I don’t know exactly i think it was sometime around January 2001 just as Derryn Hinch was about to start there
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The then-ABA decision to permanently move 1116 to 3AK would have taken effect at the start of 2001, with a simulcast period of two months.
But the LAP was successfully challenged in the Federal Court during the simulcast period, with one of the applicants previously having run the narrowcast licence previously on 1116, “3BM” (see comments made in this thread six years ago) - partly on grounds of not having consulted properly. (The other challenger was the group running Radio Hellas on “3XY” 1422.) I suspect the issue as much that the 1503 frequency was going to be used for community purposes and not narrowcast [the latter probably eventually got pushed to the 1593 frequency, still with Italian programming per Rete Italia and now SEN Track].
The orders on that did not come down until early April, which invalidated that part of the LAP until the ABA had fixed that up. For the time being, it was intending to offer 3AK temporary use of 1116 (they had been given 48 hours notice to determine what to do with 1116 in the meantime) until the consulting on that and on 1503 was complete.
Sounds like 3AK would have still started in January (as the challenge came during the simulcast, towards the end of January), but they were only “officially” became unequivocally confirmed as the holder of the 1116 licence in July, per ABA newsletter. Of course 1503 wound up being the indigenous 3KND eventually.
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I can’t recall posting any of my own historical radio material in this thread, so here’s a contribution to break my ‘Radio History’ contribution virginity. 
This is the rear view of a Triple J condom pack.
I have more revealing (G rated) internal & frontal pics…of the condom pack, if anyone wants to see?
I suspect triple j was the first radio broadcaster in Australia to produce these tasteful 
promotional items. For radio history buffs these date back to 1990.
Does anyone know if ‘triple j’ produced any later (or earlier) Triple j promotional condom packs or if any other Australian radio broadcasters produced similar?
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Groan.
While we probably take it for granted that commercial radio has existed in Australia since the medium launched in 1923, it only began in the UK in 1973. LBC began in London 50 years ago today.
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Yes it’s always surprising when you remember that commercial radio only started then in the UK. The government was so resistant to it, it took years of pirate radio stations off the coast for them to finally agree.
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In 1980, when I was a kid, I was at my cousin’s place when I noticed that their Hi-Fi radio had a different FM band. Instead of going from 88 to 108, it went from 75 or 76 to about 90 or 92 or thereabouts. I now know that this is the Japanese FM band.
Was it common before the introduction of FM in Australia for Hi-Fis to come with the Japanese FM band rather than the more widely used one? Did they think at one stage that we would adopt the Japanese FM band?
Also I vaguely remember in 1977 going to my parents friend’s place and they had a radio with both a conventional FM band and a second FM band which I think was UHF, but I didn’t look at the numbers. I know that at one stage, Australia considered setting up its FM band on UHF, but was a frequency range actually decided on? Were there actually radios with a UHF FM band?
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I reckon your cousins radio might have been a Japanese import? (ie. bought in Japan and privately imported). Did it have any Japanese labelling on it?
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I didn’t think the proposal for UHF FM progressed far enough to confirm frequency range or get receivers made?
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Yes, I’ve never heard of UHF radio (for broadcasting anyway). I don’t know that it would work that well covering a wider area, compared to FM/VHF.
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Not sure how the coverage would have compared to VHF FM, but apparently by going with UHF FM it would have made the cost of receivers prohobitive because Australia would essentially be the only market in the world with UHF FM and manufacturers wouldn’t commit to making custom UHF FM band radios just for us. But the government screwed up by assigning TV services to the traditional VHF FM band.
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Perhaps it was Long Wave.
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Radio Luxembourg to the rescue, along with the other pirates.
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No, it wasn’t longwave as there was that background noise like on the FM band. Maybe it was the Japanese FM band, as the only thing I heard was audio from Channel 0 on one frequency. Presumably it was due to harmonics of one kind or another.
A couple of updates:
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The Japanese FM band was from 76 to 90 MHz before it was extended to 95 MHz after Japanese analog TV was shut down in the 2010’s.
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According to this Wikipedia article, Australia was intending to use the Japanese FM band, and some radios were available that could receive 76-90 MHz, but ended up using the regular 88-108 band as there were many such radios already available here.
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My guess would be that it was the TV - VHF Band 3, it was never a common thing, but often a radio back then would have FM & then a TV VHF Band 3 (just above FM - VHF Band 2)? Was the Channel 0 actually on Channel 0 where you were, or had it moved to channel 10 when you remember hearing it?
TV Channel 0 audio would have fallen in the frequencies below the Japanese FM band though if it was actually TV Channel 0 you heard?
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I seem to vaguely remember our Hitachi home stereo had a UHF button but I could be mistaken. Would have been mid to late 70s
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Radio Caroline still going today.
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No it wasn’t Band 3 as I didn’t pick up 7 or 9.
This was in 1977 so ATV0 was still on channel 0.
Yes correct. One possibility, I believe that analogue TVs had an IF of about 36-37 MHz so maybe I received an IF signal from a nearby TV that was tuned to Channel 0. That would put the audio at around 87-88 MHz but not 100% sure if that’s how it works.
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I had a radio cassette player that was easy to overload by adding a bit of extra wire to the antenna. Then TVQ0 audio would come in at double the frequency and 7 and 9 would come in at half their frequencies. It was quite handy to be able to pick up TV audio. To listen to ABC you could tune in the audio from Channel 3 Darling Downs on 91.7.
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