Radio History

Oh I was. But the alarm clock was on Stereo 10. I was probably

80% FM104,
15% Stereo 10
5% 4BK

To be precise :smiley:

I also didn’t have FM in the car till about 1987 or so.

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I was living in greater Brisbane from 1986 to 1989 and my listening habits were reversed, I was more an 80% Radio/Stereo 10 listener and 20% FM104 listener. I had an AM Stereo receiver in the car and a Pioneer home stereo with AM Stereo as well. When Lite and Easy 1008 started I changed to more FM104 and 4BK.

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Have tracked down the entire 3LO broadcast of the 1977 VFL Grand Final REPLAY

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Interesting how it’s just the three commentators with no “special comments”. I can recognise Drew and Smooth, is the other commentator Doug Heywood?

Yes it is

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Here’s the Federal Court text (which was a judicial review of the relevant Dept of Communications decision) that this related to:

Apparently the two Sydney stations had proposed they instead broadcast off the lower escarpment around Winmalee/Hawkesbury Heights or thereabouts, but that was knocked back on the basis that it wouldn’t sufficiently cover the upper Blue Mountains. They made an alternative suggestion to also keep AM going at Wentworth Falls while adding that translator.

But they also put forward that there was a rush to get the decision reviewed before the then-new Broadcasting Services Act came in in October 1992, at which point 2KA wouldn’t have had an “automatic” right to convert. So there was an argument that irrelevant factors were considered, namely that the analysis of the lower escarpment site had been rushed in order to get it approved in time (which happened in mid-August).

And on top of that there was the unreasonable/irrational factor that @TV-Expert mentioned, based on the overspill, which was pretty quickly dismissed.

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I remember ‘Superjesus - Gravity’ and ‘Slim Dusty - Pub with no beer’ being part of the Nova969 test transmission.

And vaguely (too long ago now :grimacing:) that there were 2 test transmissions before launch so @RFBurns comments about the antenna being raised may be why.

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Frankster uploaded a good chunk of the Nova 969 test transmission just before Christmas. The music though was recent-ish chart hits including ‘Adelante’ by Sash.

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I can still remember Mix 106.5 test broadcasting in April 1994, playing tracks from Gene Pitney, Neil Sedaka, Thelma Houston, Donna Summer, and the occasional current hit. I thought this was going to be a direct conversion of 2UW on to FM.

It would have been fantastic at the time, as their music selection was still superior to what was being played on 2WS FM, which converted a year earlier. Utterly disappointed when they changed to MIX as the songs became one cliche track after another. One could only hear MIX artists Bryan Adams and Mariah Carey so many times before getting as bored as hell.

The BEST test broadcast that definitely takes the cake was the continual testing of Coast Rock FM 101.3 from Gosford during August 1990. I was living with my parents in Leura at the time, and the sygnal was crystal clear, like we were living right next door.

It was exactly like spotify or deezer today, a completely random mix of 70s and 80s with lots of current stuff. Perhaps call me the world’s biggest pirate back then, Remember filling up two 10 packs of Scotch CX 90 cassettes. Literally recorded one full tape, took it out, then threw in another. These tapes had a good work out on my walkman on the long train trips from Leura to St Leonards when doing a private computer training course back then.

They played everything from the Motels, Midnight oil, The Eagles, Elton John, Blondie, Don Henley, ZZ Top, Wham, Spandau Ballet, Eurythmics, Eurogliders, Madonna, through to what was then the current stuff like the Wilson Philips, New Kids on the Block, Roxette, Paula Abdul, Alannah Myles, Jenny Morris, Michael Bolton and etc. That’s what had made a true epic of a test broadcast. Loved every minute of it.

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The Coast Rock test broadcast sounded like an on air broadcast, complete with news bulletins except they would say something like “Coast Rock FM 101.3 testing, commencing 8am Saturday”…. They also included a recorded message every hour or so stating they were testing from Mt Penang at 10kw and to ring 234 997 if there were any reception interference issues.

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Ah, yeah, the memories, but can’t remember the news bulletins though, that must have started at the beginning of September, as their first official date of broadcast was the Saturday the 15th.

I think they must have had three stages of building up to their official launch. Stage one was when they played the announcement about broadcasting from M Penang, with back to back tracks. They were mixed very loosely,they were noted short gaps between the tracks, like on Spotify. Can’t remember any news bulletins. They were most probably introduced in early September when they commenced stage two of the test, then when they established that everything was working, they then moved to stage three; full on official broadcasting.

When the first official broadcast started with Campbell, into the following days, the music had rapidly moved from pop to rock, and then mainly stayed rock/top 40 orientated until I moved back to 2Day a few weeks later. Didn’t mind rock, but not all the time. It was pretty much a cross between what Triple M and 2Day FM were during that period. What I did like about Coast Rock when it first started, the format was rather uncluttered, I guess best way of putting it like a low budget radio station.

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I remember listening to it when I lived with my parents in Oatley. 10KW was received well on the car radio, and with about 80% signal strength on the old stereo, they don’t make them with signal strength displays anymore.

The testing playlist was very good and included new music that was not touched by 2day fm and Triple M.

This song was featured in the Coast Rock test transmission, and I still remember it today as it was not played by 2day / Triple M.

Maybe one for @dxnerd / BillyBob shows?

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From memory weren’t Nova trying to be a bit coy about what the format was as well.

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I remember Gravity too, yes they were being coy about the format, but I think the industry knew they were going young to take on the then Today Network and Triple J.

Have played that one before as well as ‘Start The Car’; it has been a while though :slight_smile:

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And that still reminds me of some of the silly things 2Day did in places… Nova 96.9 initially called their traffic report “Traffic To Go”, so naturally 2Day changed their report’s name from the longstanding “Timesaver Traffic” to… “Timesaver Traffic To Go By”. :roll_eyes: That just seemed insecure, but then, so tends to be commercial radio here.

Even 9inety6ix.1 (as it was, in their always-new phase) did a little better than that, playing off Nova’s “never more than 2 ads in a row” of the time by having the odd use of a liner of “never less than 2 hit songs in a row”. Which worked a bit better.

Of course, Austereo were being poked at from both sides, with them also having to do a blitz of Triple M promotion in the south-west that year to counter the start-up of C91.3.

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I think the news bulletins only started in the last few days of their test broadcast.

That’s just reminded me, is Nova’s news theme still Right Here, Right Now by Fatboy Slim?

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Hasn’t been for years - custom imaging stings now.

Has been used by a few stations - including Sea FM Burnie/Devonport up until the middle of last decade

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NXFM did it as well?