Unfortunately Wentworth Falls is in a dead spot for Mt Lambie. When I looked at it through the Nautel coverage tool. Even if you cranked up the ERP at Mt Lambie to a ridiculously high level you would still be struggling to get a rural grade off air signal at the rebroadcast site, and the overspill into Sydney would be significant. Basically it is microwave or the current setup.
If the rebroadcast tower was at Mt Tomah instead you would be able to get an off air signal feed for rebroadcast.
Iām listening to @TheChaseās SDR now, & no I donāt think thatās interference, Iām guessing the occasional static in it is your reception & not actually in the audio.
It sounds like itās too slow a release on something, either a gate or the AGC? Both gating & the AGC is normally across multiple bands, that sounds like the entire audio is being crushed though? As I listen longer, if it is a gating issue, then the gate threshold has been set too high. Iād have to put a level meter on it & see if the audio drops at the same level all the time, itās too hard to tell just listening, but it doesnāt sound consistent enough to be a gating issue with the threshold set too high?
Is everyone sure that itās not like that on 107.9, only Wentworth Falls?
The tech is adamant he hasnāt changed any limiting/gating at the TX site recently, itās possibly the limiter has gone faulty, as if he hasnāt changed anything recently, itās been like this for years, limiting/gating doesnāt just change overnight by itself.
The tech was at Lithgow when I rang today on his way out to Orange to look at a transmitter, donāt think he was at the 2LT studio though. Iāll get back on to him in the next few days to check it out, thereās definitely a problem thatās not interference.
This is what LT/Move repeaters use for processing. First process is a wide band expander. That would be causing the issue if the input level is too low. Iād say someone at the studio hasnāt put the fader all the way up.
Itās not adjacent channel I/F which is a seperate issue again. Unfortunately yes there are some noisy neighbours (overmodders) in that part of the band.
Thanks @matt86 that explains everything, Solidyne stuff is absolute crap, Iāve used it before & had nothing but trouble, was always repairing it, that processor will probably have had a part fail or be failing in it.
Techās have their favourite brands of equipment (so do I), this tech likes Solidyne stuff, he uses it on multiple stations, across multiple sites, probably gets it cheap for stations that canāt afford better or donāt want to spend on better, heās always repairing Solidyne stuff though, keeps him in a job I guess.
It couldāve been what matt86 says, that someone in the studio hasnāt put the fader all the way up, but before I go back to the tech, this has been happening for a while hasnāt it, fader not being pushed far enough up in the studio might happen 1 or 2 times occasionally, but if itās a regular thing the person in question needs to be told how to operate the panel properly.
Does it occur across all programming, local live/pre-recorded & networked or just at a particular time of day?
Itās definitely not adjacent channel interference, I was listening in the car under the tower at work this morning, a stones throw from the Chatswood 99.3 TX site, surprisingly the 99.5 signal was reasonable (noisy stereo).
Before I go back to the tech & get him to look at the processor I need to know how regularly this happens, as per question above, all the time or only during certain times of the day/programming?
If you think itās studio operator fail, ring the station, otherwise Iāll ring the tech & get him to look into it more & fix.
Itās a continuous problem across the whole day and has been going for about 2+ months, itās worse when network programming is on air as that comes in at a lower volume.
Itās possible the output from the studio to the feed that feeds 99.5 is turned down, I know the audio outputs for 107.9 and 99.5 are different as 107.9 has a bug in its audio every now and then the audio for a song will be to loud and blurred but this doesnāt affect 99.5.
Also a side point, I donāt know why the tech hasnāt listened to the audio of the transmitters he works on, if I was looking after the transmitter I would constantly be listening to the output every couple of days when possible to make sure everything is sounding as it should.
Theyāre not the only transmitters he looks after, he has many across NSW, mostly West of the Great Dividing Range, so canāt listen to all of them regularly, he has to trust monitoring alarms & locals letting them know of issues.
Like all the Radio, DAB & DTV transmitters I look after, I canāt listen to or watch all of them, even occasionally, for example unless I take a TV down to the Woronora river & sit watching it, thereās no way I can monitor that site other than on site alarms & locals ring up saying their TV isnāt working.
But it is surprising none of the local listeners not having reported the issue to the station (or is it?)
I too noted the problem yesterday across both music programming & national news feed.
Great description of how broadcasting now works - as regional areas have been de-staffed over the years, techs are more reliant on carrier and program fail alarms than ever before. One of the few good things about AM from a techās standpoint is you can often hear it at night. Sadly for FMās and TV itās sometimes a thousand miles of bitumen to a hill where you can pick it up from your car. First-ins are your savour in those situations if you have one for a particular site. In a lot of places the retired Telstra techs and ham radio people that made good first-ins have died or moved out of the town leaving a void.
I donāt think there are many local listeners to these translators, a few years ago when there was frequent severe storms, the Wentworth Falls transmitters were off air for extended periods of time. The station was not aware of it until I called, no one else rang up, and they then deployed the tech. Things may have changed since.
The Blue Mountains has an oversupply of receivable radio stations, and you can receive a stronger and better sounding signal from Sydney, Illawarra and the Central Coast.
2LT may get some listeners to Hadley in the Blue Mountains as 101.1 is stronger and clearer then 873, which is quite weak in the Upper Mountains.
I have heard Smooth fm, Cada, KIIS on shop radios in Katoomba / Lerua, and even Brock on a radio in the Victory in Blackheath.
There is probably more dxers listening to 2LT / Move fm translators then the general public.
Iāve spoken to the Move FM tech again, sorry guys not getting very far with it, he said he listens fairly regularly to the 101.1 service, but not so much to the 99.5 service, but he does listen.
He said when heās been listening, the audio processing sounds fine, but heāll keep listening.
The STL heās using for both stations at the moment is an NBN connection with 4G failover backup & because of this, heās using 24k MPEG2 CODECS.
He said he has a lot of AGC working on the network, but will check it next time heās at Lithgow.
If anyone can give me a file of the audio playing up that I can email to him would probably be helpful right now.
Doesnāt have to be very long, 30-45 seconds & can be multiple edited parts of audio program, doesnāt have to be one block, hoping for the audio to go low, but donāt edit it to sound like youāre creating the problem. In mp3 is fine, weāre not looking at the quality of audio at this point, only the volume changes, post it here & Iāll download if you want or message it to me.
Mpeg 2 @ 24k , lucky to get any intelligible audio at all but I guess you have to work with the bandwidth you have. @RFBurns That solidyne processor is analogue apparently so yes could be a bung unit, might have dry caps by now. Could even be an agc at the studio end too who knows. Looks like the codecs are Solidyne too (ADA102) or very similar.
Isnāt the tech contracted? Wouldnāt be his responsibility to monitor, would be up to LT/Move to call for service when thereās an issue.
Nine radio has been distributing the ftp news bulletin at very low levels lately so thatās when youāre likely to catch it.
No wonder it sounds so shit,
is their 4G data connection at Wentworth Falls that poor that it requires such low bit rate? There are mobile antennas on the tower, so they should be able to get maximum 4G data speed at the site. I am on Vodafone, and can easily stream BBC R1 through the BBC Sounds Ap when driving past the tower with quality just as good if not better than a good fm broadcast. Surely they can up the bandwidth in the rare case that there is an NBN outage?
Also compounding the problem is that the signals donāt get into Lithgow. If they donāt have monitoring, very few listeners, and their tech happens to be out of range, they could be off air for quite some time.
This happened a few years ago when a thunderstorm took Wentworth falls off air. I rang them up and brought it to their attention, I was affectively their monitoring / alarm system.
Which is a decision for Midwest Radio as due to the pressure by CRA on ACMA, the poor coverage of translators at Wentworth Falls negate the benefit of marketing the translator frequencies as theyāre next to useless.
I donāt know if Mid West Radio have listener figures for these translators, but they seem to be more hassle then what they are worth. Mid West radio wonāt turn them off due to extended
coverage to the fringes of Sydney.
I agree if the signal and quality degrades further you will probably find there to be less Blue Mountains ads on Move / 2LT, and they may eventually drop advertising the Blue Mountains frequencies. IMO they would only shut them down and hand back the licence if the costs of maintaining the services become excessive, or a threat to ACMA if they continue to push for power reductions.
Mid West Radio werenāt happy with the specs for 107.9 Move fm (power restrictions to the west) the massive restrictions to the east for the Wentworth Falls translators, and I believe the 2LT fm conversion has stalled due to unfavorably power restrictions too.
In relation to CRA it seems they protect their big members from the little guys.
look how Rebel Media gets treated, and not allowing them on the Gold Coast dab+ multiplexes.
There has been nothing released by ACMA. If I remember correctly it has been put on hold due to both parties being unable to come to agreement on the proposed specs for the 2LT conversion.
Maybe ACMA gave them worse specs then what they have for 107.9 Move fm ? If so they would be consistent with all the other fm conversions taking place.
I havenāt tested out 2ST 91.7 FM ( extensively) but it doesnāt have the same reach as Power FM (94.9 fm) but it is a different situation (2ST has more repeaters). I am not sure 2EC 94.5 FM at Bega has the same spec as Power FM 102.5 FM.
The theory it should be the same specs as 107.9 FM. I am not sure if there are many places within the licensed area can get 900 am but not 107.9 fm. Iād imagine some areas would have better reception from 107.9 fm than 900 am. Outside the license area is a different story.
Yes 2ST is a different case due to local Southern Highlands programming. I think 2EC has different specs to Power fm.
I think the issue dates back to when 2LT and 2BS had their licences approved, they both could cover Bathurst and Lithgow respectively.
This changed when ACMA approved the licence for Move fm with the 1KW restriction towards Bathurst. Brock could broadcast into Lithgow with no power restriction 10KW OD.
The new 2BS conversion had a 5KW restriction towards Lithgow, different specs to Brock.
Maybe the proposed 2LT fm conversion frequency was a Canberra frequency e.g 104.7 or 106.3 with even worse specs then 107.9 and Mid West Radio said thanks but no thanks?
, lucky to get any intelligible audio at all but I guess you have to work with the bandwidth you have.