Strangely enough, I found myself browsing Kmart’s online catalogue the other night just to see what they had available on the radio front; I did come across that el-cheapo model. I’m glad to hear it actually works 
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Radio 97 missing out on the Gold Coast is similar to C91.3 in Campbelltown not being included in Sydney’s digital radio. Both should have been included in some way, I think.
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I have to say I disagree re Radio 97 and C91.3… both licensees would have paid considerably less than their competitors for their licences and to have the playing field levelled somewhat for free doesn’t seem fair to the Gold Coast and Sydney stations.
Perhaps if they were able to create low power multiplexes on 9D to house the community and commercials that serve each market eg. one in Campbelltown, Penrith, Northern Beaches or Ipswich, Logan, Beaudesert, Tweed Heads without interfering with each other… but that would probably be an engineering nightmare.
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And River 94.9 in Ipswich too.
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Yes. And considerably is correct.
Nova 969’s licence and C91.3 were auctioned on the same day in 2000. Nova went for $155 million, while C91.3 only $10 million.
Absolutely, but something needs to be done about these fringe areas (Geelong and Mandurah are other areas that come to mind) as well as overlapping areas (such as Wollongong/Nowra) if DAB+ is going to be successful given that limited number of frequencies available.
I can think of three possible remedies, a result being a combination rather than just one option:
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Make the “fringe” stations pay to get onto DAB. Easy to justify given that they’ve never paid to access the full area, but also pose minimal threat to the incumbents given existing overlap does give them a current presence. Obviously whatever fee would consider that DAB is still not the most common form of listening, and a DAB only presence does limit market penetration. They may also no get ownership rights to the local DAB JVs to still give the incumbents greater control.
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Ability to use less capacity. Currently stations have been automatically allocated 128kbps with the option to purchase an addition 128kpbs if excess capacity exists. This could be reduced to say 64kbps for the fringe stations - therefore limiting the number of stations they can provide).
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A condition that the fringe stations can still only “market” to their original licence area.
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DAB coverage would have to extend to cover the full fringe area, so the incumbent stations get the advantage of now covering those areas to soften the blow of a new station being available.
The biggest problem with this (and any other plans) for those areas involving a metro areas with existing DAB is that there is no excess capacity (except for Brisbane) so another multiplex would need to be launched.
Under this plan, no one gets a 100% free run, and everyone gets the opportunity to broadcast on DAB+, but can forfeit that right if they don’t like the fees and conditions involved.
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I certainly agree something needs to be done with fringe areas. And yes they paid less for their licences but over time this becomes less of an argument as it becomes ancient history. And you can argue that Nova has gotten a return over the years it’s had access to the market. Anyway that aside I like some of your suggestions. I think in Brisbane for example River 94.9 should have been allowed to bid and purchase DAB spectrum in Brisbane when it was made available.
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I still get the feeling that the localism will still go out the window even with a condition like you’ve proposed in (3) … Even if a station like C91.3 were still to provide local news to Campbelltown, it would be a watered down service and be formatted as say dance music as to try to infiltrate the Sydney market on a metro wide DAB licence. I think the temptation for licensees to try and spread their wings would be too great, and it would be the Campbelltown listeners who get less of a local station.
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If the fringe/semi-metro commercial stations were allowed on DAB+, I think the suburban community stations which cover roughly the same listening area (eg, 2MCR which covers most if not all of the C91.3 listening area) would complain that they’re being discriminated against.
So basically, I don’t think it’s likely to happen anytime soon.
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Shouldn’t WSFM be struck off of DAB then? Isn’t it licenced for the western Sydney area?
Back in the days of a 1224AM signal from Prospect, 2WS was licenced for the Western Sydney area. Although even back then, it’s to my understanding that 2WS was still included in Sydney radio ratings surveys and actively advertised in city-wide newspapers & on Sydney commercial TV stations.
But ever since the conversion to FM happened, the main 101.7MHz signal for 2WS-FM/WSFM has been/is transmitted from Artarmon and would be officially known as a Sydney wide commercial radio station (and therefore, allowed to be on DAB+) these days.
If WSFM was only being transmitted from Richmond/Camden, that might be a different story
WSFM is a strange case having been treated like a full Sydney station for a long time, with it’s main broadcast point being Artarmon, which is technically outside their licence area.
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I think 2WS Western Sydney was a bit like 3MP Frankston and 4IP Ipswich, in that they were originally licensed for those areas, but back in the late 70s/early 80s (not sure exactly when) there was some kind of loophole which allowed these stations to “move” into the adjacent metro licence area.
I think there were a couple of examples in regional areas too:
Townsville - I think 4AY Ayr (near Townsville) moved up into the Townsville licence area and became 4RR.
Toowoomba - 4AK moved from Oakey to Toowoomba to compete against 4GR.
When 2WS converted to FM, their licence was changed from the Western Sydney LAP, to the Sydney RA1 LAP, thus they became a Sydney wide licence.
WSFM are in a somewhat unique situation though, where they hold an equivalent licence in 2 different LAP’s, the main 101.7 licence in Sydney & the translator licences in the Western Sydney LAP.
Honestly the translators & the Western Sydney LAP licence aren’t needed for WSFM & should be given to someone else.
Unfortunately ARN know how to twist the system, they get away with both this & the 96.1 The Edge Katoomba licences.
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Yes and add 4CC and 4RO to the list. At around the same time I think they amalgamated the licence areas. I don’t think it was a loophole as such, they just amalgamated them.
So 4IP was able to compete and be part of the Brisbane licence area. And then bizarrely 10 or 15 years later they licence QFM to Ipswich!
IMO Brisbane and Ipswich are just too close to have separate licence areas. It’s only 35 or so km from one CBD to the other. Similar to Sydney and Parramatta.
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I thought 4MIX / QFM was a new licence…??
As 4TAB (formerly 4IP) is still a commercial broadcaster, not a HPON like the TAB stations usually are everywhere else (except Sydney and Melbourne).
It was. 4QFM/4MIX is totally separate from the old 4IP (now 4TAB) licence.
Maybe you could say that Blacktown is around 35kms away from the Sydney CBD (To remain on topic, I wonder how good or otherwise the DAB+ signal is in that area?), but Parramatta is only 23kms away! 
BTW, I agree that it’s a bit ridiculous to have a separate commercial radio licence area 35kms away or so from the CBD of a major metropolitan market. 50-60kms away or more would be a different story though.
RDS seems to come bundled with the DAB+ chip. Am yet to find a digital radio that doesn’t have RDS for FM.
On merging licence areas for DAB+, there was a proposal to aggregate licence areas for DAB+ but most commercial broadcasters rejected this as in their protectionist minds, are more worried about rival stations rather than the un-regulated plethora of other listening choices beyond radio.
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My Sony XDR-DS16iPN that I got as a gift in late 2013 doesn’t have RDS on FM for some reason. That means the only way to get RDS-type info on the metropolitan FM stations is by listening to them via DAB+.
Here’s the radio in question: Support for XDR-DS16iPN | Sony AU
I also have another Sony radio that has DAB+, but no RDS for FM: Support for XDR-S40DBP | Sony AU
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especilly when driving between the two CBDs you don’t even leave suburbia. it’s bult up all the way
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