Given some parts of the Gold Coast can get Brisbane DAB+ (and probably vice versa), it will become the first area in Australia where you can get reasonable coverage of more than 1 city’s multiplexes.
I imagine digital radios will “mix in” the order of the Brisbane/Gold Coast stations alphabetically eg. for commercial FM, 97.3, then Gold then hit105 then Nova, SEA then Triple M… and that you’ll have 2 instances of each station that is common to both eg. 2 Triple Js, 2 of each SBS channel etc.
thanks
It depends on if they used the same or different PIDs.
Yeah there will be some overlap although in my experience not a great deal. The Brisbane DAB stations drop out pretty quickly after Coomera.
Again that northern end of the Gold Coast has to be the best served area in Australia for radio. They get all the Brisbane and Gold Coast stations plus River, Rebel and Breeze and soon the DABs from both cities. I know there will be some duplication but the likes of Hot Tomato will surely have a couple of stations on DAB.
There simply cannot be a regional DAB rollout when the plans are calling for 2 frequency blocks per market. SEQ already using 5 of 8 blocks to serve 2 markets. Are they just going to ‘plan’ these markets with no plan for the rest of regional Australia?
Edit: Okay, the discussion paper calls for an SFN - with a ‘national’ 8B frequency block.
So that means you have to get all areas covered with 4 available commercial blocks - with 2 being used for ABC/SBS and 2 being used for capital city stations.
I made a map ages ago working on an assumption of an SFN on 9C (and then using a category 2 DRMT to add ABC local radio on a commercial multiplex) - and that was a stretch with the 5 available blocks. 4 is going to be crazy tight - low power and lots of interference.
It’s only the Beginning of the DAB Revolution across Regional Australia.
I wonder if the revolution will continue or if it will just fizzle out.
The inclusion of the Gold Coast is perhaps most intriguing. Presumably there’ll be plans to have DAB+ on the Gold Coast up and running by the time of the 2018 Commonwealth Games?
Will the ABC and SBS have a shared multiplex as per the current situation in the five main metro markets? What sort of digital-only offerings will there be (apart from the likes of SCA who’ll probably just run the same DAB+ only offerings as the cities) from the stations? Will community radio get a look-in? So many questions to ask about the long awaited regional expansion of DAB+.
ARN and Nova’s digital-only offerings will most likely also be offered in regional areas as they do in the cities.
But only in areas where they have commercial licences
eg. Gosford will probably get Coles Radio and CW Remix as they are operated by Nova (sort of) and Nova has Star104.5 there.
Bill Caralis will probably put his Super Digi stations (Fun, Gorilla and Zoo) in his markets when they eventually get DAB.
Wil be interesting to see what the smaller commercial operators will offer on Digital eg. Hot Tomato on the Gold Coast.
The last I checked, CW Remix was run by ARN. So probably Coles Radio, Koffee and/or maybe even some variant of Smooth (presuming that those stations haven’t been relaunched by then!) for the NSW Central Coast whenever they get DAB+?
Yes you’re right @SydneyCityTV CW Remix is owned by ARN and Coles Radio is owned by Nova Entertainment.
will this mean Rebel FM and Breeze FM be on DAB on the Gold Coast?
I wouldn’t think so…
They aren’t in Gold Coast RA1, they are in Beaudesert / Remote licence areas.
Reading this article noted there is ABC (9C) Penrith is now going to be repeated? Are there any changes to the spec of Hawkesbury heights? I thought the ABC did not pay for it.
What Ideas Hot Tomato could launch new Digital-Only Stations seeming their Independent? 60’s and 70’s Gold Hits on One Channel, Classic Rock on Another and Maybe News/Talk and Sport???
Hobart like Gold Coast will get all SCA Owned Digital Only Stations including Easy, Old Skool, OMG! and The Range. Grant Broadcasters owns 7HO FM over there and could launch different Stations of their own including a Rock Station which they had’nt had since Triple T flipped Formats in the 2000’s.
Hobart will probably get whatever Darwin currently gets in the way of Digital only stations from Grant Broadcasters to supplement 7HO - given its only a trial.
Some more inform from the planning documents:
Commercial Radio Australia (CRA) advised the committee that commercial radio broadcasting licensees have expressed interest in rolling out digital radio to 39 licences areas within the next three to five years. In addition to the trial markets of Canberra and Darwin, another two of the 39 licence areas—Hobart and the Gold Coast—were identified as regional markets that could proceed to planning and licensing immediately.
Another of the planning principles (Planning Principle 2—Proposed frequency allotment planning approach) specifies that a maximum effective radiated power (ERP) of 5 kW will be used in the allotment planning process for the majority of licence areas. However, due to the proximity to other licence areas, certain licence areas will need to be authorised at a power less than 5 kW at the outset. Conversely, more isolated areas may be permitted to operate at a power (ERP) greater than 5 kW.
Canberra
The ACMA proposes to:
If in future any more significant rollout of national multiplexes in regional areas is contemplated, the national broadcasters will need to operate a number of single frequency networks (SFNs), with each SFN utilising one of the two available frequency blocks of 9C or 8B. Having regard to this, the ACMA proposes that the planned Canberra RA1 category 3 DRMT licence be co-channelled with the Sydney RA1 category 3 DRMT licence on the frequency block 9C. This will leave the second national frequency block (8B) free to be used for category 3 DRMT licences in a SFN in regional licence areas adjacent to Sydney.
Due to its close proximity to other licence areas, the initial draft technical specifications for the Canberra RA1 propose a 5 kW maximum ERP, which is consistent with the nominal cap .
Sydney
The draft variation to the NSW/ACT DRCP proposes to:
Brisbane
The ACMA proposes to:
The current technical specifications also have restrictions on ERP that were intended to limit signal overspill into the Ipswich and remote licence areas. Because of the various limitations, the Brisbane RA1 services are only able to operate at a maximum ERP of 23 kW, well below the maximum ERP of 50 kW currently specified in the output radiation pattern of each Brisbane technical specification.
The proposed changes also involve relaxing the overspill limit towards Ipswich and removing the limit towards Eagle Heights/Tamborine in the remote licence area. The changes proposed are intended to balance the legitimate interests of licensees in the Brisbane licence area with those of licensees in adjacent licence areas. The changes proposed will allow the services to operate with a maximum ERP of 50 kW and are intended to improve coverage within the Brisbane licence area, while having minimal impact on the adjacent licence areas.
Gold Coast
The ACMA has undertaken modelling of coverage, assuming a directional antenna (two faces of panels) located at the Mt Tamborine transmitter site, along with proposed co-channel transmitters at Brisbane South East (Darlington Range), Currumbin and Springbrook transmitter sites.
Good new for Brisbane with the increase in power for the main DAB transmitters.