Newcastle Radio

It’s similar to the banner pic on:

https://twitter.com/hitnewie

It’s not the breakfast, music or tactic - they’re the holy trinity of successful FM radio, it’s marketing noise.

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If I’m going to Nelson Bay for a week the radio I would be needing to look at for my car would be the Newcastle radio stations, correct?

Yes.

The music stations are:

102.9 KOFM (at least when they’re not airing sport or talk)
103.7 2NUR (community, primarily easy listening)
105.3 New FM
hit106.9

107.3 Max FM from Taree can also be received at Nelson Bay.

North facing slopes of Nelson Bay ie. most of it will also have quite good reception of 101.5 Great Lakes FM from Forster Tuncurry. This station wipes the floor with Bill’s stations in the Myall Lakes region.

Central Coast FMs also quite good in the car.

2HD and the local ABC for Newcastle are also on FM in Nelson Bay.

The local community station, Port Stephens FM 100.9 is also a good listen at times.

If you are looking for ABC Radio, they can be found on:

95.9 ABC Newcastle (relay of 1233)
98.3 Radio National
95.1 News Radio

Triple J - 102.1 or 96.3
Classic FM - 106.1 or 98.7

Thanks everyone!
I’m mainly looking for a replacement for Nova for that week so I guess the only option seems to be Hit.

Stream it on your phone, you can’t be in the car that long round the Port to flatten the battery. Try streaming Brisbane or Adelaide Nova, bigger variety than Sydney.

New FM 105.3 is great if you follow radio and want a laugh.

Max FM was a fairly decent SRN/BOG station (well, at least during local programing) during the 2014-16 “Lui & Gem” era, judging by the very little I got to hear of it during that time for obvious reasons. I’m not so sure what’s been happening with 107.3 Taree in more recent times though…

As well as Port Stephens FM 100.9 and 101.5 Great Lakes FM, there’s also Bay FM 88.0 which mainly plays '60s and '70s music if you’re into that sort of thing.

As far as the major Newcastle radio stations are concerned, personally I’d probably listen to 2NUR over any commercial station most of the time. Maybe a little bit of KOFM when they’re not airing sport or talk. Hit 106.9 is probably your best option as a Nova alternative and as for New FM…I suspect that it’s probably the Newcastle/FM equivalent of 2SM (ie, a station with amateurish production values with unintended comedy for the media enthusiast) judging by some of the comments here.

So in conclusion, you’ll probably really appreciate Sydney radio and it’s glut of choice even more once you’ve spent that week in Nelson Bay. From the perspective of this media enthusiast, I’d probably find FM DXing (if the conditions are right, of course) or watching NBN News more interesting than most of the local radio stations if/when I ever venture back into that part of the world!

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They’re down to one local presenter, Macka, doing breakfast/promotions/music. Not sure what the go is, but the drive/promotions position was re-advertised when Lui left the station.

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When I have been up at Port Stephens I have been able to DX and get the Sydney Fm stations on the car radio. I have been able to get Nova and 2day fm in the past, but this was always in summer.
One time up there when there was strong ducting the Sydney fm’s were so strong they scanned and were almost as good as the locals. By the way Nova 106.9 has the best playlist of all the Nova’s.

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There hasn’t been much ducting this summer up this way unfortunately.

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If you go to the southern side of Port Stephens (Anna Bay/Boat Harbour), you’ll find that Sydney FM is permanent, as well as DAB+ in certain spots.

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Yes, that’s the spot in that region for Dxing.

Unfortunately the more touristy areas (Soldiers Point across to Fingal Bay) are mostly shaded by hills or trees to the south and don’t fare so well with Sydney reception.

They fare pretty well with Mid North Coast (in particular Middle Brother) reception though.

Theres still quite a few ECN8 Taree TV antennas in those areas (even some UHF antennas pointed that way too!) given Newcastle analogue TV reception was a long standing problem up there.

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Middle Brother DTV is all on VHF now.

Why was analogue TV from Sugarloaf a problem in Port Stephens region? Too distant or some other problem?

Sydney FM & DAB+ is fine in elevated spots of Newcastle itself, east and south of the CBD on hills, beside the ocean in elevated spots.

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I happily live on one of those aforementioned hills south of Newcastle (Charlestown), and yes, Sydney FM/DAB/VHF TV is permanent where I am.

Analogue TV was problematic in Port Stephens due to those hills and/or scrub immediately south of the towns from Soldiers Point across to Fingal Bay.

Even Medowie (near Williamtown RAAF Base) had troubles.

Digital TV repeaters now exist in ALL of those areas. even Medowie as well as those on the coast around Boat Harbour / Anna Bay.

The coastal areas are affected by Illawarra Digital TV, as they are cochannelled with Newcastle and come from roughly the same direction.

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The Sydney Fm’s normally fade out around Morisset but pick up again not much after that on the freeway, had WS all the way to my place and ran out of range pulling into the drive way.

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At soldiers beach this evening picked up 2ST over KO

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I had that result here in Newcastle (Charlestown) last night.

Good pickup!

More reason for ACMA to use the lower section of the FM band to spread out stations in the congested Sydney and adjacent markets. Remove co-channelling.

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NEW FM’s transmitter is playing up yet again.

Tonight I can hear NEW FM on both 104.9 and 105.7 (being +/- 400 kHz from 105.3)

I have filled out a “complaint” form on their website to see what their response is.

I’ll let you know if I hear back or what their response is.