The PKE system were rather unique but cutting edge for the time… they did have some issues where they would get confused and start playing playing all sorts of random audio but as I said… very early days of 386 PC’s and very large scuzzy drives so it was pretty cutting edge and hey it worked and PKE was just up the road for support. The STORE1000 / STOREMAX (2nd generation) as I said was the commercial / hard drive based audio system built for Ouija, the stand-alone commercial playout STORE series was installed at GWN, also 4BU / Hitz had it and then there was the full blown Ouija studio systems at 6GGG Geraldton, 3TTFM, 3SR / Sun FM, Coast Rock and QFM Ipswich.
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John Fordham, father of Ben Fordham, brother of already deceased David Fordham has died on Sunday morning.
Talent manager to many radio personalities, John Laws and Stan Zemanek being two of them. Quite a few of the stable of the roster within thr Lamb family era at 2UE were clients of his. So was Kerri Anne Kennerley when she moved to Sydney.
Ever the lover of red wine in copious quantities, John enjoyed life to the full, fortunate to be able to indulge in what he enjoyed.
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It was 30 years😳 ago November 11 or 12th ,1989 when 4IP went back to their original callsign after about 7-8 years of various call signs,Radio/Stereo 10,Lite and Easy 1008 etc.This was until late 1991 when the station was bought by the TAB and became 4TAB in December 1991.Back then their ratings were abysmal,about 3% of listeners.They had a mainly pop music format from memory
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So true. I had that sticker on my yellow Ford Laser that I owned back then
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Transpose the ‘S’ to the front of the last word and you’d have a pretty accurate description of commercial music radio today…
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Pop music was much better back in 1989😕
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In Competition with FM Radio, Similar to what 2CH is doing in Sydney Right Now barely getting around the 4% mark.
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Back in late 1989 FM 104/ Triple M were still the only commercial Fm station in Brisbane and were rating over 30%,The launch of B105 was in early 1990 .4IP were already on life support ratings wise at this time
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REM wrote a song about it:
So much optimism generally back then, fall of the Wall and all that. Count yourself lucky you got to live through the Glory Of The 80s.
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So true. Glad I didn’t miss the 80s.
It all started going downhill at the exact moment in 1988 when Yazz and the Plastic Population sang The Only Way Is Up. One of history’s great turning points 
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The song was actually released in 1988. It entered the Australian Top 50 charts in early October & reached #2 by the end of that month. In the UK, it was #1 for 5 weeks throughout August & early September that year.
Sources: australian-charts.com & Official Charts (UK)
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For me it was songs like “Pump Up The Jam” (Technotronic) from 1989/1990 onwards.
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I forgot to mention that QFM from Ipswich also launched in early 1990.They were on the 106.9 frequency that is today used by Nova Brisbane.From memory they could be received in most of Brisbane
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Yes correct. Didn’t QFM beat B105 to air by a couple of days/weeks? Anyway it was close. Maybe the test transmissions started first with QFM. I also remember B105 had some initial glitches and were on lower power initially.
106.9 had great reach into Brisbane. When they launched I was living in Camp Hill in Brisbane’s south east and I remember getting a flyer in the mail from them! They also had a couple of billboards up, one on Shafston Avenue in Kangaroo Point.
You know when they moved to 94.9 it was supposedly to improve reception but to be honest I recall better reception in the car at least on 106.9 through the southern and eastern suburbs. 94.9 came in “louder” but I reckon it can be patchier and scratchier. 106.9 seemed more consistent. I’m sure people will dispute this but it’s definitely my recollection.
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From memory, I think QFM launched a day before B105
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Yes QFM went to air 25 Feb 1990 a day before B105
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An aircheck from 3GG Warragul in November 1989, less than a week after it changed over from 3UL.
Credit: ‘The Radio Vault’
This would be what a sole commercial station in a regional market would sound like back in the day. That said, it would’ve had a bit of competition with 3TR (now Gold 1242) in the Latrobe Valley.
The station was later bought by RG Capital in 2000 (in which it launched its S39 station, Sea FM in 2002, later rebranded to Star FM in 2005, now Hit 94.3) before it & DMG Regional Radio was bought by Macquarie Bank to form the Macquarie Regional Radioworks (MRR) in 2004.
3GG was then sold to Resonate in 2007 (MRR, later SCA, kept Star FM/Hit), and then to Capital Radio Network in 2015, in which it’s now a “Forever Classic” station.
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Excellent audio, thanks for sharing. And didn’t it sound glorious in stereo!
While I never experienced it in stereo in the day, 3GG certainly served a valuable market in that area. From my memory it skewed a little older when compared to its more modern-sounding neighbour in 3TR, but in many parts of west Gippsland it was the only music station that offered reliable reception - Melbourne FMs dropped out not too far past Pakenham and 3TR didn’t really become strong until you’d got through Moe. I spent many a day on a car/train trip to Gippsland listening to them (largely in lieu of a better option I must admit), especially before Sea FM launched in the 2000s
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Yes, Warragul with the positioning of neighbouring FM TXs meant that they could employ a null to limit the signals meant that it was afforded limited choice really… 3UL/3GG and perhaps not much else.
Melbourne AM stations might have been okay there, particularly 3MP being on the east side of Melbourne at Rowville.
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