I’ll try and remember to record it later today, but I dusted off the cheapy XCD Pocket Radio, and I could pick up 1341 3GL here in Elwood.
3GL always came in quite well in the southern suburbs of Melbourne. Not as strong as a Melbourne station but strong enough.
A lot of Greek people around here used to listen to 3GL on Sunday nights in the early 80’s because they had a Greek program.
Why have Grant not bothered to launch the site or any social presence for it? Are they trying to keep it hidden?
I don’t think they would want to launch an online presence (let alone a livestream) of 3GL Geelong. As it’s meant to be a tribute station consisting of mainly 60s (but also some 70s) music, the station is basically programmed to operate without any online presence, behaving as if the year was suddenly 1979 for example. Not to mention 3GL was operating in a time where the internet wasn’t around (and towards the end of its OG life on AM), the internet was just getting started in Australia, having launched in June 1989. Back then, the Australian internet was mainly a university-led research network, so the public wouldn’t have seen the launch of the internet Down Under at the time.
Launching an online site for 3GL today would defeat the purpose of listening to 3GL on the radio, as the station is mainly targetting those who grew up listening to the station during the course of its time on AM in their heyday, in addition many young listeners of today would see the station as a relic of the past, and would prefer to instead listen to CHR stations consisting of chart-topping hits today and throwbacks of the 90s, 2000s and 2010s (almost all CHR stations are on FM, the only AM CHR station Down Under is 4WK Toowoomba), or their own curated music playlists on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.
Unless you’re an oldie, or you just love a certain decade(s) of music, e.g: 60s/70s, and you’re within the Geelong listening area (or in much of Melbourne), then chances are 3GL will never launch an online presence. It’s a tribute station, remembering the halcyon days of 3GL in Geelong. The only differences are the station IDs and today’s advertising, many of which are for retirement villages and funeral chapels. The closest thing you’ll probably get to listening to 3GL online is listening through one of the Melbourne KiwiSDRs, but reception and audio quality of these servers will vary.
Though the closest you’ll get to the high-quality sound of 3GL (and in Stereo) is through their FM translators. These transmitters are spread out right across Geelong, Bellarine and the Surf Coast, all of which operate on 1W power, though there is also one translator in Colac on 88.0 FM.
Right, my point is people won’t know about it and streaming is a big part of radio these days. It’s fine to sound like that era but they have to operate in this era so people even know it exists.
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An odd occurrence earlier this morning. Noted from the Cheltenham webserver classical music on 87.6 where I would normally hear Kiss FM at same or similar levels. Don’t think it was a Micromitter vehical tx, but who knows.
I was wondering if it was a test transmission from Kiss FM or another broadcaster.
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I mentioned it in this thread a while ago. Still don’t know what it could be though. It seems to be on a timer and turns off at around 6-7pm. Also, during quiet sections of the music, you can still hear KISS FM underneath meaning that it is coming from a different transmitter.
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Vision Radio is discontinuing its broadcast on 1620AM from June 30th in Brisbane.
The licence they broadcast on is still owned by the licensee of Italian language radio network Rete Italia.
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So they’ve gone from having an on-band Brisbane-wide AM broadcast on 1053, to then having only an off-band AM broadcast, to now having neither. Though being on DAB+ is a big advantage for them I guess.
Was it just the licence being taken back, or did they surrender it? If even the godbotherers don’t want AM licences, then you’ve got to ask who does?
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According to the ACMA database the actual BSL licence was renewed in mid-May for 4 months and is due to expire in mid-September. Surrender or selling it off may be a possibility given they have done so with previous off-band licences elsewhere in recent times.
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I don’t honestly see much of a future for the offband stations, seeing as how it’s not very well supported technologically speaking (many radios still don’t support it).
They would have been better off moving to standard frequencies since that’s a far more accessible option or going digital (which has happened here).
they probally calculated that DAB, LPON and App would suffice. i know with me, its DAB or App
Hutchy might want to launch SEN Track 2? 
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I wonder if it’s the opposite - SEN/Track buying up a lot of offband licenses has made people holding them think they will be rivers of gold and are bumping up prices to sell or lease them out?
I feel the specific target audiences of these stations will go buy a radio just to receive them, narrowcasting is one of those spots where because of the formats, it’s either irrelevant to you, or everything to you.
These really should be in an expanded FM band by now - on the same basis of people will seek out the receivers, but there’s no other good use of the 76-87.4MHz band
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That’s what I thought too, with citywide DAB coverage the lousy AM is irrelevant. Those that can’t do DAB can stream, although I’d argue that loses the radio convenience factor in cars and such.
I’ve thought this for years. We have all this lower end VHF spectrum that is basically useless in the digital age, yet a congested FM band. A narrowcaster with a profile like a Vision could be one that could accelerate the takeup of such a band and its receivers, but I think even they would have done the numbers and realised it ain’t worth it - that ship has sailed unfortunately.
Would had been a good idea if it was done 10 years ago and rolled out, although they would had still been problems with older receivers that can not tune below 87.5 MHz. But for Narrowcasters, the benefits would had been an extended LPON section (76-80 MHz would had been the best option in my opinion)
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I guess since both are on 400 watts, that Vision Brisbane 1620AM & Sen Gold Coast 1620AM signals never clashed with one another?
Not so much.
When countries have expanded the FM band, e.g. Brazil and Chile, or talked about it, this was about adding the Japanese band (76-95 MHz) to the general international FM band (87.5-108 MHz) to create a 76-108 MHz FM band. FM radios sold in Japan already cover this whole band, so getting radios to support this won’t be a problem.
The only useable vacated VHF space from that range would have been the 85-88 MHz from Channel 3. Channel 1 & 2 were on 56-70 MHz which is too low, and channel 0 (45-52 MHz) is even lower.
To use 76-85 MHz would require moving some existing users.
this is mitigated with carplay / android auto and large data limits though. its just as easy to launch the app on the screen and go once you get the app. straming is somewhat actully better as its more avalable
I think it might be possible to shift those low VHF services onto the vacated Channel 0-2 spectrum, if an expanded FM band is ever proposed.
There aren’t that many utility services on the 70 MHz band these days; most have shifted to UHF. I remember rural police being down there.