There’s also Pulse 94.1 in the Illawarra, which plays more mainstream AC than either Wave or i98.
Perhaps I might do a log to compare the selected CCM stations around the country. 
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Yes, my list wasn’t exhaustive and to be fair, not all of our Christian stations are guilty of it. I hear very little (if any) mainstream music on the Rhema and Life FM outlets.
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I agree somewhat but if the commercial stations are totally ignoring an audience then I say they should go for it. It might wake up the commercial operators to stop taking listeners for granted.
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For those keeping up with the MOVE FM Translator Wentworth Falls audio issue.
I’ve emailed the tech @TheChase’s audio recording from Friday & spoken to him on the phone this morning, he said he’ll, listen to it when he gets back to his workshop later today.
He’s actually at the Lithgow studios today & will investigate things there, he said every time he’s been listening, he hasn’t heard the issue, but he’s just got back from a trip right up & down the NSW coast doing TX works & will be heading out for another 800km drive tomorrow for SKY Racing/2KY doing maintenance at Bathurst, Orange, Mudgee, Dubbo.
He said he has a spare processor up at Mt Lambie, he’ll get it & change out the one at Wentworth Falls to see if that’s where the issue is, but said he mightn’t get up to Mt Lambie for a few days?
All things going well, the issue might be solved by the end of the week?
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Tech told me he heard the Move FM audio issue on air himself at 6:30pm last night while he was listening, he thinks it’s a faulty processor at the Wentworth Falls site & he’s going to get the spare from Mt Lambie & replace it to see if that solves the issue.
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Thanks @RFBurns this is really interesting to watch this thread and shows the benefit of this forum. Like in the past the DAB repeater issues too. Maybe it doesn’t have a large audience the repeaters but a passing motorist or some locals may just turn off the radio instead or tune into another station.
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It looks like the audio suppression issue on 99.5 Move FM has been fixed, their audio levels are still a bit variable but that’s an overall production issue with Move FM from the studio playout.
Ironically there still a little suppression on the extreme lower end of audio, which in my opinion is unnecessary, but that’s what they seem to like.
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I wonder why ACE Radio do not take SCA’s weekend programming?
E.g. Weekend Breakfast, Saturday nights from the rest of the Hit Network, and even RnB Friday nights with Mike E & Emma?
They’ve only limited it (for now) to weekday content.
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Guys, the Move FM tech rang me last night, he’s replaced the processor at Wentworth Falls, & said to have a good listen now to see if that audio issue is still there or not, he also finished changing the studio feeds over from SCA Sat to SCA Stream, so that should also help with the levels & quality of the incoming SCA programming.
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Life FM in Adelaide is a classic for this. I went on a tour of their studio about 5 years ago, and I couldn’t help notice just how commercial the whole place felt.
The first thing I noticed is that the premises are enormous. There are commercial stations in smaller premises. My understanding is that their landlord is very sympathetic to their cause and charges a peppercorn rent.
In their on-air studio, they use Zetta (can’t think of too many community radio stations that can afford a Zetta licence).
I recall seeing a whiteboard where someone (presumably the sales department or the PD) wrote a description of the typical Life FM listener: Her name is Jess, she’s in her mid-30s, has two kids, is married, may or may not be working and she goes to church once a year. Not that far off from the typical Nova listener, also named Jess (only Nova’s Jess is in her late 20s and earns around $60k, or at least she did in 2017).
The best bit is that Life’s music mix - according to Life’s tour guide - is around 70% CHR and 30% CCM.
BTW: if you want to see someone get really antsy, make a big deal about Life FM being a Christian station. Even if you’re part of the flock and/or frame Life’s Christian roots in a positive way, they’ll get flustered and change the subject faster than you can say “Jesus is Lord”.
It was a real eye-opener.
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RCS do (did?) offer a discounted rate for non-commercial stations, but it’s still several thousand dollars per licence.
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Can he up the bitrate?
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Yes, the sound on 99.5 and 101.1 is very hollow… sounds like a 32 kbps stream… yuk yuk.
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Totally agree, I think the tech is more concerned about the bandwidth being to great for the 4G redundancy STL.
I don’t know how reliable the NBN connection is but I would crank up the bit rate. A 4G connection can handle 96 kbps AAC which I think is much higher than the codec they are currently using.
Also the ARN Wentworth Falls tower has mobile phone broadcast antennas underneath the 2LT / Move fm antenna, so mobile coverage and data speeds should also be at a maximum.
On Vodafone 4G I can get around 80kbps down and 15mbps up. Faster then my NBN connection.
To increase listeners upping the bit rate would be a priority?
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I would like to think so, but most listeners probably wouldn’t notice or care… reliability and cost is probably more important to Mid West Radio.
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True but when every other receivable fm radio station sounds much better than you, and your main frequency 107.9 is wiped out by CCI for extended periods of time ,none of these things help you attract and retain listeners.
I would not be surprised if dxers are the only ones listening to these Blue Mountain translators.
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I’m guessing you’re asking about the STL & not the SCA programming Stream bit rate?
As far as bitrates, the studios have two NBN FTTC connections 1 main & 1 backup, these are limited to the 100/20 or 100/40 speed level, there needs to be available bandwidth for all incoming/outgoing business data across these services, which would include day to day business transactions & phones, along with programming coming in & going out, last thing you want is to flood one or both of these connections up or down, as then the station will have more trouble than just sounding average on a translator.
As for mobile 4G reception & speeds directly under a tower, you’d think it would be good, but generally it’s hit & miss, as pretty much all the signal is going out over the top of you, as far as radiation is concerned out of a mobile base station, the safest place in proximity to it is directly at the base of the tower, the beams are directed downwards but not straight down, 20-30 meters out from the tower the radiation levels & signal strength/quality will start to pick up with the max levels generally out much further.
From what the tech tells me, for Move FM that may be correct, but there’s quite a lot of listeners to the 2LT translator for the 2GB programs as neither 2GB AM or 2LT AM is very good in the mountains.
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That is what I would have thought too regarding 2LT, the sound quality is far superior to AM even in strong signal areas, so 101.1 would be a massive improvement on 873, even in Western Sydney.
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I would have thought those in the Blue Mountains who can’t get AM would try streaming, or listen on DAB for 2GB programs, which should be pretty good up there.
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Can’t beat FM though for convenience. And don’t forget most of 2GB’s listeners are Boomers or older…the GB stands for Grumpy Bastards.
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