Check Mandurah Mail for public notices, they will notify startup as per the ACMA procedure.
The ACMA consultation paper was edited to include a coverage map based on two prediction methods, quite a lot of Perth up to the CBD covered.
DAB+ is co-located with their FM site behind Pinjarra.
Pinjarra is to the ESE of Mandurah so they will need to direct some signal to the north; overspill into parts of Quokka City is pretty much guaranteed. I’d imagine West Coast Radio would be keen as mustard to get DAB up and running.
The ACCC multiplex access undertaking submitted by Digital Broadcasting Mandurah P/L has this on page 3…
Well it is 10kW for DAB+ vs 5kW for FM (and I think more or less the same antenna pattern) so one would think it would have greater reach. However propagation at these higher frequencies may be different and the digital edge effect may mean that you get dropouts which are worse than the graceful degradation of analog FM.
OK I will keep scanning every day now!
Will be interesting to see if/ what complementary stations that Wave/ Coast offer on DAB… or if it will just be FM simulcasts at a comparatively high bit rate?
Interesting concept, so obviously no back announcing of songs.
The ‘start up day’ is just when the licence starts, the actual on air date will probably be later. That said, there’s no consistency - for the 5 city DAB+ broadcasts, they all started before the ‘start up day’, while Hobart’s was 2 days before the actual launch (and after test broadcasts).
That said, the ACMA website has all just been nuked of content so I don’t know how reliable the lack of one listed here is for the progress for Mandurah.
Can’t wait for 2SM to trial it with Laws being simulcast on Gorilla.
Lol
Very appropriate association!
Could well be. Not sure if there is a connection to running on DAB+ but if you listen to The Wave on Tunein you an select a 96kbps AAC stream, I don’t think I have ever seen one that high (unless it is MP3!) for unpaid radio stations (maybe the Gold app HD Audio?). Certainly they have the digitisation aspect down pat.
I’m not a fan of this at all. Digital radio is meant to offer more choice to the listener. Now they want to take away said choice and force us to listen to one program. It’s like Seven simulcasting 7 News across all their multi’s every night. Not cool.
I agree. I hope this is just a test and eventually is used for FM networking only.
Last thing I want is to hear 2Day’s 20th breakfast show played across their amazing digital offering.
Not to mention the fact the music and the content more often than not won’t match up.
Exactly. I don’t tune into Hit Urban for breakfast radio. Who the fuck would?
But it’s the Coles Radio methodology.
Throw it down as many peoples throats as possible and then you’ll become number one.
No connection
You guys seem so negative about this. This is the future.
There’s plenty of breakfast shows I’d listen to more if it wasn’t for the music not being my taste. Spotify will do something similar eventually, traditional radio broadcasters need to do something before they do. Good work SCA for trying something new.
I’m just not convinced a single, mainstream focused breakfast show could work with different genres of music.
Then again, I’ve never sampled it. But I doubt I’d enjoy it as I mostly like back-to-back music and that’s what I like about SCA’s current suite of digital channels.
Absolutely agree. I listen to DAB to get away from the inane breakfast and drive chatter.
If they roll this out nationally, then I’ll permanently stick to 96FM, at least until they start doing the same. Then I’ll go to CarPlay and streaming (music services and niche radio).
How are they determining whether this pilot is successful? Ratings?
SCA’s stream 32 and 128kbps AAC, and RAW FM go to 160kbps AAC.
