Plenty of those signs around regional NSW, but they have only really proliferated in the last five years or so. There are three signs on the roads out of Bungendore imploring travellers to tune to 666 for emergency information; two of these only went up in the last year.
There are some curious ones around, though. The worst is at Adaminaby going westbound; the sign advises you to tune to 97.9 (Tumut) but there’s absolutely no reception of that until quite close to Tumut itself. On the eastern limits of Braidwood there is a sign for 103.5 (Batemans Bay); reception is very scratchy at that point and there’s no mention of 100.3 at all.
The Braidwood example makes (some) sense - I can understand why the ABC wouldn’t point to a self-help/council retransmitter when it can’t guarantee the service is active (or, in the case of Captain’s Flat, actually relaying the service it was licenced for…)
Of course, this means absolutely nothing to a tourist in an unfamiliar area fleeing from a disaster.
Most likely on major roads and highways leading into/out of major cities and towns - have seen a number around the outskirts of Adelaide on those types of roads.
Personally on a trip to Queensland in late 2023, I did see signs mentioning “95.5” and “94.5” along the Pacific Highway advising people where to tune for emergency information
Just passed one of these signs near Moss Vale advertising 97.3 and 702 so obviously the FM signs are allowed by TfNSW. Haven’t seen any with FM alone though
There’s a sign just out of Adaminaby going west for 97.9 Tumut (!) (which can’t be received until past Yarrangobilly Caves…) On one of my virtual road trips on YT, I noted there’s a sign for Tennant Creek (106.1).
On the subject of outback NT, there are large areas of the Stuart Highway (and elsewhere) that are without any ABCRR coverage at all. Tennant Creek is a curious case: they have 8RN on AM but only a low powered 106.1 FM for ABCRR.
Of course they used to have VL8A, VL8T and VL8K on shortwave, but probably limited utility in an emergency since there aren’t many vehicles with SW these days.
This probably is because of the fact there’s a growing number of new cars lacking an AM tuner, so an FM or DAB channel is needed in those cases. It came in handy with my own EV, since it lacks an AM mode on its built in radio.
I’ve noticed a few of the in an emergency tune to ABC radio signs popping up in the Sydney metropolitan area recently, in particular on the Hume Highway Northbound at Warick Farm and Richmond Road Northbound at Marsden Park.
Well that confirms 8JB as on air! It’s one of the few ABC MW outlets that haven’t been heard on the Cooma longwire. Devilishly hard to receive against 4QS, 7PB and 6SE.
From my time living in NT about a decade ago I can confirm that its relatively low power + the naturally crap performance of AM in the tropics = a range of only about 100km max out of Jabiru. I noticed that up that way the AM stations (at least from what I experienced driving around in my fairly new Pajero at the time) have a distinct whining noise before the static takes over when driving away from transmitter, making them fairly unlistenable way before would normally be experienced in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne etc.
This plus the relative lack of ABC Darwin FM repeaters in remote communities is why I’m so glad that ABC Darwin mentioned they are broadcasting on the TEABBA network during this cyclone event.
Though they’d probably be better off with 100.5 of course.
