Newcastle Radio

I honestly don’t know about Power anymore… I used to be able to listen to them from home (Metford back then) right through to work at the 2NM/Power office in Singleton or the 'Brook and it would be a “local” station - nowadays it’s a garbled mess down this way until you really get into Branggers (where I was raised and grew up). Someone needs to take a really good look at their setup and see if something can’t be done. I’m up in Branggers today visiting family so will take another good listen.

Perhaps News Radio from Gosford is giving your reception a bit of grief?

no there’s nothing underneath, just not as much “power” from Power down this way now it seems.

It’s still possible interference from News Radio Mark.

Triple J Taree is taking a lot of power out of our signal (CoastFM). 5dB was taken off our signal a couple of weeks ago at the studio in Gosford.

Interference to our reception can range from scratchy sounds & hiss like multi-path or a weak long distance signal, to Triple J being underneath or over the top, Triple J being there with no hint of our signal, or if you’re in the right spot at the right time (or wrong spot at the wrong time), the signals fall at 180 degrees out of phase with each other, & you just get nothing (dead air, no stereo pilot, no RDS, nothing), both signals cancel each other out.

It’s more than likely you are getting interference from News Radio, & it’s taking some of the power out of Power’s signal, but not enough power there to show itself under or over Power FM.

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in saying all of this, I am wondering if 2ST was coming in up here for a few nights this week - my Sangean was picking up music (softly) underneath Christian’s stopdowns on the Greatest Years in Music.

I was in Maitland today, and noticed what MAY be a “pirate” station on 99.1.

I only heard one ID, it just said “99.1” and rest of what I heard over a 30 minute period was just music (no ads) mostly 80s to 00s pop/rock eg. Wang Chung, Waterboys, Stereophonics.

The signal wasn’t very strong, even in Maitland it was a bit patchy, it disappeared by the time I got past Gillieston Heights.

That’s probably what it was then re 2ST, having said that, I haven’t been able to detect that here at Charlestown, not on 102.9 anyhow.

I have to say I’m quite surprised Tanya and Steve on KO were given today off… all last week the media had interviews and discussions about how bad it is for the economy and business when people take sickies etc to extend the weekend… yes I understand it would be approved by the bosses, but it’s still a poor look. And for many out in Joe Public-land, it makes them come across as entitled.

The show is having ratings issues - I would have made them work today.

They’ve only been back for one week, they don’t need a 4 day mini-holiday.

Aaron Kearney is leaving ABC1233 on top to go to an international role with ABC.

Good luck bud!

that turning vehicle sign is a bit awkward… are we saying Tanya has a massive caboose? :smiley:

I had a good listen to NewFM over the weekend and I can only come to the conclusion that they’ve borrowed NXFM’s old processing gear.

It is awful… there’s no depth, no clarity, it’s just all over the shop and sounds bloody awful - exactly what NX sounded like up to about a year ago.

@RFBurns - any ideas what’s going on?

Interesting you say that about New FM. For the last 3 years, I’ve lived in an area with clear reception of all Newcastle, Central Coast and Newcastle stations and have always thought New Fm sounded like rubbish. Despite what people have said about the clarity of how it sounds, and how close it is to the original recording. Their source material really didn’t help, most of their music library sounds like it’s been downloaded on The Pirate Bay or something…

Funny thing is, it still was the best sounding Newcastle station up until recently when KO and NX got an upgrade to Optimod 8600’s. KO and NX were close to be the worse sounding commercial stations in Australia before the upgrade when they weren’t even running Optimods.

My opinion, the best sounding stations in the area I can receive are Smooth 95.3, Nova 969 and Star 104.5. Yes I know, all Nova stations…but they all have their own unique processing styles. I’ve said before in another thread, I think Star sounds spectacular (and no I’m not an employee of Nova!)

I had a tour of Triple J back in the early 2000’s, and they had a few Optimod 8400’s running in Sydney.

Now, last I heard they are now on Omnia 11 for processing 105.7 in Sydney - not sure about the regional markets. They would have to have something processing it. Probably older Optimod’s or something.

I can compare Triple J Newcastle with Sydney, and despite all the satellite encoding artifacts on the Newcastle feed, they do sound to have different processing to my ears.

Email their engineering department, they are usually pretty good with replying to these questions.

I’ve got no idea regarding NEWFM, I haven’t had a chance to have a good listen recently.

I did think the other day though from a brief listen driving in the car, that it sounded like they’d gone back to the old processor, there was a lot of the obvious traffic noise so couldn’t tell how clear it was, it just sounded like the “old” sound was back?

Maybe it’s not the processor at all, maybe the transmitter needs a new valve?

For those reading who are unaware, no I’m not being joking around, NEWFM still run their original 1989 valve transmitters, no solid state there.

I agree with you regarding KO & NX, but until recently not NEWFM.

Unless things have been changed in the last 18 months, NEWFM’s entire air chain, from the panels in the studio through to the transmit antenna on the tower is the original equipment installed in 1989 when it was built, it’s still like that because it was built to last & that’s also how they’ve kept their “sound” for the last 27 years.

NEWFM was built originally to the Triple M Sydney specs, the engineer who built NEWFM & spent plenty of time there on & off over the years, is now the engineer at KO/NXFM, he also looks after 2NURFM.

How do you like 2NURFM’s sound?

The original NEWFM “sound” with the 8100 Optimod can’t be replicated with newer processors, (NEW has one for backup), plenty have tried & failed.

I know NOVA Entertainment, ARN & I think even SCA have had chief network engineers at NEWFM in the past, looking at their setup trying to replicate the “NEWFM sound”.

There was an unofficial (joke I think), staff evacuation procedure at NEWFM, that the last staff member out the door in the case of fire or flood, had to grab the Optimod & take it with them. I know that there was a copy of the Optimod settings stored off site for backup, so if they had to get a replacement Optimod, the exact settings could be reconfigured.

listened to Pink Floyd this morning and it was a complete and utter mess.

a few changes in Newcastle:

NX morning announcer Rach is off to Hit 105
Meredith Gibbs, New’s brekky newsreader, has resigned
Billy McFerrin, New’s Content Director, has been poached by SCA and is off to Shepparton’s Star/3SR

So bloody good!

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Violet Merhi, better known to SCAers as Vee, is coming back to Newcastle from April 4 to take on Mornings and MD at NX.

Can’t. Bloody. Wait.

Vee you are a superstar and one of the nicest chicks I know.