It did
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Here’s an interesting Facebook post by 7AD, a Sunday schedule for both 7AD and 7BU from 1966
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As noted in the ABC topic “Today we marked 60 years of the ABC broadcasting in the Illawarra.”
I have the station that is now 2RN 1431 starting March 1959. So this is probably the anniversary being referred to?
Yes. It was known as 2WN before it moved to the FM band in 1991 as 97.3 ABC Illawarra, now ABC Illawarra.
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An previously on 1580 kHz
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It was 30 years ago today that NEW FM Newcastle first began test transmissions.
Full time transmissions commenced on Friday 21st April 1989 at 5pm.
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Also, NEW FM was the first commercial FM station in NSW outside of Sydney. This was followed by NOW FM in Moree in May 1990, Coast Rock FM (now Sea FM) on the Central Coast in September 1990 & Power FM in Nowra in October 1991.
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It was amazing it took until 1989 before going outside Sydney. I think we were a bit backwards from a radio point of view?
The first non-capital city commercial FM stations was Sea FM & 4GGG (converted from AM as 4GG) on the Gold Coast, which launched in March 1989. Prior to the Canberra commercial FM stations launching in February 1988, the only commercial FM stations were found in the 5 biggest cities.
Hobart didn’t get their first commercial FM station until July 1990 when TTT was launched, with 7HO converting to FM as HOFM only 4 months later. Darwin didn’t get their first commercial FM station until July 1991 with the launch of Hot 100FM.
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Interesting, a gas powered radio.
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Very appropriate given the air heads we get posing as DJs these days.
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The industry had a much different view of FM in the 70s and earlier. Didn’t see it as commercially useful and only for “specialist” stuff like classical music. So there was a lot of catching up to do in the 80s when they suddenly realised, as per the rest of the world, FM is not such a bad idea afterall.
The government putting TV services on the FM band (channels 3-5) didn’t help the development of FM either, particularly in regional areas
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Spot on; the AM commercial incumbents fought tooth and nail in the 70s (and 60s) to keep out FM. The eventual concession was to first open FM to public and community broadcasters as you mention.
FM broadcasting began experimentally in the 1930s but didn’t really take off until after WWII in the US. So, in actuality, the delay for Australian uptake was more like 40 years.
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On this day in 1937 7HT was officially opened in Hobart by Premier A G Ogilvie.
The company that held the license was Metropolitan Broadcasters Pty Ltd. The original members of the board were B A McCann (Chairman), Colonel Spencer (Secretary and Treasurer), Len McCann, Robert Morris, and F Peacock.
The original manager of 7HT was Richard C. Thomas, from the ABC and was known as “Taffy.”
The original announcers were: R C Thomas (Children’s Session and general), Ron Phyle (General and Studio Manager), Neta Chaston (Women’s Session and general), Jim Cross (“Early Bird” on the Breakfast Session), and Bill Barwick (Sporting Editor).
Copy was Neta Chaston, Schedules and Office was Elaine Ogilvie, Sales was Jim Cross and Bill Barwick, and Technical was Gil Miles (Chief Engineer), and Norm Stone (Technician).
Pat Stephenson joined two weeks later as the Record Librarian and woman announcer and within six months there came Ritch Vertigan, Jack Spencer, Jack Vertigan, and Wally Elliott.
The original transmission site was at Rosny Hill with the power of 500 watts. 7HT’s original studio was situated at 71 Murrary Street, which today is near the entrance to the Cat and Fiddle Arcade.
From the Hobart Mercury
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Here’s a 4.5-hour audio file recording I did on Vega 953’s launch day. The full recording is about 8 hours, but the first few hours of the file pre-launch hours is just nature sounds on a loop, so I’ve cut that out.
The launch is about 5 minutes in.
@dxnerd Archive.org link if direct link doesn’t work.
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This one is thanks to the Twitter account Footy Record Rewind - an ad for 4GGG covering the Brisbane Bears back in 1989
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Great find.
Shows the effort 4GGG were putting in to remain a station covering all facets of the Gold Coast.
Sadly, they were left behind by the more narrowly formatted Sea FM.
Later on, prior to 92 and Sea’s acquisition of GGG, they did get it together.
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Can anyone tell me the 2SM line up prior to its current one (with Goldman, Laws/Delaney, Talkin’ Sport, etc).
What did the station sound like and what caused the move for Goldman to Breakfast? Am I right in saying he did arvos or drive?
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A question on AFL coverage: when did 3AW and MMM begin relaying coverage form sister stations in Perth or Adelaide?
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And another one from the same account, this time featuring the 3GL football team
From April '89 - this must have been not long before they converted to FM and became K-Rock?
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