydney done before or after Nine acquired the stations?
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Can’t remember honestly now, was before 2CH went to SEN & before 2UE moved in, must have been after in that case though.
2GB & 2UE moved into the new studios & 2CH stayed in their old one until they moved out becoming SEN. For a period the 3 stations were all in the same studio complex.
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It was after the Macquarie/Fairfax merge, but before Nine took them over. Macquarie Sports Radio we’re in the new studios, so it must have been during the Talking Lifestyle era. Part of the reason for the new studios was to have enough space to move 2UE in.
Seems ironic now that 2UE and 2CH are no longer using the studios.
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Some of you might be happy, but I’m not sure I am?
I understand Commercial Radio are investigating a way to add more services to each DAB+ multiplex, there’s currently no limit, but (& I’ll keep it basic), there’s some information that’s transmitted for the receivers to decide if there’s a service there or not, & if the receiver doesn’t receive this data within a time limit, it says the service has gone & won’t tune it. Because there’s a limited amount of data that can be transmitted within a given time period, the current number of services on a multiplex is the limit, to allow that particular data to fall within the time limits, some receivers ignore this, but others stick to the DAB standards tightly.
What they are looking at is a slightly different way to send this particular piece of data & therefore being able to fit more services in each DAB+ multiplex & not have an issue with any receivers.
While some of you might think great, more stations to listen to & the likes of SCA won’t have to remove some of your favourites to put new ones up, the problem is, it’s still limited bandwidth, so there’s only so much data can fit & the capacity units won’t be changing, as a result the bit rates will have to plummet as more services get added & or the error correction will have to give up some data space & drop from (the recommended 3A) to maybe 4A?
There’s no time limit for this to happen nor any guarantees it will happen, it’s still just being investigated.
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Thanks for letting us know of their intent & interesting technical details.
My response to them are that they’re F__kn’ Morons!
Am I being too brutal?
The existing low bit rates on many stations are low enough as is combined
with the error correction formats etc. re artefacts & compromised fidelity.
Why make it worse? Because they can & don’t care. Quantity (& therefore profit) before quality of fidelity. Commercial Management probably think the masses won’t notice the difference.
It’s the model that worked with cable TV in the US decades ago, so
why not here is the corporate commercial managerial mentality.
Little wonder radio is loosing out to people just playing their own music, Spotify
or podcasts etc.
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If bit rates ARE further reduced to fit more stations in, they may as well not bother. 32 kbps for music is hard enough to listen too as it is.
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We’ve seen similar with Digital TV too - manufacturers play fast and loose with the standards and it has consequences for the end user
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A better alternative would be to build a 3rd commercial multiplex in Bris, Syd and Melb, and a 2nd in Perth/ Ade using a different channel (I think 8D was mentioned a while back, on here, correct me if I’m wrong).
Yes, it would cost money- this is where the fed govt. should come in and help subsidise the cost. Then, Australian DAB will be on a par with the UK, in terms of number of stations at higher bit rates (Capital, Heart, Kiss, Magic are on 128kbps, equivalent to 64kbps on DAB+).
Community stations would also benefit with an extra 256 Kbs of spectrum, which could assist some of the suburban stations to get on DAB.
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You’d think if they are having issues with this, they’d be blocking stations from doing redirect services, like the absurd “KIIS 1011” and “KIIS 101.1” stations in Melb.
Equally, a use it or lose it rule on excess capacity, so stations that want to provide additional services aren’t forced down to lower bitrates or protection levels, while there’s unused capacity.
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Yes and also MMM 105.1 and TripleM (here in Melbourne), and also the two VAR radio stations which are not redirects, but two services carrying the same program only with a slightly different delay on each.
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IRIS is at least a different program stream: it opts out for special programming, usually the Australian Open but also more recently the state election, with RPH programming continuing on 1179AM and the VA Radio DAB+ channel.
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Gold Coast DAB levels very high in Brisbane tonight. There is a lot of signal enhancement on FM but from the north and none to little enhancement in band III TV signals from that area.
Brisbane levels
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Reception levels are back to normal today.
It was unusual, though I am no previous experience with DAB DXing. Last night I tuned a standard DAB radio that was plugged into the Brisbane TV antenna and could tune in the Gold Coast multiplex. There was no indication of anything particularly unusual from the south on FM at the time, so it was strange that Band II was enhanced.
Today, the opening to the north is still there in Brisbane - still strong enough to be able to listen in the car to Zinc with RDS but DAB is normal from GC.
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