Incorrect. No Gold Coast MF NAS service on air on 1629 and unable with current allocations 160km either side.
Once was Rete Italia on 1620, now silent ahead of Croc Media’s sport program switching on 8 Sep or before.
The Qld freqs in this URL are incorrect:
https://ilglobo.com/en/about-rete-italia-radio-network/tune-rete-italia/
Brisbane 1620 is Vision Christian Radio and Gold Coast is off ahead of SEN Track on air for 8 Sep.
Thanks @sm1611 for your detailed post.
AM 1683 kHZ
Is there a TX on air on 1683 that is only putting out a pilot tone?
Via skywave, a pilot tone is audible at night, west of Brisbane, east of Brisbane and in Sydney.
I’m gonna say it & some mightn’t like it, but Rete Italia going to DAB+ on Crocmedia/2CH spectrum says it all, when commercial licensee’s are flogging off DAB+ spectrum to niche broadcasters because they can’t make anything out of it, shows IMO where it’s going to end up.
Community & (what’s now) Narrowcast broadcasters will probably end up filling the DAB+ spectrum with FM & AM (to a point), going back to being the main radio platform.
Yes the existing have their main AM or FM channel on DAB+, but essentially all the other stations even from ARN & SCA are Narrowcast stations.
If DRM is taken up by regional commercial, ABC/SBS & Community stations, you might find the metro commercials wanting to offload their DAB+ spectrum & digitising (AM/FM) by going DRM/DRM+ with the one main station (currently on AM/FM) & perhaps 1 secondary station only?
is that such a bad thing, though? If it adds more diversity to the range of stations on DAB then that’s probably good. And more than what could fit in on the AM and FM bands.
Is all the diversity currently available, good for AM/FM?
When was the last time you saw a Narrowcast/Niche station set the ratings on fire, & rake in the advertising dollars?
Just because you might get a few more listeners on the platform, doesn’t mean they’ll listen to other stations, make it a success, & make it pay it’s own way.
There must be 10 million plus diverse radio stations online, IMO that doesn’t really make it a good thing, very few of them make any money at all, & millions of them never get more than 50 listeners at a time.
Too much choice of anything can actually be a bad thing & a hindrance to success.
1629 Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast were just printing errors in a previous post. See my question above for these and other frequencies recently announced on Niche 1539 in Sydney(during Cantonese and Mandarin programming). I am well aware of the 1620 frequency both in Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Brisbane. What about 1620 Sunshine Coast currently? Any observations lately or in 2020 generally?
I honestly think we’ll see the networks move away from DAB+ in favour of just running FM (and to a lesser extent, AM) and online streaming before DRM/DRM+ signals come onto the air.
I’m also skeptical that the public will buy the idea of yet another format for Digital Radio after being told continuously that “DAB+ is the way of the future” (probably too late to reach its full potential - fulltime digital radio services probably should’ve began in the Late 1990s or Early 2000s) for more than a decade.
I was wondering the same thing. Sure, I won’t be a regular listener of Rete Italia when it comes on DAB+ in Sydney (Reason #1 being that I don’t understand/speak Italian) but many of the existing extra stations from commercial broadcasters aren’t anything to get excited about either.
Exactly my point. The whole DRM+ is the way forward argument from broadcast industry types is delusional and completely out of touch with reality when you consider the current popularity of streaming services, smart speakers, Bluetooth speakers & headphones and generous mobile data allowances and unmetered streaming services.
I even saw a recent Sony DAB+ clock radio going cheaply in my local Salvos today so people are already giving up on that (it worked too BTW, I checked).
I’m not saying that DAB+ was the correct choice but it was what was chosen and has seen adoption in cars and homes.
Is too much choice a bad thing in radio? I’d say no.
Is this choice making a profit for the stations? I’d hazard a guess no ( or hardly)!
Is the radio landscape set for further major changes in the next 5+ years? I’d say it is!
Fair point, I get the less-is-more approach, but I think diversity is good and if niche operators can manage to make a dollar with their respective markets then it’s a win.
That’s an answer to a different question though - one of whether broadcasting over the air has a future.
Obviously, if the answer to that is no, then it doesn’t matter what the technology is. However, if you want to provide a path forward to listenable broadcast audio for AM Narrowcast/narrowband stations - then DRM offers the most viable future path.
AM is nearing the point of being unfit for purpose in major cities - and there’s just not enough FM space available - especially under current planning schemes - to allow for a transition. There’s DAB for the big guys - but that deliberately and permanently shuts out smaller stations - be they local community ones, or narrowcasters who aren’t owned by commercial radio stations.
People who listen to off band broadcasts are already dealing with finding radios which receive the expanded AM band, and putting up with poor quality. If that’s still a sizable market - then migrating them to DRM could give them a far better broadcast standard.
If there’s no future in broadcasting, all broadcast technologies are equally doomed, that’s not an indictment on DRM.
How do the narrowband stations around 151 and 152 MHz fit into this story? They broadcast in FM but only 25 kHz bandwidth.
Here one of the Brisbane ones VNG290 - 50w Voice of Charit Mount Coot-tha on 152.050
https://web.acma.gov.au/rrl/assignment_search.lookup?pEFL_ID=646636
But are these niche listeners a large enough market to justify the cost of a DRM rollout and wouldn’t they be better and more easily served by a streaming model?
Or we may need to seriously look at reshuffling the FM band
For many of the niche services, their target audiences are not going to be that technologically savvy, or in many cases, a once off investment in a radio would be more viable than recurring costs of streaming.
Radio streaming is near free once you have internet - but I think the largest proportions of people without the internet are precisely the people relying on these narrowcast stations, particularly those who don’t speak English at home.
There’s also a degree of authenticity that people will always chase with broadcasting. That someone can just tune around a dial and find your broadcast, without needing to seek you out on a website or app. I think lots of people will want to broadcast radio, simply to prove they can.
While you do make some salient points one thing I have noticed especially with ethnic minorities so I can’t apply this arguement to other niche demographics, is that they tend to be the opposite and quite cutting edge when it comes to technology especially when it comes to receiving TV and radio from their homelands. One only need to witness the numerous satellite dishes attached to apartment units or the Pinoy shops advertising those TFC streaming boxes. My GF streams Mirchi FM from Fiji on Bose SoundTouch speakers throughout her house for instance.
While I appreicate some of the older generations of new arrivals to our great land would have utlised shortwave transmissions or indeed even the current crop of narrowcasters like Rete Italia, I get the feeling that the current generation won’t use such technologies.
Internet radios with potentially a sim card slot might work, have radio operators have an arrangement with a telco to have a cheap plan just for radio.
Anyway, the design of the current internet radio range are clunky and finding a station can be challenging.
Aren’t they! I have both Sangean and Pure Digital Internet Radios and the user interface on them is painful. Have long since abandonded using them for streaming (use them only for DAB now) for the Sonos platform. Smart speakers while a hell of a lot better than an Internet Radio interface can still be a bit toublesome at times (e.g. Hey Google, play RAW FM) but at least a station can still be chosen via their accompanying app.
I ask google to play SWRFM, it never understands. I spell it out. It is easier to switch on a radio if I have one in that room.
@Laoma I use TuneIn personally - it works if you say “Hey Google, play SWR Triple 9 FM on TuneIn” - There also may be an App coming purely for community stations (being developed by the CBAA) in the near future. Which will hopefully work with smart speakers etc etc…
What would be a great feature is searching community radio programmes by genre. This would require each participating community radio station to tag each of their programmes with the appropriate genre; listeners could then be fed a list of currently airing programmes by genre when they start the app. I think most shows would gain additional listenership this way.
I’m not sure if you’re in contact with the people developing the app?