Wasn’t aware of Apollo Bay but makes sense if there’s a relay there although it’s a geographical quirk that their local stations are Melbourne stations isn’t it?
Warburton is considered metro Melbourne despite its rural setting. Be difficult to get a signal from Gippsland over the ranges I think. Found this on the local council’s FB.
Apollo Bay itself falls into the Colac and Remote Central Zone licence areas. Mixx FM (Colac) and Flow FM (RCZ) have repeaters at Marengo, though the latter is off air. ABC Radio Melbourne also has a repeater co-located at the Flow FM site despite being outside the Melbourne licence area - presumably because Colac itself is served by 774. Couldn’t tell you if 1602 from Warrnambool makes it across to the Bay.
Melbourne stations do, of course, make it down to the Bay. If all licensed services were active, you’d have an interesting mix of operators down there!
Odd. I looked at a PDF copy of the ABC Frequency Guides (which I have numerous copies of) and apparently there’s no 96.1FM frequency for Warburton … it’s just 774.
Same goes for a number of other places … even the Triple J, Classic FM, NewsRadio and RN frequencies are the same!
ABC Ballarat supposedly serves Colac but I wouldn’t be surprised if most listen to 774.
Someone did post that 96.1 ABC Yarra Ranges is fed off air from ABC Melbourne DAB, which means no sport.
Given the distance involved I wonder how 89.5 would be fed? 774am would be a bit noisy at night, there may also be some fading involved. They could use the DTV audio feed of ABC Melbourne on Channel 25? (which I imagine is the same as 774 AM).
The DTV one is the same as DAB in blocking out sport.
I’d assume 89.5 would be satellite fed so it’s a full service, as I believe it pre-dates DAB anyway.
According to ACMA, authorised since 11th October 2001 - so definitely pre DAB!
Yeah 89.5 Apollo Bay is full FM quality, so likely satellite fed. That also leaves it open to airing this in a malfunction:
100.3 Braidwood is fed from Canberra DAB now. There was one occasion where the signal broke up while I was listening, possibly due to electrical interference at the transmitter site (co-sited with 2BRW and other comms infrastructure). It’s still a much better solution than relaying a very noisy 666 AM.
88.5 Captains Flat has been off air for a while now. It previously relayed 666 directly off air; signal was still noisy but better than the signal received at Braidwood.
I believe at one stage the 89.5 service was relaying the south west Victoria feed before being switched to Melbourne but not 100% certain
Just out of curiosity, what was on 603 AM Nowra before it became RN, and when did it change? I know it started around '89 (cause RN Hobart moved off that freq), but what aired on it before?
Also when did the SBS stations in Wollongong start operating?
I think it might have been Local Radio, a relay of 2WN Wollongong (1431). 1431 doesn’t cover the Shoalhaven region that well, hence the need for a separate Nowra transmitter. Remember 97.3 was unavailable until WIN4 switched off in 1990/91.
Not sure when 1485 SBS started but 1035 was around 2003/04. I remember because I used to get unfettered reception from Newstalk ZB in 2002 or so and then lost it soon after.
@TV-Expert may have the precise dates.
603 initially had 2NT as the callsign, I also suspect it ran the same programming as 1431 2WN.
It started on 30th August 1979. The day before, its Newcastle service was launched on 1584, which moved to 1413 (the old 2KO frequency) on 29th March 1996. I remember SBS started its 1035AM service in around late 2005. Its 1485AM service is still on air to this day.
As for the 603AM ABC Nowra service, that was launched on 31st January 1989 as an RN service, whilst 2WN became 97.3 ABC Illawarra on 15th May 1991, after WIN had vacated the VHF 4 frequency on 31st March that year. At around the same time, ABC FM (now ABC Classic) moved from 107.9 to 95.7.
WIN vacating VHF 4 allowed the launch of Power FM in October 1991 (nearly 30 years ago now!), as well as the FM conversions of 2OO (i98FM) in June 1992, 2WL (Wave FM) in July 1992, 2KA (One FM, now The Edge) in October 1992 & 2WS (now WSFM) in June 1993.
Sources: SBS, ABC and Department of Transport & Communications’ annual reports
Speaking of 97.3, why did they switch presets to 2ILA? Seems a bit too … odd. I like 2WN better.
Probably to have a standard 3 letter FM callsign. Others such as 3GI/3GLR Gippsland and 2TR/2MRR Taree maintain different callsigns for their AMs and FMs. Illawarra was a straight FM conversion so no need to retain the AM callsign.
This took longer to assemble than I anticipated so I hope it’s of some interest! Assorted Aussie AM stations recorded in Hamilton, New Zealand during the first half of 1994. Includes Sydney’s Country 2SM, Gold 1269, 2UW, Mix 106.5 and more…
Also coming tomorrow, 2Day FM from 1991.
Fascinating stuff there. 
The weather theme used on 2UW at 3:46 has also been used by Wave FM in Wollongong from around the mid-90s until about the mid-2000s. I recall 2GN also used that theme at around the late 90s/early 00s.
As for 2UW in general in the months to the FM conversion, interesting to note that their positioner at that time was “Sydney’s Greatest Hits of the 60s & 70s, and Your Favourite Songs from the 80s & 90s”, and that they no longer called themselves “Classic Hits 2UW” by that point. No doubt they were trying to have a point-of-difference to 2WS-FM’s “The Best Songs Of All Time”, as I’d imagine plenty of 2UW listeners have switched over to 2WS when the latter converted to FM in June 1993.
it was 45 years ago today that the long-running ABC radio serial Blue Hills came to an end after 5795 episodes.
For those old enough to remember I’ve stumbled across DirtyDonkers.com’s Mixcloud account which has several unscoped airchecks of Wild FM Sydney during 1997/ 1998. The on air presentation is surprisingly polished for OBs from nightclubs!
