Did you try the new freeway bypass of Grafton from Eight Mile Lane to Maclean and the Clarence River’s version of the Gateway Bridge?
I drove over the new Clarence River bridge today, but I drove the new freeway to Ballina last year. I just love driving on new things.
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Me too. It’s such a godsend for what was usually a tedious drive with limited overtaking lanes, especially from Iluka to Woodburn. No crawl through Woodburn and Broadwater another benefit.
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Strange font, looks like Samsung’s answer to Comic Sans.
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This is interesting, Triple J Wollongong now with RDS
No other Wollongong or Newcastle ABC stations with RDS yet though.
No song info though.
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Gotta say, its a fantastic drive to Brisbane now, even within the last 10 years, it was a VERY different road.
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Will be even better when they build the Coffs Harbour and Hexham/Heatherbrae (near Newcastle) bypasses.
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Wonder if it was done as part of a Transmitter upgrade
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According to the ABC Reception page, there is planned outages for the Knights Hill site on Monday & Tuesday, which includes the FM services going off-air for 2 minutes at 11:08-11:10am & 2:56-2:58pm. Only 98.9 JJJ will be off-air overnight from 1:06 to 4:50am on Monday, whilst ABC Newsradio, ABC Classic & ABC Illawarra will remain on-air. 105.7 JJJ in Sydney will also be off-air at the same time.
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Using FM Player on my desktop, here is the RDS information for JJJ Sydney & Illawarra.
105.7 Sydney
98.9 Illawarra
88.7 is the Goulburn service, whilst 101.5 is the Canberra service.
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I wonder if we will see a national rollout of RDS for Triple J?
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It would make sense, considering it and Classic fm are both exclusively on fm.
I wonder if 95.7 Classic Illawarra, and ABC Illawarra will get RDS eventually?
ABC just need to get JJJ on at Batemans Bay (Mt Wandera) to provide unlimited coverage from Sydney to the far south coast.
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Just checked 98.9 Triple J Illawarra it’s RDS is mirroring Triple J Sydney. “Triple J, We Love Music”. I wonder when they will reintroduced song title and artist.
Regarding the AF, Triple J Illawarra has Triple J Sydney as it’s alternative frequency. Triple J Sydney is the strongest signal at my location, should my RDS tuner automatically switch to 105.7 when I tune to 98.9 if the AF is set up correctly?
Back in 2001 when WS fm had RDS on all it’s frequencies my RDS car radio at the time would automatically switch back to 101.7 when I tuned to 99.1 in Oatley.
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That would annoy the crap out of me!
All three Wuss frequencies are strong in Oatley.
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Interesting. So it will send you to Illawarra JJJ if you head south or Newcastle JJJ if you head north - does 102.1 have RDS yet?
What happens if you head west? I guess 98.9 jumps in until Goulburn or Canberra are within reach?
Either way, as has been discussed for well over a decade here now, it would be so good and so sensible for JJJ (and all the ABC FMs) to have AF RDS across their networks. You should be able to drive from Sydney to Melbourne and not need to retune the radio.
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No
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You would think Newcastle would have to be next considering the size of the market, and 105.7 points to 102.1 as an AF.
Quite surprised 105.7 does not have 101.9 as an AF too. 105.7 fades out as you come into Lithgow, and then closer to Bathurst.
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Maybe when 102.1 gets RDS, they can switch that on for a continuous RDS AF set up from the 2 Steel Cities.
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Can confirm that the AF on 98.9 Triple J is working. Driving the work truck with a dab+ / fm RDS Radio in Berowra this morning. When tuning to 98.9 Triple J Illawarra it automatically switches back to 105.7 Triple J Sydney. If I try presenting 98.9 on the truck radio the AF even changes the preset back to 105.7.
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I have driven back from Berowra to Rouse Hill and can comment further on the new RDS AF between Triple J Sydney 105.7 and Illawarra 98.9
Triple J Illawarra first cuts in over Triple J Sydney on the M2 at the Baulkham Hills exit and then again at the Norwest exit. In Norwest / Bella Vista it is almost constantly changing between the two.
Here is where it gets very annoying.
Triple J Sydney and Illawarra are not in sync so when the change over takes place you are hearing the delay between the two.
Also as you are driving you may have hit the sweet spot for the Illawarra to force the change. But by the time the radio has swapped frequencies you are off that sweet spot you hear the delay and a scratchy mono signal. it sounds shit.
I wonder how many people will ring the ABC about reception problems of Triple J Sydney. If they were to get complaints it would be from the Hills District and Eastern Suburbs of Sydney were 98.9 and 105.7 are of equal strength. I guess this will depend on how many people have cars with RDS radio’s and listen to Triple J???
Can the RDS signal be changed so the AF only kicks in at 54dbuV or higher, and it would be good if the ABC can get all their JJJ’s with RDS AF in synch, maybe @RFBurns could answer some of these??
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