I like SWR FM too, but I am a bit too far from Sydney to get it clearly on 99.9.
My three choices aren’t particularly exciting
- WSFM
- Triple M
- 2GO
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SWR is average here , I am in the HHH license area. But the radio on top of the fridge can get it and also the shower radio 
haha. HHH coverage is average but I get reasonable reception considering how close I am to the transmitter at Waitara. They need to move the transmitter to on top of one of those apartment blocks in Hornsby. Come to think of it, better not might affect my swr reception 
.
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I am on a hill south of Newcastle, I get fairly weak reception of HHH, but it’s still better than SWR’s.
The Sydney suburban community stations that I receive best are 88.7 Radio Northern Beaches from Bilgola Plateau and 89.9 Hawkesbury Radio (but not Hawkesbury Gold or WHCR as they use a different transmitter).
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How are the community radio shows in Newcastle like LakeMacq FM? Do they have some good music shows? I don’t get great reception of Radio Northern Beaches.
The only terrestrial radio programme which I regularly listen to at home is SWR’s Inphase on Saturday morning. Other than that it’s online radio when at home.
In the car, it depends on what I’m in the mood for. Most commonly SWR FM, 2DAY FM, or 2CH when around Sydney.
They’re ok, but I don’t listen to a lot of community radio.
My favorite would probably be “Soundtrack Of The 80s” on Coast FM 96.3 at the somewhat inconvenient time of 12-2pm Saturdays. They have played some WOW songs that you wouldn’t hear anywhere else except maybe SWR FM.
Hows Bay FM from where you are on 88.0 ? I tried to listen online the audio quality not the best… I am a little fussy with audio quality with online streams. .
I don’t get Bay FM where I am. Its solely RAW FM on 88.0 here since my line of sight to the north is severely restricted.
Even Oldies FM 87.8, whose transmitter is about 3km north of me, suffers from interference from another RAW FM TX in some parts of my flat.
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So that one has gone to 88.0. It put out a good signal when it was on 99.3, but now it has to compete with all the others on 88.0. There’s also another interesting LPON up at Port Stephens called Riot FM, which plays heavy metal and hard rock music- an unusual format in Australia.
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According to the final FYSO 2018-22, ACMA is set to develop and consult on the potential for re-planning analog radio services in Perth, following the clearance of Band II TV in Bunbury, which would take place in Q2 2018-19 (ie. Oct-Dec this year).
It’s kind of a shame that it wouldn’t involve the AM-FM conversion of Spirit & Triple M in Bunbury, as that market isn’t eligible for the AM-FM conversion program that is currently underway for solus regional markets, which includes Mandurah, where 6MM will soon convert to FM as The Wave.
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I wish the Newcastle / Central Coast was on the list for re-planning. The FM dial is a mess here.
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And South East Queensland!
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Realistically it won’t happen but along with South East Queensland (as @Brianc68 pointed out), I personally think the entire Newcastle/Central Coast/Sydney/Wollongong & surrounds region could do with a restack. Especially if the proposal for ABC Local Radio on FM in metro markets goes ahead, because I can see a point in the future where commercial AM stations in metro markets will express a desire to be on the FM band (despite their presence on DAB+, not everyone can get those stations in their cars…at least at the moment anyway) due to deteriorating AM reception and also because there’s generally less new receivers on the market that can pick up AM radio these days.
In this part of the world, suburban community stations are scattered all over the place from 88.1 to 100.9 while there’s also been problems trying to find a decent spot for temporary broadcasts on FM (107.9 really shouldn’t be regularly used in Sydney with the presence of Move FM Lithgow) even though IMO, they probably should only be on DAB+ in this day and age but that’s another story.
Even allocation of the major stations are all over the place - you’d think it’d be more logical to try and split the FM band for major markets in blocks…perhaps something like narrowcasts (87.6-88.0), suburban community, metro-wide community, national/public broadcasters, commercial stations in that order.
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Same in Melbourne. It also needs a restack badly.
They could easily find some more high powered station frequencies if they did.
Seems to work just fine in other parts of the world!
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Completely agree. Look how many FMs they fit in other congested areas like Southern California for example.
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Would this mean community radio stations like north side radio/ SWR would no longer get the coverage like today? (Assuming the restack happened).
The NSW ISP Grand final between the Jets and Bulldogs is getting wide coverage this arvo being independently called on the following stations/organisations;
2GB (and 2ST/2LT)
SWR (FM and SWR Sport 1)
Alive905
Triple H Hornsby
Hawkesbury Radio Sport (online only)
Steelesports (online only)
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The latest Sydney Music Radio Crossovers report has been released: https://www.radioinfo.com.au/news/nova-and-kiis-share-more-one-third-their-music-aircheck-report
The report reveals that:
- 2Day & WS share 11.5% of its playlist, with the former playing more unique tracks than the latter (58% vs 30.5%).
- Nova & 2Day share 23.7% of its playlist, with the latter playing far more unique tracks than the former (11.2% vs 65.1%).
- KIIS & Nova share 33.4% of its playlist, with the former playing more unique tracks than the latter (48.4% vs 18.2%).
- Smooth & WS share 19.8% of its playlist, with the former playing more unique tracks than the latter (42.9% vs 37.3%).
The above findings prove that a lot of Nova’s music playlist is derived from 2Day & KIIS, in which they play far fewer unique tracks than the other two Hot AC stations.
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Random…
Football coverage on commercial FM Radio.
I recall in the early 90s, NEW FM Newcastle claimed that it was the first commercial FM radio station to call football, when Leigh Maughan commentated on the Newcastle Knights rugby league matches.
QFM Ipswich also claimed something similar, but I THINK that theirs was a relay of the 2UE coverage?
Which also made me wonder as to when Triple M Melbourne started calling AFL games… Does anyone know when they started doing that?
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