Radio History

Yes 4TAB do Radio 10 and 4IP programming every Christmas. This year 4TAB-One (1008 and DAB) did Radio 10 and 4TAB-Two (DAB) did 4IP, including jingles and music from the 80s and 70s respectively.

I think even River 94.9 did a 4IP or Radio 10 tribute a couple of years ago too, but I’m not certain.

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Yes they did a “Back to 4IP” weekend that included some of the original DJs.

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Today’s radio in Melbourne, 16 July 1958:

Source: TV Week

  • 6 commercial stations plus 2 ABC stations, although 3AK shut down at 5.00pm.
  • 3XY the only one broadcasting 24 hours a day.
  • 3DB has the police drama D24, a predecessor to what later launched on TV as Homicide.
  • ABC’s long-running radio serial Blue Hills is broadcast twice a day on 3AR.
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3AW sounds like Talking Lifestyle there - with the Nestle, Dulux and then General Motors shows in a row.

What was the Meters number used for? Why not just the frequency?

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I’ve never really known why. I can only guess that it was an English custom that followed here because they used to show AM or Medium Wave radio stations as in “metres” and FM stations as “VHF”

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Possibly also because listeners would also have been used to listening to Short Wave with its bands.

And in England, Long Wave (LW) from 153 khz to 513 khz was also in use for radio stations along with Medium Wave, or AM as we call it.

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Yes even in 1997 when I first visited the UK my rental car had an AM/FM/LW radio. I listened to Atlantic 252 throughout Wales and Southern England. It was very popular with the locals in Wales! The station actually broadcast from Ireland.

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In 1994 I was in the UK and loved Atlantic 252!

I just read that it stopped broadcasting when commercial FM radio in the UK adopted a more top 40 music stance.

I can’t remember now but was long wave radio in stereo? Did we ever have long wave radio in Australia?

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Yes we did have Long Wave radio in Australia, but it was not used for mainstream broadcasting, but only for beacons located at airports. These beacons transmit the code of the location (in morse code).

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I’ve got a radio that tunes in to the Long Wave band, though I don’t know if it just doesn’t work right or there’s something like harmonics that explains it, but 153 and 169KHz have Classic Rock Radio and SEN respectively. They sound really clear.

There’s a few other stations - like racing radio and foreign language stuff that comes in around that area.

Given how cheap the radio was, it makes me just think the tuning is off. I could record a sample of tuning through if anyone’s interested.

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Yeah Atlantic 252 definitely had a more commercial top 40 sound than most of the commercial FM stations in the UK at the time - not that there were that many in the 90s. They also sounded quite different to Radio 1. The other station that I loved in the UK in the 90s was the original Virgin 1214 which was pretty much nationwide on a few AM frequencies. They played kind of softer classic rock with a heavy British slant. As for Atlantic 252 I’m not sure if they were stereo but I remember the signal could get a bit of fade out at times, but overall not bad.

The UK had a bit of history with LW as I think Radio Luxembourg used to broadcast to England on LW in addition to AM. Of course this was back in the 70s I think but it was apparently very popular in London before the rise of Radio 1

As well as some harmonics on LW from MW, I’m picking up four airport signals. The strongest is Amberley with recorded tower and weather info on 360 kHz

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Yes, in the 1920’s.

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Here’s a 2MMM aircheck from 1982:

link because the embedding doesnt seem to be working

Thanks for posting the link. In 2017 it’s hard to believe that 2MMM once focused on playing music. It’s also hard to believe that Triple M had announcers with good diction and a knowledge of the music.

It was calm, cool professional radio.

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I know exactly what you mean. It’s one of the reasons I stream Absolute Radio from the UK. They still sound cool and professional, and focus on the music. Although a different music genre I think it’s also a factor in Smooth FM’s success.

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From the same uploader, a really good quality long version of the Dr Dan theme - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1Vh-mu6xEE

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I think you should sample Radio Caroline; it’s album rock with laid back announcers, essentially like well-done Australian community radio in style. It’s more adventurous than Absolute Radio- they are the only station that I’ve come across that plays album tracks from the Alan Parsons Project, for example.

(No, I’m not a rep for the station).

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