Pirate Radio

Nice work. I never knew they branded that way.
Was always impressed with their logo though. They were the only capital city CHR back then. I remember getting a CD with my B&T subscription back then and they were certainly an award winning station.

There is a possible pirate radio station in Syndey on 107.9. I had a look online and couldn’t find any info on it. Coming in really strongly on the TVCL North webserver and at reasonable levels on the VK2SWL webserver.

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I don’t think they’re a pirate.

I heard a station like this in Arabic a couple of years ago when I was in Sydney. They were pretty strong around Sydney airport, but could also be heard weakly in the eastern suburbs. At the time it was Ramadan so they were also on 91.6 MHz.

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Not a pirate at all. TVCL clearly mentioned in the AM and FM DX thread last month that it’s a station with a TCBL (Temporary Community Broadcasting License).

The TCBL is very clearly cancelling out Move FM Lithgow (Central West NSW commercial station) on the same frequency. It’s clear the operators who wanted to start up a station like this chose 107.9 FM for their new station, unaware that there are FM DXers like us hoping for a strong signal of Move FM from Lithgow (via intense tropo) using the TVCL TEF webservers. That’s gone now with the commencement of this new TCBL station in the Sydney metropolitan area. It started broadcasting in Sydney last month?

There’s an entry for it on the ACMA’s register: ACMA Register of Radiocommunications Licences (RRL)

It’s a TCBL scheduled to run until 15 February. The station is “Ahlulbait Radio Australia”. They made a post about their TCBL transmission:

There’s also another TCBL in Sydney at the moment on 91.6 MHz, which is 2CR (Chinese Radio), broadcasting from Centrepoint Tower until 22 February:

I believe it’s the ACMA that chooses the frequencies, rather than the stations themselves. In any case, Move FM on 107.9 is permanently receivable in most of Sydney – no tropo required. It’s also still audible on its Katoomba relay on 99.5 MHz.

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Reception of Move FM in Sydney is considered fortuitous and thus doesn’t get protected by the ACMA. It would consider potential interference inside its licence area. The TCBL does have the potential to interfere with 107.9 in the Blue Mountains, but the ACMA wouldn’t consider this due to the availability of the 99.5 translator.

TCBLs wiping out the Lithgow commercial station in Sydney isn’t a new thing. I remember a Chinese language station (may have even been 2CR) popping up as a TCBL on 95.3 in the late 90s. I was annoyed at this as I quite liked the old Kiss 95.3 (that was exotic reception on a Sanyo boombox from 1989-90).

This is way beyond the purview of the pirate radio thread; might be time for a mod to Move these posts to an appropriate thread (har har).

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The ACMA decides on the frequency. Operators generally have little say in the choice of frequency, they would need to provide strong evidence of interference to get the frequency reconsidered, which can take some time.

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The Whittington pirate is back on air again on 90.5 FM. And this time I think he’s increased his transmission power as I can pick it up as far away as the outskirts of Highton at best. Probably his best chance of getting busted.

Get out your DX radios and keep a listen out for the station in Melbourne. If it’s Silverchair or Noiseworks, it’s Triple M Mount Gambier. If it’s heavy metal music or unfamiliar songs, it’s the Whittington pirate.

Right next to SYN 90.7 as well.

The Whittington pirate just simply couldn’t care less about the SYN listeners in the local area. Probably won’t be too long now and the ACMA will be knocking on his door.

Expect another one of those “Look what our field-ops found” posts on their Facebook soon lol.

Sounds like an average day at Rebel.

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The TCBL on 107.9 starts to cause CCI to Move fm at Gallery H at Dargan. Looking at the Lithgow Radio licence area map. Dargan is just outside the licence area so MWR cannot make a complaint to ACMA about CCI. Clarence is in the licence area and if their signal was impacted there they would have the right to complain.

UPDATE: The pirate is off-air as of 6:39pm AEDT. He must’ve either had enough for today, or he’s probably been reading the MS forums. :rofl:

Either that… or he got a little knock-knock on the door.

I wonder if ACMA bust doors down when they’re doing a raid.

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Nup, he’s back on-air again today. At the same strong power strength as yesterday.

I wonder if he’s using one of these 7w FM transmitters? He could’ve just bought one of these and extended the antenna on it to the max.

With coverage this strong, the signal is able to get into Moolap and Newcomb. Parts of Geelong CBD and areas like Belmont and Newtown can also receive these signals albeit at very weak levels (you would need a very good receiver to pick this one up in those areas).

I also did hear a familiar song he ended up playing on his station earlier today, Old Time Rock & Roll by Bob Seger.

Probably the same thing the 89.3 Newcastle pirate is doing. Has similar coverage in that it can be heard in quite a few inner Newcastle suburbs.

Good on him. All power to him.

I wonder if he has a 90.5 playlist on Spotify like Newcastle’s Louis Durham.

He might’ve just grabbed a random playlist on Spotify and just selected the option to ensure it finds more songs in that genre that aren’t well known.

He’s probably on the Spotify Premium Individual plan, which costs A$13.99/month. That’s probably how much it’s costing him to keep the music going for his very few listeners in the Whittington listening area. It’s great that he’s providing a service that not even Triple M can provide, but how is he still broadcasting at increased transmission power without being caught by the ACMA?

BTW, the Hepburn forecast indicates that at 5am AEDT on 18th February, we could be in for a chance of tropo in Melbourne and Geelong. If he chooses to switch on his transmission, I wonder how much further his signal will travel? Could scoop up a number of complaints from SYN 90.7 listeners depending on the strength of his signal.