Receiving it by Skywave into the NSW Southern Highlands, was playing Fats Domino followed by a jingle.
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For those not in Melbourne you can pick it up via Kiwi SDR, find the closest SDR via this map
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Better than 3MP?
Had a brief listen today, I have to think at this point playing 60s is just as narrowcast of a format as Country or Dance formats that commonly get a run on HPONs.
If it was FM I’d instantly assume pirate, but I’d have to assume this is coming from the old 3CW site, but it still feels fishy - some engineer having some fun over the holiday period? The signal seems very strong so I can’t imagine it’s anything other than a real AM broadcast site.
Otherwise, does any aspect of the ACMA’s rules on “use it or lose it” apply to high power narrowcasters? They’ve done a push on wasted LPONs before - but this suddenly lighting up all this time later might just be to ensure that the license isn’t surrendered?
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Just saw this on Facebook, posted yesterday. No idea of the accuracy of this information:
Word on the (James) street is 3GL is in the process of being re-launched on 1341AM in the Geelong area.
More information is expected from Geelong Broadcasters in the New Year but test transmissions are now being conducted.
(apologies if this has already been shared here. I’d not seen it)
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Something’s altered the equation, yes.
Of course, as in Ballarat, the big commercial owner has effectively kept hold of the old AM to prevent any real competition - which in a just world would have the ACMA looking hard at them for such a BLEEP move.
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Hmm very interesting if it’s only a HPON licence there’s not much Grant can do though. I suppose if they argued a AM station playing 50/60s music is niche now though…
The 50s and 60s would be the equivalent of music from the early 1900s playing on 1980s radio.
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Something’s motivated them to do this but we don’t know what. Must be pretty important if they feel the need to revive 1341, though.
Different to Ballarat
In Geelong, 1341 is owned by the same owner as the two commercial licenses, but is for Open Narrowcasting. 3CW used it for a long time but no more.
In Ballarat, 1314 is a commercial license owned by someone differerent to the other two licenses, which are on FM.
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Ron
The people who own 1314 are very close buddies with the people who own the Ballarat FMs. Likewise, Grant keeps old of 1341 for the same reason. So, my post is truthful.
Would they have been stripped for non use or something?
I wondered this too. If a licence doesn’t go to air for a particular timeframe, does it automatically get surrendered? I feel like this has happened/been discussed in the context of a couple of community stations in the past.
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I reckon that’s the reason. Or it could be an eccentric relative of the Camerons firing up the transmitter.
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Unless the ACMA can find a Suitable FM Frequency In Ballarat for Narrowcasting.
Sort of. As it’s a a narrowcasting licence they can’t get competition from a full blown commercial station. By definition a narrowcast station is limited enough in what it’s allowed to broadcast this it can’t provide an effective competition to commercial stations. But it’s certainly a case of they might as well own it so that someone else can’t. The same story is replicated in many other markets.
Not automatically, but there is a process someone else could go through to claim it as being unused and trigger an auction. Different processes for HPONs and LPONs as LPONs are given out for virtually nothing while HPONs have at times been auctioned for quite sizable amounts of money.
I’d say what’s happened is that now that Geelong Broadcasters are virtually independent and 3CW is no longer leasing the licence, they’ve decided to use it to put something to air. Any delay between now and when 3CW shut down would just be because it would be a fairly low priority in their whole operation.
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The stronger “Use it or lose it” rules only applies to LPONs; 1341 is high-power.
In this case, the broadcast licence for 3GL was never fully given up - more correctly, a new 3GL broadcast licence was created when the “old” 3GL converted to FM as K-Rock, as the 3CAT licence of the latter kept the 1930 start date. (Similar situation to some of the other Victorian FM conversions, where the AM station was reborn as a new licence afterward.)
This might’ve been fine at the time - indeed, briefly it could have been run as commercial - as I’m not sure they had quite combined with Bay FM at this point (can stand corrected on which absorbed the other, this post from last year suggested Grant got Bay FM a little before Hoyts sold K-Rock to them, but the time difference would’ve been minimal so, details 
)
That’s only useful paired with an apparatus licence - and the current HPON licence was only activated in July, so even if it was low-powered, I think that’d be too early for use it/lose it to apply.
Given the various few services in community space where “seniors” is seen as a valid community (Five-O Plus, Capital Community Radio in Perth, etc), I suspect 50s/60s would probably be arguable as narrowcast - it’s a bit of an abandoned format in commercial space after all; that age is more or less in “Silver Memories” territory now.
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Oh no, just checking the Melbourne-based SDR right now and 3GL appears off-air once again.
Hoping this is just a temporary thing…
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I was listening to 3GL yesterday from the Mornington Peninsula and it sounded fantastic. Sadly - this morning it was just static.