This was the plan to broadcast from the same tower as River FM and Hawkesbury Gold, but we have run into issues with the launch of My88FM, It seems ACMA allocated two 88FM licenses on the same area of Kurrajong, (One of which is not located on the ACMA database but was payed over $2000 for).
We are in urgent communications with Wayne Wilmington of My88FM to work out an agreement before the 31st.
If we are forced to we may change to 87.8FM temporarily to avoid causing issues for My88FM until we can work things out with ACMA.
This is a great disappointment for the team at Starter as we have been working towards this day with allocating transmission equipment and studio space for the past 3+ months, and to be notified 3 days out from launch that there has been a issue hits hard.
I would have thought 87.8 would have been a better frequency for Starter in the first place and would avoid the cochannel with My88fm, at least in my location anyway.
… not sure how you can “change to 87.8FM temporarily” when there are already services on that frequency 5kms away and on 87.6 even closer … this all requires approval from the ACMA anyway which will take weeks (if not months) … never heard of “ACMA allocated two 88FM licenses on the same area” before … how on earth can that happen given the whole application process?
I was meaning to test the equipment temporarily at a low power, as we were going to do it on 88.0 before launch before this mess happened.
We did however get in contact with a contact at ACMA who said there was a mistake and they will work to rectify it before the end of January, so we will see what becomes of that.
For now we will be off air and broadcasting exclusively online as before until ACMA get back to us.
Yaaaaawwwwwwwwnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!! Not at you, just the concept of internet broadcasting. it’s potential is nothing. Done it for 15 years and it was mostly a waste of time.
I believe River FM 87.6 has pushed it’s wattage up to 400 watts? Which is blowing out the surrounding frequencies (cross frequency distortion), wouldn’t this be of unlawful broadcasting concerns, I thought LPONs in such a area are limited to 1 watt or in medium density areas, 10 watts. I would inform ACMA about Rivers power output if I was you @TheChase. This is rather inconsiderate and plane selfish on behalf of RIver.
… that’s true, but it doesn’t stop “inconsiderate and selfish” LPON operators (no names, but let’s say of an American-originated religious persuasion) sticking their transmitter on a nearby mountain and pushing their signal out to a radius of over 20km compared to the 2km they’re licensed for … been going on for years and the ACMA sits back and ignores it …
Yes I would think it would cause a lot of issues for the new My88FM that was due to go on-air on 88.0 Kurrajong today/tomorrow (Which I didn’t pickup when I was up there Yesterday), and a lot of issues for us if when we go to air later next month.
Angelo from “raw fm” heads off The ANRA (Australian Narrowcast Radio Association)… how raw FM and many other broadcasters have managed to keep the lights on through COVID due to operational and licensing costs is beyond me . Let alone paying a French company to beam one’s signal into space, then back down to feed the narrowcast transmitters… still beyond me.
. Let alone paying a French company to beam one’s signal into space, then back down to feed the narrowcast transmitters… still beyond me.