Digital Radio

I wonder if the very flat tropo conditions have something to do with it, as the westerly winds has eliminated any weak FM reception that I often get.

Tropo has zero effect at such short distances, in my experience. I sometimes get minor enhancement from 2HHH Hornsby (~30 km) but Clovelly to Artarmon would barely be 10 km.

There are some parts around Coogee and Clovelly where Artarmon FM is quite distorted; there are also many dwellings which have UHF antennae pointing south at Knights Hill.

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It’ll be interesting to see if the SCA/ARN joint venture or Capital launch any new stations (or even just gain more bandwidth) for the permanent transmissions.

And of course, whether or not the community stations (which as far as Canberra-wide services go, would probably be 1CMS, 1WAY, 1RPH, 2XX and ArtSound FM?) are eventually allowed some space on Canberra DAB+.

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2CA is running a promo advising listeners to rescan their digital radios at 10:30am on Friday. The promo says there will be four times the power with greater coverage.

Advice published on the 2CA and 2CC websites:

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I might have to do a repeat visit to Mount Gibraltar to see if I can scan in the higher powered mux.

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I will also have a better chance of replicating last summer’s effort in just getting Canberra DAB from my flat just south of Newcastle.

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ZOO Digital in Sydney is silent again.

Still has song info running though.

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I will do the same in late August after coming back from the snow. I will have the CBR Dab+ Stations scanned into my Pure Move, so hopefully that helps with reception.

Though from what @littlegezzybear has posted above, listeners may need to do a rescan anyway?

I won’t be down there until mid Aug so they will be at full strength then which will help with reception from the Gib.

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Not sure if Canberra ABC/SBS are going full power as well, but if so, there’ll be a chance that Sydney ABC/SBS reception could be lost up at the Gib since both are on 9C I think?

As I understand it, I think every ABC/SBS mux will be on 9C in an SFN. Not sure how well receivers discriminate between them in the event of signal parity. I could not scan in 9C Sydney at the Bowral Lookout (southern flank of Gib) in any event.

Do the BBC use a single mux in the UK?

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It will mean 666 and 702 would have to move to the commercial mux in their cities.

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For the ABC to be on the same multiplex with the commercials would require a category 2 licence, wouldn’t it?

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It would make intuitive sense to have all the national stations on the same mux so that listeners can ā€˜set and forget’ when travelling. I’m sure this is how it works in the UK with their national mux.

You would have to move ABC Local Radio onto the local multiplexes unless there is a way to make receivers automatically switch to the relevant ABCRR outlet? I’m not up with the technical side of DAB so apologies if this is a daft question.

The UK has the BBC Local streams on their local multiplexes, e.g. Bristol:

http://www.wohnort.org/DAB/ukloc.html#Bristol

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Today just north of Tuggeranong Hill in Canberra’s south where ABC and SBS have their digital radio repeater - comparing reception on my Sangean portable of the commercial radio test broadcast, ABC /SBS, and the new commercial broadcast.

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While I agree, it seems like long distance travelling and DAB+ listening isn’t really going to be a thing for some time yet. Even with a drive between Canberra & Sydney right now, wouldn’t you still be in ā€œDAB+ No Receptionā€ land for a significant amount of the journey?

Seems like the new commercial broadcast multiplex (which I presume will be at or near the power of the ABC/SBS multiplex when full programming commences) has way better reception than the old test broadcast.

It’ll be interesting to see how far the new signal goes during Summer tropo, especially with the reports that Radiohead just managed to get the trial signal just South of Newcastle. Don’t know whether Canberra DAB+ reception (with the new commercial multiplex of course, obviously very little or no hope of getting ABC/SBS on 9C) would ever make it to Sydney though.

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Yes you would.

Probably more than half of it too I reckon.

Southern Highlands and Goulburn TXs would be needed to fill in the rest of that trip.

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Yes, but it’s best to get the planning done right now (and right, now).

I know, I know- forward thinking isn’t exactly in the toolkit of our media regulator, nor most bureaucracies, but it’s nice to dream.

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Posts on Facebook. Love the radios.

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