Digital Radio

Same for me - MMM Classic not working on Radioapp all day

Yeah at first i thought it was just me but then i checked the triple m app it was just dead air

the real question is are they aring the alice cooper show? it was my favourite show on the old station when i was driving. his behind the scenes stories in particular were quite good

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Yes - heard pomos

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Heard ā€œHard and heavyā€ back last night at 10.Only airs on a saturday night i think?Little stevens Underground Garage i havent heard any promos for it yet.It used to run on a Sunday Night at 8pm???

Alice is back weeknights from 5pm.

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What about 2day playing the greatest hits :slight_smile:. It should be a triple m format but they can make easy hits mixed with greatest hits. Triple M Sydney does not really fit the MMM digital format.

In other words, The Range easily fits within the spectrum for the eastern capitals but SCA are skimping on engineering.

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It would be better if they increased the bit rates. In Melbourne Classic Rock Radio (from Pacific Star) is 56kbps and has a much better sound than MMM Classic Rock at 48kbps. How much extra spectrum do they have to work with in the eastern capitals?

Even throwing more bits at Fox and Triple M would be nice. Nova is 112kbps in Melbourne and sounds great. In terms of main channels, ARN are the worst with only 48kbps for KIIS and Gold.

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By my calculations from whatā€™s been mentioned here, and my own observations in Melbourne, SCAā€™s DAB+ offering like the following:

Melbourne - 9B

Long Name kbits
Fox 56
Triple M 56
BUDDHA HITS 48
EASY HITS 48
OLDSKOOL HITS 48
MMM GREATEST 48
Kinderling Kids 48
Total 352

Melbourne - 9A

Long Name kbits
MMM MODERN 48
MMM CLASSIC ROCK 48
Unused 64
Total 160

Sydney - 9A

Long Name kbits
2DayFM hit 1041 56
Triple M 56
BUDDHA HITS 48
EASY HITS 48
OLDSKOOL HITS 48
MMM GREATEST 48
MMM MODERN 48
MMM CLASSIC ROCK 48
Kinderling Kids 48
Total 448

Sydney - 9B

Long Name kbits
Unused 64
Total 64

Brisbane - 9B

Long Name kbits
hit105 64
Triple M 64
BUDDHA HITS 48
EASY HITS 48
OLDSKOOL HITS 48
MMM GREATEST 48
Kinderling Kids 48
Unused 16
Total 384

Brisbane- 9A

Long Name kbits
MMM MODERN 48
MMM CLASSIC ROCK 48
Unused 32
Total 128

Based on that, they should make the following changes to get the best bitrates possible.
Iā€™m assuming that they need to keep all the national stations at the same bitrate as it appears that they use a single encoder nationally for each station, and 48kbits works best for this. Therefore this limits changes to be moves between multiplexes as changes in bitrates of the local stations only.

Melbourne
Move MMM GREATEST to 9A, leaving 16kbits free.
This frees up 48kbits on 9B, which can be used to increase both Fox and Triple M to 80kbits each. This would be pretty good, with only Nova (112) and 3AW (96) having higher bitrates.

Sydney
Unfortunately only have 64kbits on 9B doesnā€™t give a lot of flexibility.
On the 48kbits stations could move to 9B, leaving 16kbits fee.
This would allow 2Day and Triple M to increase to 80kbits the same as Melbourne in the above scenario.
This would however require a second multiplexer - and while Melbourne and Brisbane now have these, Sydney probably donā€™t, so this would be more expensive to implement.

Brisbane
With 16kbits already free on 9B, hit105 and Triple M can easily increase to 72kbits each.
To get even better usage, move one of the MMMā€™s from 9A to 9B, and move the main Triple M station to 9A. This would allow Triple M to increase to 80kbits.
Of the 64kbits that Triple M vacate, 48kbits would need to be used for the MMM stations moving into itā€™s place. The remaining 16kbits, plus the already vacant 16kbits, could be used to increase hit105 to 96kbits.

I assume some of these didnā€™t occur as some radios would need to rescan to pickup the changes.

Alternatively, as @crankymedia said, there is room for The Range to be broadcast into Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane at a minimum of 32kbits with no shuffling, up to 48kbits if Triple M Brisbane and hit105 moved to 9A at 64kbits each. I would hazard a guess that the encoder that was used for the range is now used for one of the new MMMs so they would need to buy another for this to happen.


Is anyone in Adelaide or Perth to confirm what is happening there?
The Digital Radio Plus website tells me that Adelaide is missing out on MMM CLASSIC ROCK while Perth is missing out on EASY HITS, MMM GREATEST and MMM MODERN.

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Presumably Hope 103.2 is using SCAā€™s spare 64 kbits on Sydney 9B, and they are also using a few other bits of spectrum from the other community broadcasters on 9B?

Iā€™d be very surprised if thatā€™s the case.
The list I had lists the following community stations in 9B in Sydney:

Long Namekbits
2MFM Muslim DR64
Hope 103.232
2SER 107.332
Inspire Digital64
FBi Click32
Table256

All of these easily fit into the 2/9ths for community stations. Has this changed?

If it has, some of the community stations are probably using different levels of error correction to get extra kbits out of their allocated space. Iā€™m aware of this being done in Melbourne on 9B (288kbits) and Perth (336kbits).

Yes, it has.

The following below in Sydney on 9B is now:

Long Name        kbits
2MFM Muslim DR      32
Hope 1032          128
2SER 107.3          64
Inspire Digital     48
FBi Radio           64
Table              336

Does anyone have any thoughts on which regional area might be next for DAB roll-out once they get Gold Coast sorted? I think itā€™s bound to be a larger city with a competitive radio market (i.e. more than one operator).

Iā€™d have to say Newcastle and Sunshine Coast would have to be front-runners. Based on the players involved Iā€™d almost think Sunshine Coast might be first.

I suspect Wollongong and Townsville might also be in the next bunch but there are likely to be some others.

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Geelong as itā€™s competing with the Melbourne market, it deserves equal chances to broadcast with them.

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Iā€™d expect they are just messing with different error correction. I wrote a breakdown of what the Melbourne community stations did here, in short though, by sacrificing coverage slightly, you can broadcast more in the same amount of spectrum. A post in the Car Radio thread mentions that Hope/Inspire/2SER use EEP-4A - so that would likely make it:

2MFM Muslim DR      32 - 24CU EEP-3A
Hope 1032          128 - 64CU EEP-4A
2SER 107.3          64 - 32CU EEP-4A
Inspire Digital     48 - 24CU EEP-4A
FBi Radio           64 - 48CU EEP-3A

Table              336 = 192CU = 2/9ths
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Donā€™t forget Hobart is already in the works.

[quote=ā€œBrianc68, post:1116, topic:231ā€]
Iā€™d have to say Newcastle
[/quote]I think Newcastle is a good chance too. Bill is a big supporter of DAB and SCA, particularly with their new studios, would be keen.

Iā€™m including Hobart as a capital, not regional :slight_smile:
Yeah Newcastle is the logical choice. I think there might be some left field ones too though.
Wouldnā€™t be surprised if Grant push for DAB in Ipswich in particular, and also Geelong. Particularly given River 94.9 is not only competing with the Brisbane FM stations but also increasingly the DAB offerings at least in a big chunk of their licence area.

Once they finish their week long Macca marathon, will they have the same playlist/format/songs as the Triple M regional ā€œGreatest Hitsā€ stations (obviously minus Alan Jones and Ray Hadley)?

Iā€™ve noticed just now on my DAB+ radio in Sydney that it has decreased back to 32kbps, whilst The 90s has increased to 48kbps.

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Probably because thereā€™s a new station from (Iā€™m guessing) ARN called ā€œTACOā€ at 40kbps.

EDIT: Actually, I think that ā€œTACOā€ is a SCA offering. Currently a simulcast of 104.9 Triple M.