Yes that would be interesting. I can honestly say I haven’t listened to any Brisbane AM or FM stations in the last 3 months. I listen exclusively via DAB+ and the only mainstream Brisbane stations I’ve listened to (via DAB+) in that time are 4KQ and RN.
I stream overseas stations at work (Absolute 80s, KOST and The Sound) and listen only to DAB+ in the car and at home.
They could actually switch off AM and FM now and I wouldn’t even know… scary.
If my parents or myself had a car that has DAB+, I would no longer listen to the main commercial FM stations when travelling around, at least when within a major capital city and/or if I’m not DXing.
I am in Sydney this weekend, and noted some reception foibles…
I was about 1 block from the Artsrmon Tx with clear LOS and the reception dropped out!
Yet I had reception 7 floors underground in a CBD carpark (probably from the CBD repeater).
It was generally fine otherwise.
Well 1sm is still fun superdigi. I find too I can get digital radio at Town Hall station underground. I wish they got a repeater around Rouse Hill. I dont think the repeater at Redfern is needed with centerpoint so close.
This is a bit weird.
On Sydney DAB, Fun Super Digi is appearing on 1SM and FUN, but with different playlists.
eg. Cyndi Lauper “I Drove All Night” was on what is supposed to be 1SM but and with FUN sweepers, whilst over on the correct channel, they were playing the Bee Gees “Tragedy” at the same time, with FUN sweepers of course.
Only Bill Caralis could concoct something like this 
Yeah my view call it 1sm play the hits from the 60s to 90s. Double the bits to improve quality.
I was in the harbour tunnel was trying to test the dab to fm setting. This in theory should be if the dab signal is not received it will handover to fm. Did not work. Should it work? I tried triple m.
Not if the radio doesn’t have a FM tuner in it.
It all depends on the firmware.
It’s most likely that the broadcasters haven’t bothered to set the required handover flag, not that your car radio isn’t working.
You see the same lack of care applied to FM RDS with the alternate frequency and traffic flags. For alternate frequency, ABC stations simply don’t transmit the alternate frequency flags even though there is usually a series of networked transmitters on FM.
Another example of AF failure is WSFM - they have an alternate frequency on their 101.7 transmitter, but they don’t on their repeater transmitters out west. This means that if you’re in Penrith, your radio will switch to the 99.1 transmitter but then will refuse to switch back to 101.7 when the station comes back in range. This is particularly annoying when your radio preset is also changed when your radio flicks to the other frequency.
And the traffic flags. My god, they are so terribly implemented by all radio stations that they are effectively useless.
Some stations which don’t broadcast traffic reports at all will still transmit the Traffic Program flag, which is a big no-no because the purpose of the Traffic Program flag is to allow people to seek for stations which do broadcast traffic announcements.
All stations which do broadcast traffic reports will never actually send out the Traffic Announcement flag, which is meant to automatically switch the source from tape/CD/aux to the traffic report being broadcast so the driver can actually listen to the traffic report which is being broadcast live.
I’d imagine that Europe does a much better job of organising it.
Do any of ABCs non metro stations have RDS though?
BBC is brilliant at this. Always had the local BBC station automatically coming on whenever there was a traffic report.
Handover between alternate frequencies and even between DAB and FM as reception varies works seamlessly too around most the UK.
One day i hope i can see it for myself in the uk.
Yes all that works great in the UK.
I remember the AF feature working when driving around the UK about a DECADE ago and local traffic reports coming through on BBC national stations on motorways.
I thought 99.1 and 88.3 were just direct relays of the 101.7 signal? I’ve picked up RDS on the 99.1 and 88.3 frequencies previously.
Which is precisely why it is the biggest load of crap that they bothered setting up AF.
They transmit 99.1 and 88.3 as the alternate frequency, and if they are just direct relays it would make sense that it never switches back to 101.7 (as 99.1 and 88.3 are the alternate frequencies being broadcast).
I don’t have a car with AF at the moment, but their AF used to work for my previous car’s radio in the past. In theory, I don’t think the RDS transmissions need to be catered to each specific transmitter. They just all need to have the same AF list (i.e. 88.3, 99.1, 101.7)
Perhaps someone with RDS Spy set up can have a look at what’s in WSFM’s AF list?
What was ridiculous in the past was that Nova has Star set as the AF. My car radio would swap to Star for a moment to test the signal and always switch back, since the PI code on Star was different.
Edit: I managed to set up RDS Spy and indeed, all three frequencies are listed:
That’s interesting, I’ve never noticed RDS info on 88.3 or 99.1.
I will keep an eye out for that next time there’s a bit of enhancement, as in normal conditions, I only get mono reception of both up here near Newcastle.
I think JJJ Bendigo has RDS, but I haven’t received that for quite some time.
I managed to get a solid lock from Canberra DAB+ on Glen Fergus Hill, a high point half way between Cooma and Numeralla (distance= ~90 km). The terrain between Cooma and Canberra is much harsher than that towards Crookwell so this was a pleasing result. I used the Sangean DPR-34 pocket digital radio with headphone antenna.
An interesting plea over in the UK by its “Minister for Digital”, Matt Hancock, in which he pleaded radio receiver manufacturers to make their sets “digital by default” - in other words, that analogue FM/AM receivers should be removed from the shelves.
Read more here: https://www.radioinfo.com.au/news/uk’s-slow-road-amfm-switchoff