Random Radio

I’m hearing that following the passing of the Duke of Edinburgh, a moratorium will be placed on playing “Cars” by Gary Numan.

3 Likes

Or the Cars, Drive

Is it just me? I really find the radio app ad annoying. Being in love with the radio and cannot leave.

1 Like

I know this goes back a couple of weeks, but I’m just going back over some posts, & noted no ones answered this?

ERP, is an estimated level of power, made up of transmitter power out, feed line losses, combiner/filter losses, & antenna gain or sometimes loss.
This will give you an Estimated Radiation Power level in watts & for FM all the variables means it could be anything.
It is a theoretical calculated figure that can only be roughly measured & converted to dB.

On the other hand, with AM, you’ll have transmitter power out, some loses in feed lines & combiner (if used), & the the mast is roughly a 1:1 gain.

AM uses transmit power out as a said transmit power, but CMF or Cymomotive Force is a vector & an actual exacting measurable figure.
Under ACMA specs it’s measured in mV/m at a distance of 1km from the transmitter (mast/antenna), far enough away for the reactive components of the field to be sufficiently negligible.

To generalize, FM is an estimated power out, & AM is transmit power out given the antenna has no gain, but that is more or less meaningless for AM given the power depends on the level of modulation.

A 5kW AM transmitter at 100% modulation will be around 5kW out, but at 0% modulation (dead air) will be much less, & as AM is modulated by the Amplitude of the input, the power out changes constantly as music is played or speech is spoken & the amplitude of the input varies almost infinitely with the dynamic range of the program.

Brandon could probably answer the AM more clearly as he has more AM experience than me.

3 Likes

Thanks RFBurns.

2 Likes

Yes, thanks @RFBurns.

Now onto the Golden Guitar awards:

What stations actually play the award winners? The top of the Australian country music industry?

2TM no longer runs country in the awards’ home town.

MMM Country seems to be obsessed with the bro-country genre and with minimal budget (ie. run off a screen in David Burton’s office in Toowoomba), no feature of the awards.

ABC Country and Saturday Night Country play a passing interest.

Where are the stations and country shows that play the winners as part of their playlist on a regular basis?

Seems to be a great divide from country music consumption and radio listening.

Doesn’t KIX do something?

Ironically 4KQ probably give a bigger nod to the awards with Laurel Edwards always attending (with husband Troy Casser Daly) and doing live crosses and interviews during the breakfast show.

1 Like

Good point @Brianc68

Don’t know, it’s a narrowcaster and digital radio offering available in a few areas.

1 Like

KIX was live from Tamworth throughout the whole event

4 Likes

A good spot to check 2LT fm is at the castle hill heritage park. Its in full stereo. I forgot to check 2bs. Next time. It is a good spot to wipe hhh reception. SWR fm is pretty good, and of course alive fm. You can go further up the hill to get even better reception but the park is nice area to walk around and kids can play.

2 Likes

For some time now, Eagle FM Goulburn has been running this somewhat old fashioned sweeper at night:

“Eagle FM is up all night”
(presumably referring to being on air 24 hours a day).

Now of course EVERY commercial radio station is on air 24 hours a day, and has been since probably the 1970s? So nothing unique there.

I can’t remember the last time I heard a commercial station promo advertising them being on air 24 hours a day.

But I do think it’s kind of nostalgic / unique (and even cute) that Eagle FM is doing this.

3 Likes

The latest Sydney music radio crossover has been released by Aircheck: https://www.radioinfo.com.au/news/nova-and-kiis-sydney-share-quarter-playlist-aircheck

Both KIIS & Nova shared more than a quarter of their playlist, whilst WS & Smooth, as well as Nova & 2Day, shared just under a quarter of their playlist. Of the SCA stations, 2MMM are more likely to play the same tracks that WS plays than 2Day would.

2 Likes

I often drive through the licence area after sunset, that promo has been running untouched for years, I reckon at least 15 years.

Unsure what they’re getting at, I think it’s their lame attempt at a promo gone wrong.

2 Likes

The old Kiss FM Lithgow used to run the following sweeper during overnight automation:

“At Kiss FM, we’ve lost our jocks!”

3 Likes

ONE FM 96.1 Blue Mountains used to title their overnight shift as “Fred Automan”.

1 Like

I think a restack of the fm band might be inevitable. A lot has changed since the first fm radio stations were put on air, am radio was king now not so much, analog tv gone, digital tuners (not dab) are now more the norm, etc . Why was, in Australia, the fm bandplan is restricted to odd numbers (with some exceptions) ? And do you think the rule could change if or when a reorg of the fm band is performed? It not like receivers have issues tuning in.

3 Likes

Do you really think stations (particularly major ones) will really want to give up the prized frequencies they’ve held for decades and in many cases, since they started transmission?

Personally I think it’d make quite a lot of sense to restack the FM band though, perhaps with different sections of the FM band for different stations: Narrowcast, Suburban/Sub-Regional Community, Metro/Region-Wide Community, Public/National, Commercial in that order.

That’s how it works in the US and Canada. And possibly other countries. And in those countries there are no exceptions with off frequency stations.

A restack is necessary. But keep the bandplan as is.

2 Likes