FM DX Webservers

Yeah, you can’t get anything bigger than 3 element without overseas shipping.

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I’ve made some additional improvements to my Sydney TEF servers:

For non-RDS stations, azimuth has been added in:

For stations with directional antenna patterns, the power towards the receiver is shown alongside the maximum power:

Stations that only come in intermittently have a “(DX)” tag suffixed to them:

For stations where it’s possible to pick up different stations on different aerials, the notes identify which aerials to use to receive each station:

DXing notes have also been added with information on typical tropo and SpE stations received on that particular frequency previously:

For non-RDS reception, local station data and logos are now per antenna on the North/Northwest and West/Southwest TEFs.

For example, selecting the South aerial on 93.3 shows 2RPH Wollongong:

Switching to the West aerial shows Easy FM instead:

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Nice work!

Just one enquiry for the moment though:
You have two transmitter entries for AC 878 on your webserver.
One for Liverpool region (Mt. Pritchard) & the other for North Sydney.
Are you sure that North Sydney is on air?
I know Radio Austral disappeared from North Sydney years before
closing down on 87.8 in the Liverpool region. :thinking:

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In my manual/local data entry, I’ve put it in as Mount Pritchard; however, as it has RDS, it’s coming up with North Sydney automatically based on the FMLIST data.

Checking the changelog on FMLIST, it appears there was a recent report by Jake Stevens from SCA that it’s broadcasting AC 878:

The embedded ACMA link shows that a new licence took effect on 11/6/2025 for the 87.8 transmission from North Sydney:

Not sure if it’s actually on air though.

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Thanks for all the info.
Yeah I doubt it’s on air as I was hearing Vintage FM from further away only a couple of days or so ago. But I’ll keep a watch on that frequency/site.
I see the group also has a licence for 87.6 from Cronulla.

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Great work @ninkeon58 on the 10 els Yagi. It is similar in design to the Triax FM-8 which has been used by hard core FM DXers in the past. With the reflector elements in array it should have a great F/B ratio and good directivity. Hopefully it arrives in time for the DX season. Those shipping costs are steep but it’s really your only option these days, short of constructing your own antenna.

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I think you meant @AustraliaRadio232, I don’t have the space for a huge aerial like that :rofl:

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Oops yes, sorry, @AustraliaRadio232 . So it will be in Melbourne, hopefully it won’t cause overload.

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If I pointed the antenna East towards Mt Dandenong i’m sure it would overload, but luckily most DX in Melbourne comes from the North, West and South rather than East. The only DX worth watching for from the East is New Zealand.

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I am not sure if it was this forum or another chat I am part off. But a couple of years ago Marchmastrr Aust were contacted about doing a run of 8 element FM antennas if the interest was there.

After having to retool the minimum run was 30 from memory at a price of $280 each. Unfortunately the interest was not high so the project never went ahead.

So now we are reliant on importing antennas, making our own or using ex Hills 453 8 el antennas if you live in an area that has them like I do, the salt air and 30 years has made them impractical to rebuild. Besides the cost of removing them from insitu

I have toyed with the idea of co phasing a couple off 3 el FM antennas. But the design of the phasing harness and the moderate gain achieved made it not worth while idea. The phasing harness had a narrow bandwidth as well.

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There’s probably still quite a few around in the rural areas in situ or areas well away from the coast that may be salvageable & repairable. If some are located on a low mast they may be easy to dismantle. I’ve seen some of these antennas still on masts in travels with no feeder attached. I’m not one into heights & safety first is always a first priority if undertaking a task yourself. Perhaps some antenna installers may have some old antenna or ‘pieces thereof’ hanging around. :thinking:

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Are these ex Band II Bunbury antennas? There are obviously plenty around Newcastle and Wollongong as well.

Maybe Renmark/Loxton is a good place to look as that’s a semi arid inland location with an ex Ch 3. Ditto for the inland parts around Port Pirie (ex Ch 4). The Band II antennas in salty, humid Newcastle and Wollongong are quite the worse for wear.

Nyngan is another inland location with an ex Channel 3, though the pool of antennas there would be much smaller.

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Yes exactly, GWN ch3 and ABC ch5 very common in the South West of WA. You could easily receive the transmitter 18-kms away so many of the country towns had the 453 until the early 80s when GWN started having local transiters. But up in Perth it was popular in my area until the mid 2000s purely in the fact that AFL was shown live in regional areas and NOT in the city.

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Do you mean 100 (or maybe 180)? I would hope the high powered stations on Mt Lennard are clear at 18 km :winking_face_with_tongue:

A similar thing happened in Sydney and other cities too with the cricket. I still remember the bad old days when international cricket wasn’t shown in full in the city of origin, sellouts excepted. Nearly all pubs had a high gain UHF’er pointed south to Wollongong; in the old days it would have been a Band II antenna for WIN4. I can’t remember seeing any of these around but there might be still some even now?

The pubs/RSLs around me still have them. Looking on Street View, one of them doesn’t even have a Sydney aerial (it was removed in the past few years). Sydney reception is fine there as neighbouring non-pub shops just have the usual Sydney aerials.


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Which now probably rarely get used outside of State Of Origin or Grand Finals (and even then they might opt to steam?).

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Yes, plenty of the high gain UHF’ers are still around. I’m guessing the high gain WIN4 antennas got replaced upon switch off in 1991 as you don’t see any of them around.

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There’s a few of these on houses around me, but I’m guessing they’re just for Sydney?

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Yes, that bottom antenna is one of those phased array VHF Band III antennas (6-11) designed to help with ghosting.. Whenever I get the train down to Sydney I see a lot of them around Beecroft where it’s quite hilly towards Artarmon.

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Yeah, plenty of those phased arrays around, mainly in deep gullies. Wyong Street Oatley is a good example; there may have even been a micro relay down there at some stage as there was a small UHF antenna pointed towards the street on one of the boat sheds down there. This boat shed was in front of the peninsula containing Dinjerra Crescent so was completely blocked from Artarmon.

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