Agree. Their website reflects their approach: confused, tying themselves in knots and definitely a lack of leadership. FM conversion, digital radio; need I go on.
Midwest Radio weâre having more problems with their feeds to transmitters today.
The falling snow over Mt Lambie (snowfade) was causing the STL to drop out between Lithgow and Mt Lambie. Each time a heavy snow shower passed over the mountain the feed would start cutting in and out.
It was not as bad as on other occasions when I have been in the area snow chasing, when the feed had completely failed. The Katoomba translators were unaffected.
Itâs a wonder how they deal with it in the Snowy Mountains. Mount Roberts, the parent site, receives plenty of snow, not to mention Thredbo and Perisher of course.
I donât recall there ever being any snow fade on the Snow Fm STL.
As far as I know there are two STLâs from the studio at Jindabyne. 94.7 Snow fm to Jinderboine Hill to the tower for broadcast, and 97.7 Snow fm which goes studio to Jinderboine Hill, and then to Mt Roberts. The Translators are feed off air from Jindabyne or Mt Roberts.
In the Central tablelands I have not noticed any snow fade on the Orange commercials or nationals, or the Bathurst fm stations at Mt Ovens which is at a similar height to Mt Lambie. Could the Move Fm STL not be engineered as well as itâs competitors?
Love that you were in the area snow chasing and checking out local media. Great food and drink in the vicinity too, be it Oberon, Lithgow or other surprising spots.
Is the STL in Lithgow analogue or digital?
Normally go to Sunny Corner for snow chases, but only made it as far as Lithgow yesterday. Would not know what type of STL they use, but they seem to be the only station that has problems with their link when there is heavy snow.
From what I heard the snow was quite heavy again today, but I could not receive 107.9 in Sydney due to the TCL.
Is it still sunny there when youâre chasing snow? 
No should be renamed snowy corner!!
Shooters Hill is generally snowier than Sunny Corner- 1350 m vs 1250 m and a little further south makes a big difference when conditions are marginal. You take Shooters Hill Road and drive up to the tower which is located off Riverview Road. Yesterday and today it would have been impassable there, though. Oberon itself (1100 m) looked great this morning.
A bloke I used to converse with on the weather forums lives at Sunny Corner and heâs continually frustrated by the diminishing snow there. Most cold changes simply do not make it this far north anymore.
There was one day about five years ago where Mount Ovens was blanketed in rime ice; would have been hazardous for anyone in the vicinity of the B-Rock stick.
It would be one of the most impressive for commercial radio beyond a capital city.
Sydneyâs AM commercial sites, now consolidated further at Homebush are quite impressive.
AWAâs investment at Mount Cottrell is also another great legacy, giving us the improved coverage of 3AW on AM 693.
Is that why when tuning into 107.9 the sound is all over the shop, but this audio issue for Move happens way to many times even when its not snowing, I remember logging it often when I was living in the mountains.
Thatâs all very interesting indeed. If the STL was a GHz link Iâd say yes quite possible/probable, but itâs a 900MHz link, so the likelihood of snow-fade is possible, but very low.
Also following the STL links, 900kHz 2LT is fed via the same STL, Studio to Reservoir Hill to Mt Lambie to Wallerawang AM TX site, so if the STL between Studio & Mt Lambie 2ICE was dropping due to snow fade, then 2LT AM shouldâve also been affected/off, unless the microwave is a backup link & 2LT AM is still fed via landline?
I also canât find any microwave STL licences to Wentworth Falls, so the translators must be fed via landline, hence why they werenât affected.
I canât see a good enough picture on google maps, but Iâm wondering if itâs more a case of the transmit antennas on the tower at Mt Lambie are not covered with Radomes & snow & ice on the antenna is causing some SWR issues. The location itâs in is not unexpected to see snow, so I wouldâve thought Radomes on the antennas would be a given, but who knows?
What I have found is the signal is very strong on the car radio, being in the centre of Lithgow. But all of a sudden the audio would break up like digital radio breaking up. In the worse cases it would completely drop out and then all of a sudden come back on again. The whole time the broadcast signal was strong, and stereo pilot light was on.
This leads me to believe it is the feed to Mt Lambie that is being interrupted, I have no experience in RF or broadcasting just stuff I have picked up from being on this forums.
This looks how Move Fm is feed from Studio to Mt Lambie.
Link 1.
Transmitting
- Studio at 289 Main Street Lithgow
Frequency 848.2mhz
EIRP 25.1 W
Receiving
2. Reservoir Hill Lithgow
Frequency 848.2mhz
Link 2.
Transmitting
Reservoir Hill
Frequency 846.6mhz
Receiving
Mt Lambie
Frequency 846.6mhz
OK, not knowing exactly how their audio chain is set up, but knowing how itâs mostly done, especially by regional stations is, they would be sending MPX to the TX over the STL, the MPX is generated at the studio & includes the mono, stereo, pilot & sometimes RDS information.
If the STL drops out, the TX would still be at full strength, but the pilot would drop off & any backup tape audio would only be mono.
This sounds like it was actually something at the studio?
It sounds like the MPX was sill being sent over the STL & received OK at the TX site, with the TX still transmitting full power & stereo pilot, but no audio available (mono or stereo)?
Was it local programming, or something networked from somewhere else, because I know in the past theyâve had issues with snow on the satellite dish blocking reception at the studio?
Chances are, depending on the setup, itâs possible that no audio, but still receiving the MPX with the pilot into the TX wouldnât bring on the backup tape, & this is maybe whatâs been happening?
Then thereâs a third STL hop from Mt Lambie to Wallerawang for 2LT AM.
It was local programming when this was happening, and it did not activate the back up tape.
It was very mild this time around with the occasional breakup. On a previous snow chase It was more off with it occasionally cutting in.
The Edge 96.1 had a similar issue years ago when a severe east coast low dropped 200mn in on Sydney. They suffered from rain fade on their links too.
Get your self a cheap SDR dongle, and have a look at the MPX FFT spectrum. See what happens when the signal drops out. What happens with the stereo pilot?
Not surprising, the old 96.1 STL was a 900MHz one, but it went from the TXA Artarmon site to Wentworth Falls, so itâs quite a distance.
SCA did have rain fade issues with their STLâs to Gore Hill & Artarmon from World Square earlier this year, during extremely heavy rain, but they are GHz STLâs so itâs not unexpected.