I don’t think they have activated it in recent years. It always seemed pointless as MMM would broadcast the soundtrack anyway.
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There is a musical accompaniment to Vivid Sydney. It uses 89.3 and plays ambient/experimental music, presumably to add an artistic dimension to the visual display.
Going further back, 100.5 was sometimes used to accompany the NYE fireworks. I picked it up from Oatley one year, ID’ing as ‘Fireworks FM’. This would have been in the late 90s or early 2000s.
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Likely it could be linked to this event which is happening each weekend during September in place of the normal Riverfire fireworks.
Every Friday and Saturday night of the Festival, buildings across Brisbane’s skyline will play host to an interconnecting and pulsing laser beam installation set to an ethereal soundtrack.
Tune into Triple M 104.5FM for on the final night for a live broadcast at 7pm on 26 Sept.
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They use these two frequencies to transmit FSK data to the barges and other firing locations… the soundtrack is played from two multi track Protools systems (two production studios) with two channels being the stereo program (which goes to air on MMM), one the FSK data and the other is timecode, at the firing locations there is a FM radio that is connected to the firing system, this allows fireworks to go up in time with the music, when the soundtrack has been produced usually months before, the pro tools session is sent to the fireworks company who “stripe” it with their data (FSK) so the firing is synchronised with the music.
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Also… the SMPTE timecode is sent to the laser lighting guys and QTQ-9
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Am guessing that technology was not in place during the 80s for instance when 3XY held Stereo Skyshow (don’t tell anyone, but apparently two mono AM radios tuned to 1422 did not make stereo…) Do you know if it was just a manual running sheet back then? Is the technology expensive?
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Is there anything to stop someone from just transmitting fake timecodes and causing the fireworks to go off prematurely or all at once?
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Now THAT would be spectacular
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Is 1611AM Western Sydney even still on-air?
I know it used to run Vision Christian radio (of course, Radio 2 and other narrowcast services in previous lifeforms), but thought it got switched off a while ago…unless of course I’m mistaking it with Cool Country 2KA on 1476AM.
Yes Vision Radio is still on-air on there
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Well done @tx42, great maturing of your brand to its next era.
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I was under the impression that vision radio were leasing the 1611 am license from another broadcaster, which I now believe is SEN. Digging through the internet I haven’t been able to find any consensus on this, so would appreciate someone enlightening us on who actually owns the 1611 AM license. If I have to go on a hunch, I would suspect vision have bought the license and now own it outright.
TO be blunt, I’ be laughing so hard I’d be shitting in my pants. 
As a narrowcaster, how do you measure those numbers?
The radio listening figures are an estimate, based off interaction levels from listeners.
The digital platform stats are sourced from the platforms themselves.
Further to this - the Brisbane Festival website now lists 95.3 FM as the frequency people should tune into for the synced soundtrack to the laser light display between 7pm and 9pm on Friday and Saturday nights.
This report from Nine also has the creator talking about the soundtrack being available on radio:
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I hope people like a little classical with their Riverfire on 95.3, or perhaps some lightweight ABC talk from Gympie?
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Interesting details and map regarding changes to Vision in Brisbane:
The map is, optimistic at best.
‘Daytime in the car’ raised a smile for me.
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wildly. i’m in the oxley area (in the OK area) and get nothing. I just stopped listening via AM anyway and at home i listen though alexa and in the car via tune in
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Not just the map - praying to God for frequencies is also VERY optimistic. 
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They state that praying worked.
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