I should dig into my storage boxes and find out what stations were stereo, and which ones weren’t. I know the ABA Stations list publications from the 1990s (which I have copies of) had a column for whether a radio or TV station was Mono or Stereo.
Anyway, our local ABC Radio on 91.9 remains monoaural to this day. And from memory both ABEV-1 and BCV-8 were always mono too.
ABC Local Radio in the Gold Coast was and is on 91.7 MHz, so perhaps you picked up that station? In the early 90’s and even into the late 980’s It used to play music most of the day and had DJs like Don Lun, unlike ABC Local Radio in Brisbane and pretty much everywhere else. The music included a few mainstream songs on the more adult oriented end and other songs that I didn’t know, a bit like Double J today.
91.1? And isn’t that absurd. Is the pilot tone on? If it is, they’re killing the extra range that they could get if it was broadcasting in mono only without the receiver having to decode the non-existent stereo program.
Yes, it would be great if music could be heard in stereo, as Local Radio does play some good tunes.
AFAIK, only Gold Coast and Wollongong does proper stereo for Local Radio, not sure about Sunshine Coast?
We’ve spoken about this adult album alternative (Triple A) format that Coast FM had on a couple of occasions. Double J is pretty far removed from it imo. The previous incarnation of Double J, ABC Dig Music, was based on it. Triple A is mostly alternative soft rock/singer songwriter music at its core; Double J plays too much hip hop and dance to be considered AAA.
If you want a good Dig Music/ABC Coast FM type station, the closest I’ve found is Radio Paradise. Although based in the US, they play a surprising amount of world music, including artists from Australia like The Waifs. There is a bit of mainstream rock music in there as well.
From what I’ve noticed during DXing and travelling, 91.1 always seems to come in first followed by Classic 92.7 and Triple J 90.3, which suggests 91.1 is a true mono transmission and not a stereo without a pilot signal.
Yeah, I never recall a stereo pilot on 91.1 Bendigo. 100.7 Gippsland did have one, not sure if it still does.
A lot of NSW ABC Local Radio regionals did have one, but I think (apart from Wollongong) only 92.3 Coffs still does.
I think 2ABCRN 100.9 Bega/Cooma and 3PNN Shepparton 107.7 both also had stereo pilots, up until fairly recently at least.
Yes, 91.1 ABC Central Vic is mono.
And yet 107.9 ABC Ballarat and 97.7 Goulburn Valley are apparently Stereo. I must check and report back…
I reckon some FM104 stuff would sell a lot better!
I remember hearing the overnight triple j broadcasts on ABC Canberra, Newcastle (the frequency I heard it on) and Wollongong in the mid-80s, with triple j’s format back then were a breath of fresh air compared our local “hits and memories” country AM stations.
A lot of people had Triple M backpacks,don’t see them so much anymore
Nah. 4BK would.
I had one as a kid from the (overpriced) Triple M showbag at the Royal Easter Show. No doubt they would have been at Ekka as well.
(I’d like to use the Tardis to go back to the 80s Ekkas, though, where FM104 merch would have been available). But then again, you could have just hit up the FM104 shop in the CBD! It’s still amazing to me that FM104 had a shopfront in the Brisbane CBD- that gives you some idea of the cachet and street cred that it had back then.
I probably saw FM104 stuff at Expo '88. Being just under 2 years old at the time, I can’t remember anything specifically from that trip, but it’s very likely that FM104 may have been planted in my subconscious then. Such is the power of marketing!
Do you have any sources for the naming competition (outside of Wikipedia of course)?
Hi everyone,
Great news! My new site is finally up and running. Looking at launching officially soon. I’ve got an audio clip up as a test and while I sort things through and get everything in place, but finally its happening again.
franksterarchives.com - in test mode for the moment so just bookmark it and i’ll let you of the launch date. The theme of the site is “Keeping it real. Keeping it simple.” which is the aim of it. It may look bare bones so far, but it’s keeping it simple.
I knew someone who worked at the FM104 shop in the city, and believe me it was a very coveted place to work! It was the ultimate cool retail job.
FM104 had a broadcasting presence at Expo 88 also and if memory serves me correctly you could go and record yourself singing in a studio there lol.
One bit of radio merch you never see any more are those long customised “rocks” bumper stickers:
“101.9 FOX FM rocks Nunawading” (or whichever suburb you’re from).
I recall seeing them for 3FOX and 3MMM back in the day. So many people had them on their cars.
