The Bee Gees were a bit “uncool” in the 80s if you remember.
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It depends when other 92.9 services came on air. If 6FMS had moved beyond an off air feed of 92.9 from Bickley before other 92.9 services began, it may not have been as bad as the current circumstances.
Hopefully the FM review for SW WA by ACMA will address the co-chanelling.
Do I recall reading here of a Geraldton FM also receiving a Perth signal off air for some purpose?
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Didn’t 6FMS and 6SAT have different owners to begin?
Red began on narrowcast and satellite for direct to mine sites?
Thanks @tvradiotech for your detail of the circumstances back then, fantastic to read.
Mt William is east of Yarloop, (does that put it on the Darling Scarp or east of it?), that’s much closer to Bickley for better reception of the Perth signals.
Were the digital playout systems useful or difficult to configure and keep running reliably @tvradiotech? I recall some of the early systems weren’t what they were made out to be.
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I thought 6SAT was WA FM (though I could be wrong). 6SAT/WA FM became Spirit, whilst Red FM (6FMS) ditched rock and became a crappy CHR station.
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Ooops yes, corrected now!
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To my knowledge, though take this with a grain of salt:
WAFM was the branding used under Redwave’s ownership of the North West Radio s.39 licenses - 6HED Broome/Port Hedland (sister of 6NW), 6GGG Geraldton (6BAY) and, oddly enough, 6RED Karratha (6KA) - as well as 6GGG Geraldton, formerly 6GE.
KA/NW/BAY became Spirit, aligned with 6SAT, and HED/GGG/RED were aligned with Red FM, albeit with separate branding. WAFM, by now a CHR station, was merged with Red FM in February 2015. Other than the latter, I can’t confirm the timeline of any of the above - nor whether, for example, 6SAT was branded as WAFM for a time.
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That’s more like my understanding too.
I also recall reading that RED FM coaxed the owners of some 6FMS mining TXs in switching from the WAFM feed to the RED FM feed, even though the programming for both originated from the same Perth based source.
RED FM acquired the WAFM S.39 licences in north west WA and converted them to RED FM branding.
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Correct me if I’m wrong but I remember signage on the top of taxis more recently (as in the last 5-10yrs) in the Caralis era.
There were also bus ads on the back of some Premier Coaches - especially for Talkin’ Sport.
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The PKE system were rather unique but cutting edge for the time… they did have some issues where they would get confused and start playing playing all sorts of random audio but as I said… very early days of 386 PC’s and very large scuzzy drives so it was pretty cutting edge and hey it worked and PKE was just up the road for support. The STORE1000 / STOREMAX (2nd generation) as I said was the commercial / hard drive based audio system built for Ouija, the stand-alone commercial playout STORE series was installed at GWN, also 4BU / Hitz had it and then there was the full blown Ouija studio systems at 6GGG Geraldton, 3TTFM, 3SR / Sun FM, Coast Rock and QFM Ipswich.
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John Fordham, father of Ben Fordham, brother of already deceased David Fordham has died on Sunday morning.
Talent manager to many radio personalities, John Laws and Stan Zemanek being two of them. Quite a few of the stable of the roster within thr Lamb family era at 2UE were clients of his. So was Kerri Anne Kennerley when she moved to Sydney.
Ever the lover of red wine in copious quantities, John enjoyed life to the full, fortunate to be able to indulge in what he enjoyed.
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It was 30 years😳 ago November 11 or 12th ,1989 when 4IP went back to their original callsign after about 7-8 years of various call signs,Radio/Stereo 10,Lite and Easy 1008 etc.This was until late 1991 when the station was bought by the TAB and became 4TAB in December 1991.Back then their ratings were abysmal,about 3% of listeners.They had a mainly pop music format from memory
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So true. I had that sticker on my yellow Ford Laser that I owned back then
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Transpose the ‘S’ to the front of the last word and you’d have a pretty accurate description of commercial music radio today…
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Pop music was much better back in 1989😕
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In Competition with FM Radio, Similar to what 2CH is doing in Sydney Right Now barely getting around the 4% mark.
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Back in late 1989 FM 104/ Triple M were still the only commercial Fm station in Brisbane and were rating over 30%,The launch of B105 was in early 1990 .4IP were already on life support ratings wise at this time
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REM wrote a song about it:
So much optimism generally back then, fall of the Wall and all that. Count yourself lucky you got to live through the Glory Of The 80s.
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So true. Glad I didn’t miss the 80s.
It all started going downhill at the exact moment in 1988 when Yazz and the Plastic Population sang The Only Way Is Up. One of history’s great turning points 
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