Yep. Here’s a Radioinfo article from August 2002 about it: https://www.radioinfo.com.au/news/service-area-enforced-licence-condition
While I’m at it, another fringe commercial station that misses out from not being available on DAB+ is C91.3 in Campbelltown, owned by WIN. Also, Campbelltown has its own DAB+ repeater, which has all the Sydney stations available.
Don’t need to boost power, they need to redesign the DAB+ transmissions, it’s deliberately like that, with a huge notch in the radiation pattern towards Geelong on the commercial/community antenna.
The National services (ABC/SBS) don’t have that notch (not required), that’s why there’s two DAB+ antennas at Mt Dandenong, & the commercials transmit from TXA Ornata Rd, & the Nationals transmit from BAI Eyre Rd, whereas in all other metro cities, all DAB+ comes from one site using one antenna.
Soundcloud Radio
SCA and SoundCloud, the world’s largest community of audio and music creators, announced today an extension of their exclusive advertising partnership to bring SoundCloud Radio to the Australian market on 24 August via DAB+ and on live streaming radio.
SoundCloud Radio is the first and only station at SCA dedicated purely to new music discovery, offering listeners the chance to hear undiscovered tracks from some of the most exciting emerging artists launching their careers on SoundCloud today.
The highly successful, exclusive advertising partnership between SCA and SoundCloud kicked off last year, and today’s announcement gives brands even more ways to connect with SoundCloud’s highly engaged, young audience via partnership opportunities and expanded ad sales inventory on DAB+ and soundcloudradio.com.au.
SCA Chief Executive Officer, Grant Blackley, said: “We are very proud of our partnership with SoundCloud and this new offering will further enhance SCA’s ability to provide advertisers with improving an extraordinary reach on DAB+ and through live digital streaming. The SoundCloud audience is young, highly engaged and influential, and they are searching for new and emerging artists – which Soundcloud Radio will expertly deliver.
“SoundCloud has led the world when it comes to supporting creators of new music and enabling the discovery of new music, and importantly supporting up and coming artists, something we are very passionate about. SoundCloud Radio will be another way that creators can amplify their new music and fans can embrace a curated version of the SoundCloud platform in Australia.”
SoundCloud SVP of Subscriptions and Marketing, Anthony Gabriele, said: “Every month, millions of Australians already come to SoundCloud to discover what’s next in music and directly connect with creators, curators and fellow music fans on the leading edge of culture. We’re excited to partner with SCA to bring the best of SoundCloud directly to Australian audiences, and to continue to develop opportunities for emerging creators worldwide to grow their careers and expand their fan bases by introducing them to new, curious and engaged listeners.”
SoundCloud is online, on demand and now on air. SoundCloud Radio can be accessed via DAB+ radio and online from 6:00am on Monday 24 August Australia-wide.
Replace Hit Urban with Soundcloud rappers?
I’m thinking it might be a little like Radar Radio
Will be interesting to see what it replaces, or how its squeezed in.
My parents live near Geelong and they can’t get the ABC stations on DAB+ on their home stereo. But they can get them (as well as the commercials) on DAB+ in their car. When K Rock and Bay FM go DAB+ from Murradoc Hill I hope the ABC puts a translator in so that they can adequately serve Geelong.
Off topic, but ABC Local Radio Geelong was proposed years ago (on 91.9)…
Agree that DAB is the next best option. Or maybe even the old 7BU AM frequency 558 could be used for that now.
I have to say I predicted this a few weeks ago when the Hit network announced they were going more AC. I speculated SCA might start a new station on DAB targeting youth.
Wouldn’t 558 need a null to the east to protect 3GG on 531?
If 3WV got converted to FM however, 576 might be possible.
But for now, DAB is a very good choice for ABC Geelong, at least to get some local voices on air.
Well it was proposed for 94.7 and shift The Pulse to 91.9 and the community spat the dummy. And ABC apparently weren’t interested in the low powered 91.9 that The Pulse would have been subjected to.
It probably would, but if the TX was on the Bellarine Peninsula (where the FM stations are), that wouldn’t be an issue.
It would raise the same unsolved issues regarding regional ABC services that the ACMA has put in the too hard basket for resolving re-Gold Coast.
Mandurah as the only regional DAB on air is entirely because they were able to just reuse the Perth ABC/SBS multiplex as a whole and sidestep the issue of how to handle the localised ABC transmissions.
They could always leave the capital city ABC DAB channel unchanged and add in 1 x ABC Local Radio stream for that region to the commercial DAB channel.
I agree.
With regional areas now able to access capital city ABC Local Radio via Digital TV, the prospect of it being available via Digital Radio in regional markets is a non-issue IMO.
Which is more or less what happens in the UK.
They can and should - however the previous Gold Coast planning didn’t support that - and I’ve seen no sign that the ACMA realise the solution here.
The issue from the ABC’s perspective is that doing that locks them to the commercial radio license areas, and deals them into potentially funding Commercial Radio’s deliberately crippled plans for avoiding market area overspill.
However the latter is a much wider planning issue regarding market overlap areas and the futility of deliberate coverage limitations, as opposed to merely interference limitation.
I regards to Digital Radios do they make a DAB stereo system? Looking at buying a music system for our outdoor entertaining area with decent speakers and can only find these small DABs?
unless you want to listen to ABC digital stations such as Double J in your car in a non-DAB+ area
Yeah Yamaha and Denon/ Marantz do.
