I have received 98.7 Power FM from Tower Hill near Warrnambool, so the coverage to the east and south east is OK. Also gets into NSW via Es pretty well. I also received both translators (99.7, 100.3) from Cape Bridgewater near Portland.
As you say though, the Onkaparinga Hills and associated ranges in the Fleurieu Peninsula would block the signal in parts of Adelaide. Said hills offer a very cool climate in summer, for those wanting to escape Adelaide’s cauldron.
What were FM in car radio penetration levels like around the time these stations were launching?
Was it relatively cheap to swap out the headunits for an FM model if needed, or did lots of people have them anyway because most units would have been global ones containing FM anyway?
I think most existing car radios were still AM-only.
My parents replaced their car in the late 1970s with a new car and it just had an AM tuner. My nana also bought a new Toyota sometime around the same time and it also had an AM radio. My brother ended up inheriting that car many years later and I think he became strangely enamoured with Magic 693 
AM/FM was definitely not standard at the time when FM started in Australia. Most base model cars had no radio at all.
In very general terms, by the time the commercial stations came along approx 5 years later it was still optional extra to get a car radio cassette in base and mid range models - say for a Falcon or Commodore.
The top models (SL or Fairmont?) would have had AM/FM Cassette but others if they had a radio at all it was a simple AM push button. These high end models usually had some sort of branded unit like Eurovox while the basic AM radio was branded Ford or equivalent.
If you got a high end import it would most likely have a AM/FM radio with speakers in the front doors.
even in our house, I don’t think we had any FM tuners until the parents replaced their 1960s radiogram with a new stereo circa 1982 or thereabouts. But their radio listening habits were still firmly with AM.
I didn’t get my first FM radio until I got a radio cassette player for Christmas, 1983. That was pretty much the first time I listened to FM radio but admittedly I soon found that 3XY was still better in music/programming terms than Fox or Eon FM, so I went back to listening to AM!
I managed to cajole my parents into getting me a AM/FM clock radio. I had to wait a few years to get a Sharp AM/FM cassette player.
Edit: I did work out very early on that you could receive the FM stations on Channel 5 on a TV.
Totally agree.
it was 1984 before base model Commodores and Falcons got FM radio as standard.
Cassette players became standard from about 1985.
Digital tuning radio from 1988 (though some VK Commodores in 1984 got AM/FM digital tuning radios but no cassette). THIS Eurovox unit. It’s the only time I’ve seen a digital display radio in a car with no cassette or CD player (or anything else).
I’m thinking that something like a Celica would have had an “electronic” stand alone AM/FM radio in the early 80s.
my parents 1970’s Datsun had an AM/FM stereo cassette factory installed. So the Jap cars were well ahead of Australian cars
Yes I remember the VK Commodore had the electronic tune AM/FM radio but no cassette player.
Some of the Japanese cars in the early 80s had FM a few years ahead of Commodore and Falcon.
IIRC the Ghia version of the very first Ford Laser in 81/82 had FM.
We had a home stereo system in the 70s which had FM but no stations to tune to.
Another old TVC for a Sydney radio station, this time from July 2004 and what is likely to be one of the very last ads produced for 2DayFM with their blue circle logo:
I’d probably put this one in the “seemed like a good idea at the time” category, but hey at least it’s something. Also would’ve been good to post this a month and a half ago for the 40th birthday for 2DayFM, but I do appreciate “Tape Ape” uploading it to YouTube nonetheless! 
Going by some of that user’s other recent uploads of 2004 commercials, it’s likely this one is from a recording of Channel Seven from Monday July 12 - which seems to have been one week (going by the press release dug up from archive.org a few months back anyway) before ARN relaunched the Mix Network with their “Feel Good” branding and TV commercials featuring George Michael’s Amazing which I’m still yet to find any video of…hopefully one day!
Looks like an ad created to go up against the then number one “edgier” Nova969. Those graphics and colours scream Novaboy to me.
I was 10 years old on a family holiday in Sydney and discovered 2UW. I really enjoyed listening to it, I only owned an AM radio back then.
In 1988 on a family holiday to Melbourne we hired a Nissan Pulsar. I tuned the radio to Fox FM for the entire time
I don’t think that had AM Stereo. Great photo. Brings back great memories of a Tasmanian trip I did with the family in a Pulsar back in the day.
looks like a Philips based unit
the main car that had AM stereo were the 1985 ~ 1987 Holden Commodore & the most prominent after market brand was Voxson
I remember the only time I went in a car with AM Stereo was a Holden Apollo (I think). I didn’t really get to hear it. It was a school teacher taking me to some activity.
Most of the Fords of that era & into the 90’s had AM Stereo radios from factory, but for some reason they were factory locked to mono only, having a solder link on part of the printed circuit board.
There’s a guy in the US I think, is currently buying up lots of old car radios (from here especially) & removing the link making them into AM Stereo radios.
