Hmm…good question. Maybe because 103.3 had the potential to interfere with the harmonics of a VHF TV signal back in the analogue TV days?
In any case, the main Christian community station in Sydney has always been on 103.2 FM to the best of my knowledge.
Yes - definitely a US thing. I had a US-sourced car here several years ago and the FM tuner had 200KHz increments only.
I think it’s because of 2GCR Goulburn being on 103.3 ?
(who were somewhat ironically on 105.7 before being asked to move to accommodate JJJ Sydney).
I remember hearing that it was to stop interference near its transmitter site with the VHF 7 TV signal
Re HD radio - I know of some US stations that have 4 HD streams
I’ve always thought HD Radio would suit the Australian market better - with our diverse range of markets outside capital cities, DAB is very unsuited - compared to European markets where you have genuinely national multiplexes and a lot of stations in every market.
There’s downsides to it, like how it can kill long distance reception by taking up the sidebands, and that it is a proprietary technology instead of an open standard - but I think we would have regional digital radio by now if we chose it, and let stations deploy it without the need to have channel plans.
The ideal is DRM+, which has both the benefits of the small channel sizes of HD Radio, and being out of the FM Band means there’s more spectrum.
Australia should certainly consider following Japan’s lead on expanding the FM band. In their case they added 5MHz to the top of the band, but now radios are being sold there that scan through from 76.0MHz to 108.0 to be a ‘World’ radio.
If we expanded out the bottom end of the FM band down to 76MHz, there would be these ready made radios to utilise it. Japan is using it to give supplementary simulcast licenses to AM stations, so that would be a good use of it here as well.
That was the reason for putting it on 103.2. At the time it was the only station in Australia not on the usual allocations.
The Aussie standard for FM channels is the same as the US and Canada. ie 88.1, 88.3, 88.5…107.9
There are still only a handful of off-channel FM stations. But enough that they have to sell radios with 100kHz steps here.
Agree with you Moe. I also have one of those Insignia HD radios and have used it extensively in the US. HD radio could easily be implemented by regional FM broadcasters.
Australia is not like the UK and Europe. We have independent commercial stations (though they may be owned by the same company) and we don’t have national commercial networks. So individual stations could decide on whether its worth their while adding HD to their FM broadcasts. No need for setting up and operating a bunch of multiplexes in conjunction with other broadcasters or a third party operator.
Interesting that Canada, which is similar to Australia in its mix of commercial and public broadcasters, seems to have given up on DAB/+ and is quietly embracing HD radio in areas close to the US border.
I think however, that HD radio still puts AM stations at a disadvantage. The fidelity of the sound is not as good as an FM station’s HD broadcast and they can only fit 1 stream as opposed to up to 4 for FM stations. Whichever digital format is introduced should put AM and FM stations on an equal footing.
If you took for example the Darling Downs where there are 3 commercial stations on AM plus one FM. It would not get as good a digital service as other areas.
There are also the 87.6-88.0 stations to consider in Australia.
Seems Triple M Classic Rock Digital is no longer - the Triple M brand has been dropped, for reasons unknown.
New website, too. myclassicrock.com.au
On my DAB+ radio, it’s simply read out as “Classic Rock”.
I guess you could almost say that SCA are picking up the brand that DMG/Nova retired four years ago, albeit this time only on DAB+ and in a few more markets! 
Not to mention that the current SCA-owned DAB-only incarnation of Classic Rock has a much more adventurous playlist than the former DMG-owned namesake FM station in Sydney & Melbourne ever did. 
Oh, and what both versions of “Classic Rock” have in common is that they both air/aired “Nights with Alice Cooper”.
What a terrible logo.
Considering Darwin has the Grant run ‘Classic Rock Digital’, Canberra is the only place without a Classic Rock station on DAB.
What about Hobart? They don’t have DAB+ as yet, even though the SCA DAB+ stations now include Hobart on their weather forecasts.
Well presumably if Hobart got DAB, it would have two Classic Rock stations called Classic Rock.
I’d have thought the obvious context of that post is ‘places with DAB services’.
Those out of band stations would not have the right to digital broadcasting. Just like the suburban community stations in Sydney and Melbourne at the moment. Only high powered fully licensed commercial, public and community stations.
I agree that AM stations would be at a disadvantage if HD radio was introduced. In fact AM HD is just about dead in the US for a number of reasons. But many AM stations there run HD streams on either a sister FM HD station, or come to some sort of arrangement with a local FM broadcaster.
Allowing HD on FM in regional areas isn’t an ideal situation by any means. But it would be a hell of a lot cheaper to implement than trying to set up a whole new DAB infrastructure. And could be done very quickly. It would also give broadcasters a choice of providing a digital service or not. Rather than virtually being forced to join a DAB multiplex and shelling out fees for ever more. (And yes I know they’d have to pay iBiquity / Dolby ongoing fees for HD. But that would be a lot less)
Apologies. Not Dolby but DTS.
You are 100% correct on the AM stations utilising space on their FM sister station’s HD spectrum.
Where I am right now for instance (Chicago), I came across WLS (890 AM) being on the HD2 channel of WLS 94.7 FM. Whereas 890 is news/sports and 94.7 is Classic Hits.
But I have also noticed HD Radio needs a good clean signal for my Insignia receiver to recognise and decode HD Radio. Even 5 bars out of 5 signal strength as displayed on the receiver isn’t always a guarantee that it will pick that up - it was only when I adjusted it that I noticed HD channels in the case of WLS.
But good to see that HD Radio is much more common in Chicago than it seemingly was in Hawaii. But some of that could be to do with reception, as FM signals are stronger/cleaner here than was in my Hawaii location according to my Tecsun rsdio.
On the subject of WLS, 94.7 is playing “All 80s” this weekend, so I will give it a bit of a listen and post comments on that in the relevant threads 
I think I’m the only person in Australia to have received IBOC (HD Radio), when 98.2 Auckland was testing it in 2009. It was a large tropo opening which brought in all the Auckland (Sky Tower) FMs at 3 bars on my Sony XDR-F1HD. RDS of “RBA FM” was received, as the tests were being conducted by Radio Broadcasters Association of NZ. In addition, a HD2 subcarrier was received, though it was just a blank carrier. I later emailed the head tech and he confirmed that they were testing on the day of my reception, and he was obviously surprised that the signal traversed the ditch.
However, I’m glad DAB+ is preferred in this country. Not so bad for RH in Newcastle I suppose, but having IBOC crud adjacent to every high powered FM in Sydney would drive me round The Bend(s).