Most likely a very low powered FM broadcast to accompany a Christmas lights display. I picked up one on 93.4 MHz once, complete with a “Banool Street FM”(Jannali) ID.
This one appeared on my car radio today in the Newcastle suburb of Kotara on 93.0 with RDS.
Range seemed pretty limited, pretty much faded by the time I got to the next suburb of New Lambton.
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It’s most unusual for an ‘unofficial’ station to run RDS. The (legal) LPFMs at Cromwell NZ do, however.
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It could’ve been a car with a FM transmitter for the radio instead of a wired input. Many of those devices have RDS interestingly enough.
The car with the flea powered transmitter might have been travelling close and then turned off at New Lambton?
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Thanks.
That kind of surprises me about them having RDS.
Maybe I should look at buying one with RDS to tinker with…
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An TX SDR would be even funnier if you know how to use the TX software 
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Looks like there’s a pirate on 88MHz here in Melbourne, seems to be a ethnic broadcaster.
More likely to be a legal narrowcast service. A quick search of the ACMA database finds 12 licences for 88.0 within 30km of the CBD.
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Speaking of Melbourne, There’s a Station on 1629am with the Transmitter at Williamstown playing Music called Radio Nostaglia, I think the City needs a Simple Oldies Format on that Frequency to fill the Void left by the Departures of Magic 1278 and 3MP.
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Yep I’m picking it up fine here in the Northern Suburbs. Ident has a male voice stating “Radio Nostalgia”. I’ll record it. I’m picking it up at 37dbu.
@TheStyles83 1629 suddenly stopped broadcasting radio nostalgia and is now broadcasting Asian programming.
If Only You can Form a Licence for Melbourne On 1629.
Music on AM sounds best a) in AM stereo, which is increasingly rare in both transmission (with some notable exceptions such as at SRN Toowoomba) and receivers; and b) when utilising as much of the 9 kHz allotted bandwidth allotted.
Narrowband AM stations - those between 1611-1701 - are not only low power, but are limited to either 4.5 or 5 kHz of bandwidth (someone will correct me on this), about as much as a landline phone call. I remember reading complaints about Magic 1278 on the old forum not using all of their bandwidth and it sounding exactly like that
That, and the usual spiel about electrical interference. DAB+, if promoted properly, could and should be the great equaliser for the few remaining music formats on AM in metro markets - 4KQ and Cruise Adelaide come to mind here
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Well 1629 seems to be a shared frequency, on Saturday from 9am to 12pm and Sunday from 12:30 pm - 2:30 pm it transmits 3CW Chinese Radio and at all other times transmits Radio Nostalgia which is run by these people here. http://www.jlsmedia.com.au. They have an Icecast server running online. http://142.4.217.133:8762/
Ugh Ok I may have made a mistake, it seems at 12:00 pm every day 1629 Transmits Asian Programming until around 2:30pm…
4WK is both AM Stereo and 9.5k audio bandwidth
4AK is only Mono at the moment but uses 9k of audio… This is the max before the Orban goes to NRSC Curve
Acutally it is 3k of audio as the MF-NAS Emission designator is 6K00A3E indicating the total signal should not exceed 6k… Half that because of AM been Double Sideband and that leaves you with a limit of 3k of audio to get 6k wide signal.
Yes it was quite bad, see the YouTube video below with thanks to VK3ASE
What I think might have happened to Magic 1278 is back when it sounded good it might have had something along the lines of a Orban 9100 with the bandwidth restriction no installed where as now they have a newer Orban and have never adjusted the bandwidth up to 9k when they installed it
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There was a local pirate with Christian programming on 90.9 here at Charlestown that had been operating for a few months that seems to have vanished (thankfully).
It’s signal wasn’t very strong anyway. Drive a few blocks on any direction from it and it would disappear completely.
Would also get completely wiped out by News Radio from Wollongong during strong ducting.
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Pirated Station playing Baby Shark over and over on 97.5 fm here in Melb
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Possibly for someone’s Christmas light display?
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Does it Interfer with Stereo 974?