I’ve noticed that the Foodworks store here in Morningside,(my local) has Smooth DAB playing in store on a DAB radio
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Oh we’re in the same neighbourhood. Also Feast on Fruit at Morningside Central and Hawthorne Garage food store also has Smooth DAB. Also a number of CBD cafes I frequent.
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How are all of the AM stations in Brisbane going? Any off the air due to flooded transmitter sites?
Was listening to 4KQ this morning and the announcer said he was doing the program from home and the power is out there. He didn’t know how long the equipment would keep going. Wonder how the studios were being impacted.
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No AMs but 4MBS on FM is open carrier. 103.7
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Seems to be back on now
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Breeze 92.1 was having a link issue a couple of days ago. After the blank carrier they sent to a back up tape for some time.
I did note that the 4BC/4KQ site was potentially under water.
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You must live close to me then😊
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I’m in Wickham St off Richmond Rd 
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Maybe Foodworks have a deal with Smooth? I was traveling through Mt Isa and stopped at Foodworks about a month back and heard Smooth instore. They must stream it.
Also a cafe in Coonabarabran and a bottle shop in Orange had it on too.
Why would these businesses pick a non-local station to play instore?
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I’m just off Thynne Road,Belgrave Street,around the corner from the police station
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Speaking of Smooth, a couple of businesses in my area would play Smooth (via 95.3 Sydney which is a strong permanent signal across much of the area) as background music despite being outside of the Sydney License Area.
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I think a few Sydney stations signals are very strong. I have picked up Sydney stations in Newcastle before. Also in Lithgow.
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It was on the ABA Discussion Paper for Melbourne, Geelong & Colac way back in December 1999, a year before the 1st new commercial FM licence was put out for auction. At that point, it was already proposed that 3YYR would move from 100.3 to 94.7.
MelbourneGeelongColac_DSC_Dec1999.pdf (507.7 KB)
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I remember 3YYR being on 100.3 back in 1999 (my first trip to Melbourne) so yep, that timing sounds about right. I discovered Nova 100 by happenstance in late 2001; was not following media matters back then (even Nova 969 took me by surprise!)
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Agree, 56kw is HUGE for regional community radio.
That would have to be the highest for community radio outside of Sydney and Melbourne.
You have to wonder how they can afford it financially.
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It certainly is, a massive increase from the 800W they used to have. Their old TX was on top of Matthew Flinders Girls Secondary College on Myers Street, right at the top of the hill on the edge of the CBD, and used to cause havoc with weaker receivers driving past on Latrobe Terrace.
Interesting too that 96.3 was considered for a third commercial service, only to be commandeered by the godbotherers (who from memory had the frequency already as a TCBL). I’m sure all players involved at the time (including Bay and K-Rock) were happy with that outcome, but you’ve got to feel Geelong radio would be very different today if a third player had been introduced 20 years ago.
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Wonder what their reasoning was? It’s as true then as it is now that the market is underserved compared to similar sized markets - even ones which receive significant overlap from metro areas.
Funny that Grant recognised the reception of Melbourne stations to defend themselves against new local competition, but then use the Melbourne stations as being out of area to demand their coverage is limited on DAB.
Indeed, they even used digital as an excuse not to add stations, because of how redundant FM will soon be (in 1999!)
With the imminent introduction of digital radio technology and the consequential explosion of
radio services, there is even less reason to allocate any further frequencies in the Geelong
market. To make a capital investment in FM technology which will shortly become redundant
makes little economic sense.
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You need to change that statement to “that would have to be the highest for community radio.”
The highest powered community stations in Sydney are 50kW, Melbourne are lower than that.
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2FBI Sydney is licensed for 150kw but would appear to be operating at well below that.
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I don’t know why the licence says they are 150kW in the ACMA database, that’s what the commercials & nationals are & there’s no way they’d let a community station get anywhere near that.
There’s no way 2FBI’s transmitter & antenna could get anywhere near that either. TXA was wanting/hoping to get them to move to Artarmon, but BAI’s just (in the last 18 months), got them a new transmitter & they’ve re-signed (I think) their contract to stay at Gore Hill.
Had they moved to Artarmon, they wouldn’t have been any higher than 50kW, the same as Hope 103.2 & Koori, because that’s what I believe their actual licence is limited to, that one in the ACMA database is either an accidental typo or a deliberate typo.
The CoastFM 96.3 Gosford licence in the database says it’s DA, but the actual official paper copy at the studio says it’s omni-directional, we’ve also discussed a few times the 2KKO & 2GGO licence discrepancies (or seemingly so?) here in the past.
If you actually compare the 2FBI ERP levels on their ACMA database licence, you’ll find it’s identical to the commercial/national stations at Gore Hill (except at a different height on the tower), unfortunately 2FBI have no access the the antenna that the commercial/nationals use at Gore Hill, it’s a separate antenna, the commercial/nationals can use the 2FBI antenna in an extreme situation where the main & backup commercial/nationals antennas can’t be used, but 2FBI has to be off & the commercial/nationals have to be at significantly reduced power, as the antenna just can’t handle the higher powered commercial/nationals at full power.
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