And that’s why we appreciate you @4TAB-1008kHz , genuine RF work (not retreating to the shadows).
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With a bit of luck I managed to scan in Mandurah DAB from my Perth CBD apartment and got the following bit rates
91.7 The Wave - 96kbps
CoastFM - 96 kbps
KIX SW - 64 kbps
SEN Peel - 32 kbps
Just the 4 stations on that MPX.
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Back in April 2022 I had this from one of the engineering managers of the West Coast Radio DAB+, especially for their commercial stations:
The Wave uses a higher bitrate (96kbps) than most of the Perth stations. The majority of the Perth commercial stations use 32 or 48kbps. We also process the sound separately to our FM and streaming using Omnia.9 processing. The reason you receive Coast FM better than The Wave on DAB+ is we’re using a higher (EEP-1A) error protection rate than The Wave (EEP-3A).
What seems new to what we know is this Omnia.9 processing. Anybody know what that is?
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Omnia 9 is just a competitor to the Orban Optimod, in some ways a bit better than an Optimod, but nothing greatly different in an audio processor. It’s actually a FM processor, not sure I’d be particularly using it for DAB, DAB should have minimal processing & should be done differently to FM. Most networks process their DAB and web streaming separately to their FM so they’re not doing anything different or special, only difference is the error correction & they’re wasting a lot of bits doing it at EEP-1A.
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From what I can tell the EEP-1A is only beneficial in fringe reception areas. On occasions when the The Wave is borderline and drops out occasionally, then Coast FM still comes in. However if the signal degrades further than Coast FM also disappears. Given that there is usually a high variability with fringe reception there is really only a very small window (in time and space) of “opportunity” for Coast FM to have superior performance to The Wave. I agree it is not worth the added cost of bits (almost twice as many CUs according to Capacity Units – Quality information for small scale DAB projects)
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But given they’ve only got 4 stations and the whole MPX to themselves, they may as well use up the extra bits ?? (until they add more stations).
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They aren’t allowed to.
The legislation kinda didn’t consider markets like Mandurah and doesn’t treat them differently - so the multiplex is divided into 9 parts (96CU each), and 2 are reserved for the community stations that Mandurah doesn’t have, and then 1/9th allocated to each commercial licence, and are limited to that amount again in excess-capacity.
There’s the fun ACCC report of needing to go through the processes of the “Digital Radio Broadcasting Mandurah Pty Ltd” company that owns the apparatus license having to fairly provide access to West Coast Radio (owners of DRB Mandurah).
They provide this table outlining the split:
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Bit stupid should have allowed the stations to buy the extra 3/9 that was not allocated… Fancy having over half the multiplex not be used because of how they set out the regulations
Digital Radio in Australia really is a bit of a joke…
RANT OVER
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It sums up the sorry state of radio regulation and frequency management in this country pretty succinctly I think.
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Agree.
They should also be opening unallocated spectrum up to new entrants IMO.
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100%. i took my small DAB+ radio to london last year and it was night and day to here. so much choice.
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Correct, but existing owners will fight tooth and nail to stop it happening. It’s just the same as one owner owing all the coffee shops in a shopping mall - all the coffees will cost the same regardless of where you go. The Gold Coast MPX didn’t seem full last time I was able to hear it either. Getting a MPX on air in an adjacent site to a capital city is a great way to keep competition out as there is likely no spectrum available for any new entrants.
Internet streaming is a different game though - old rich blokes(and the occasional rich old girl) with a licence from the government haven’t fared that well there.
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But where do SEN and KIX SW fit in that table?
Also both Coast FM and The Wave have the same allocation so how come one can do EEP-1A and other cannot?
But would anybody be interested given the population of Mandurah is only 96000 (with 150k across the whole Peel region that Mandurah DAB+ targets)?
You really don’t get beyond Kwinana for indoor listening and that misses out a big chunk of the Perth metro area (although with 150k in the City of Rockingham it competes with the Peel region for ears)
And you can’t get as far south as Bunbury (where they can certainly do with more radio variety. But with only 77000 population I can see why all efforts is to push the signal stronger north than south.
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The one with EEP-1A will be sacrificing data packets from elsewhere in the stream, could be from the audio, could be from another data allocation such as the DAB equivalent of RDS or slide-show data & it’s data allocation could be jamb packed, where as the other one could simply be adding a number of Null Packets to the stream to fill up the data allocation capacity, you’d have to break down the data streams & analyse them to find what differs.
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Not sure if anyone would be interested, but a lot of the small-scale DAB operators in the UK seem to have a variety of smaller local stations on them. A bit like community stations, so profit might not be the main game for them.
Anyway, only one way to find out. ACMA needs to test the market.
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Interesting that on the Perth DAB+ we have Niche Radio which is a narrowcast station. This serves a very specific market and represents an excellent use of DAB+ given the number of stations you can fit that you would struggle to do on the AM or FM band. The high powered wide coverage community stations which do get access are there for the same reason but wide coverage usually implies wide appeal and then they begin to sound like commercial stations.
The Mandurah DAB+ would be an excellent opportunity for narrowcast / local community stations to set up a station which serves the Peel and City of Rockingham regions (which are mostly semi-rural). Ditto to other regional DAB+ if they ever take off. Any community stations on the GC DAB+?
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Yes @robtog, the three community licensees are on air on the Gold Coast.
4CRB: general (yet older skew, over 60)
Juice: contemporary Christian, another underperforming station captured in a joint fellowship agreement* with Hope Sydney. (* their words)
Radio Metro: Youth dance/hip hop/etc, far narrower than Fresh Adel. Run by a bloke, Justin Smart and his cronies, all pushing fifty and been there for decades. A closed shop.
Not on digital is:
94.1 ‘the Gold FM of old’/50+ is on a TCBL after changing from a permanent licence serving jazz community. Full of ex radio types on air, sales, marketing etc. Why they don’t apply for permanent licence is a question they should answer.
Perhaps updated, @TV.Cynic could advise please, three simulcasts of FM at 48kbps, forgot EEP & audio bandwidth.
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Thanks @TV.Cynic, appreciate your uploads, still 112kbps at EEP 3A going begging in the community allocation.
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Is anyone able to compare the kpbs between Tradie Radio and 92.9 Triple M Perth. When I’m streaming MMM Perth is tends to randomly cut out and distort which MMM Tradie Radio and other Perth DAB+ stations don’t witness, Is anyone able to give me a reason for why this would be, its quite annoying when listening to the station and a part of the broadcast gets distorted.
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