SEN ReindeerTrack?
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yes we do need 24 hrs of talk around the upcoming world Reindeer racing season.
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Gold Coast/Brisbane digital submissions
This has been available since 20 November:
https://www.acma.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-11/IFC-29-2020-submissions.zip
Here’s the list of submitters:
In short, metro licensees have loosely stuck to a form letter about Brisbane coverage.
BAI make a submission as national broadcasters are their clients. TXA must have too much going on internally to bother for their Mt Coot-Tha/Tamborine infrastructure.
National broadcasters have detailed submissions, SBS is impressive. The ABC alarmingly, but unsurprisingly so wish to use their Lower Beechmont site instead of TXA at Tamborine Golf Club to save on costs. They make no mention of it not being co located.
The Camerons and EON’s Williams/Wheatley/OCP have detailed submissions of their own. Camerons have engaged legal rep as a lengthy addendum. Note the date of 31 Aug 2018. So this has been close to being released for comment for some time now. No surprise there.
EON engaged an RF consultant and to their credit, have included that too,
They all seem upset about northern overspill from Brisbane and provide Mt Mee as an alternative, but the problem is that interferes with the main signal when the main signal is weak in the outer regions of 90º - 270º from Mt Coot-tha and was mentioned by ACMA in 2016 I’m sure or one of the licensees.
Aaron’s submission is 7 pages, has tables included. Sadly no maps.
Bill signs off on his own submission, not leaving it to Greg Cupitt this time.
An Adrian Wood makes a submission as a consumer and reading that submission, gives the regulator and licensees a real world example of radio consumption without the ridiculous boundaries they’re fighting over.
Come Christmas 2021, it’s likely there still will not be any change to digital radio in either market as the wrangling will continue. As we can see, there’s plenty of potential for this to end up beyond mediation and in court.
Will read all in detail later, that’s my 10min overview.
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The Rebel submission doesn’t like the Gold Coast overlap into the Rebel area, but one of Rebel’s solution options is to put the two Rebel stations on the Gold Coast mux.
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2UE audio completely screwed up now and at least the last half-hour that i know of
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Thanks for sharing. I’ll have a good read through later today but first scan.
- Adrian is on the money!
- And Bill has a point. Radio 97 will be hugely disadvantaged if the GC stations get onto DAB and Radio 97 doesn’t. Same goes for Rebel/Breeze, and also River in Brisbane.
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Bought a new hi-res mini (high fidelity) audio system: Panasonic SC-PMX92 with DAB+. Sounds pretty good (better than the LG replacing it). But could I get Mandurah DAB+ stations from Murdoch as I did with the LG? Initially nope, in fact the FM seemed less sensitive than the LG. I thought positioning the wire antenna in the same spot would work, it didn’t, and that is because I had to be 100% exact, I had to rejig the wire antenna to be in the same orientation and position as the LG rod antenna, and lo and behold it worked (well most of the time, the LG was better at this). I guess if you are living south of Mandurah it may be worth putting up an antenna to improve the radio offerings you have (given the slim pickings outside of Perth).
FYI, Kix Country SW is running at 64 kbps (Wave and Coast are 96 kbps), compared to Kix Country Perth which is only 32 kbps, certainly the latter is softer than the former.
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After more careful listening one benefit of the higher bit rate (96 kbps) is a more distinct stereo separation and crisper higher frequencies, less muddled than I get with the other (commercial) DAB stations from Perth (which max out at 48 kbps if you are lucky). So one * for poor strength but excellent audio versus 8 *'s for excellent strength but poor quality audio given the low bit rate.
And in addition I also have to power off the TV that sits above it and put to sleep the Apple TV next to it (but OK with the Fetch Mighty running next to it recording). I can understand the TV spitting out out interference but the Apple TV too? Oh the perils of fringe reception!
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Some changes to SEN stations.
2CH has gone back to 3A maybe due to glitchy audio but now is 48K which is the lowest bitrate it has been ever on DAB (I could be wrong).
The stations of SENTrack/SEN Victoria are the ones that remain 4A.
I have mixed feelings as I preferred the nicer sound of 2CH but it was annoying when I was driving around when it glitched (or drop out).
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This is fixed. I am listening to John Laws and seems all good 
. I did email them a week or so go but no response.
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Now the Gold Coast commercial stations will have to submit their access undertaking plan to the ACCC. The existing undertakings are all mostly copies of each other, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to prepare a new one.
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I’ve been too busy with other works of late, to keep up with who’s got what Tech specs currently on DAB+, but I was talking with a Tech from an external company contracted to look after the DAB+ multiplexes of 2GB, 2UE, SEN & BOG/SRN in Sydney last week, & he was saying that they’ve changed the Error Correction for 2GB to be stronger which has resulted in them having less audio quality to play with, but it’s pretty much completely fixed all in building reception complaints they’ve been getting, & reception is now a non-issue around most of the city (don’t know if they’ve done the same for 2UE?).
SEN need more channels, so they’ve had to reduce 2CH to where it is unfortunately, & I’m not sure what mix of error correction they have across the SEN stations?
For the 2SM stations, they’ve made 2SM higher bitrate audio & reduced the Error Correction on the others because (get this), “they don’t generate any revenue, so what’s the point”, this gives them more capacity for 2SM which is generally a talk station, & could do with a lower bitrate than the music stations.
I don’t think these are the directives of 2SM particularly, I think it’s what the contract company has thought best served, so probably don’t go too hard on SRN?
Kinda ironically, towards the end of the conversation he said, “I wonder what happened to the CD quality audio they were promising on DAB+ at the beginning”, & yet he’s in control of the audio quality & bitrates of some stations?
SCA, NOVA & ARN are all done in-house & I’m yet to find anyone willing to talk about why they run stations with so low bitrates.
He also said that in Darwin, Grant Broadcasters wanted to own their own DAB+ transmitter, so that site had to be built differently to all the others, he expects this to be the same on the Gold Coast when it gets off the ground, & this will cause further delays in getting it on air, as it may be already part of the delays?
This is another reason why DAB+ shouldn’t be used regionally, the big 3 networks (SCA, ARN & NOVA) are generally happy to do JV’s & mostly don’t own their own equipment any more (though NOVA & ARN own their own TX’s, etc. maintenance & operation is outsourced).
Even though there’s not many left (but it might get bigger if SCA is broken up & sold off), smaller regional broadcasters like to own their own equipment, & keep operations & maintenance in house, or done by a smaller one man contract tech business. DRM is the perfect fit for this in the regional digital landscape, & I know some of you aren’t going to agree with this thought.
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Fascinating topics & news @RFBurns .
After about a 12 month hiatus I finally got some of my DAB+ software & the RTL-SDR device working again on the other upgraded PC last weekend.
Whilst perusing all the bitrates of all the Sydney DAB+ channels, quite frankly I was horrified at both the increased amount of new channels & the reduced bit rates of so many station channels that have occurred over the past year.
I was thinking along the same lines as you in regards to promised audio of DAB+ & how the medium has degraded itself to quantity (more stations) over quality (re audio quality). Noted 2UE audio quality seamed worse with some of that horrible “Tss” artefacts compared to what I can recall 12 months earlier.
Also I couldn’t comprehend why Hope FM would sacrifice 50% of their bitrate for their Hope Christmas station - sacrilege surely.
Well you’ve answered one of my questions at least in that many of the stations themselves aren’t in direct control of their own bit rates. Blissful ignorance - head in the sand or elsewhere… (by the station’s management). I can only sigh.
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Yes they have. GB is 80 bits 2-A / 2UE is 72 Bits 2-A / NTS 40 Bits (I forget if they are 2A will check). NTS use to be 4A… I actually emailed 2ue and they did reply. Then a few weeks later it went to 3A. At that time it had the cricket on so I listened to it. Now its a waste of bits as it doesn’t have unique content. Give it to 2ue. I don’t follow why 2ue is 72 bits and GB is 80 bits.
2SM is still 64 bits I don’t think it has gone up (it felt like ages ago it changed). I think its still 3A. The rest are 4A. I don’t get their logic either.
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Confirmed NTS is 2-A.
2CH bits dropped as it is 3-A now.
1170 SEN 32 bits at 3-A
SEN Mel is 32 bits 4-A
SEN Track is 32 Bits 4-A
Niche is 32 Bits 3-A
Looks like they’ve made the same change to 2A in Melbourne on the Nine Radio Stations.
3AW - 72kbps/72CU - 2A
Magic 1278 - 72kbps/72CU - 2A
News Talk Sport - 48kbps/48CU - 2A
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What’s the sound quality like on Magic 1278 via DAB these days?
I remember reading earlier in the year that it was pretty ordinary.
Before this most recent change to 2A I think it was 96kbps. Initially when they went from MSR to Magic it was 64kbps but they increased it within a few weeks of Magic relaunching to 96kbps (same as 3AW which had been 96kbps for many years).
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