Great work! I assume that’s for the 70kw ABCs, not the 20kw 5AU/Magic?
If ABC, that looks right to me too, on the basis of having fair but consistent in car ABC radio coverage in Adelaide when I was last there.
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Yes 5CS (being the same programming but more Mid-North / agricultural ads than the traditionally Port Augusta / Whyalla focused 5AU) is definitely more local than Flow who are more Mallee, western part of EP, and far north towns like Coober Pedy.
I’m not sure why Hawker hasn’t had their service ever come online (given that the Bluff FM’s are marginal at best up there particularly the way the ranges and hills are aligned that far north), and the ACMA did get a couple of submissions from Hawker residents about the fact that they would essentially lose 5AU upon conversion to FM. So bad luck for them - I’d love to email Flow about it one day.
However, I’ll share the back story from what I know about the “Wilmington” service. Back around 2016 or so Flow applied for a transmitter on 101.3 at “Stokes Hill” (which is on my parents property). This is in the Horseshoe Range just west of Carrieton and at least 40 km the other side of the Willochra Plain from Wilmington.
Now I’m not sure whether or not they actually meant what we call Mt Stokes or whether they meant the adjacent hill with an existing government/police services transmission tower (known locally as Police Tower). This would have provided a decent radio alternative to the Upper North (Quorn, Wilmington, Orroroo etc.) Reading through the report on ACMA website at the time here’s what went down:
Spencer Gulf Broadcasters (or whoever was the owner of AU/CS at the time) made a submission saying that Flow shouldn’t be allowed to broadcast anywhere towards Quorn and Wilmington because they lie in the existing Spencer Gulf North LAP. They also said they planned repeaters for Quorn (which are now up and running) which discounted Flow’s argument that Quorn in particular was being under-served.
So essentially ACMA stated that yes a service could be put in for Flow, from Police Tower, but with minimum power to the west. Presumably for Flow this may have meant too much cost for little population coverage (having to exclude Quorn and surrounds) and so I suspect this is why it’s never made it on to the physical airwaves despite being listed on the list of Police Tower services in Radcomm. Apologies for the long post but I’ve always wanted to tell someone else who may be interested (my family aren’t exactly huge DXers but they do love picking up 2WEB at nights for the country music).
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I checked in with my favourite bugbear stations, Move FM 99.5 and 2LT 101.1 and it looks like they have a new news imaging package with the stations now also taking traffic updates from the Australian Traffic Network.
Also, the audio still has the limiting issue and levels all over the place when taking syndicated content.
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Now all they need is a decent web presence with streaming.
And maybe one day, even some more local content.
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Regional Media Fund, from the NSW government. They received two separate grants of $60,000 - one for Lake Cargelligo, and one for Central Darling.
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I managed to find it in the December 2023 general meeting minutes attachments for Lachlan Shire Council. The NSW map is on page 124.
On the page prior, there’s an extra map showing their coverage in south eastern Australia, I’ll attach a screenshot (not a national map though, NT coverage missing).
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Interesting that 96.9 apparently covers Mildura; I wonder what SCA has to say about that. The new 93.9 may rimshot into Swan Hill/Kerang and possibly parts of Bendigo, as well as Deniliquin and Echuca in its primary coverage. Flow have an ACE up their sleeve.
The existing 88.7 Urana tx doesn’t rimshot that well into Wagga (the map is basically correct).
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Reasonable in car coverage for me dropped out about 5 km south of Wagga on the Olympic Hwy, near the Kapooka Army Base. Coverage is a bit better than the map suggests.
But then 90.9 Beechs Forest looks a bit overstated, I couldn’t get that in Apollo Bay or anywhere east, which is meant to have it’s own repeater on 97.9.
107.3 Kingston SE/Robe looks right to me though in terms of what I’ve experienced when there last year.
I couldn’t get anything on 96.9 when in Mildura in 2020, not sure if Flow was on air then or not. 95.3 at Speed was however, but could only get reception from about Ouyen, so that looks about right from that end of the coverage area.
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97.9 has been previously reported as being off-air.
There’s quite a few licences like that in Victoria - including 89.3 Marysville (destroyed in the 2009 fires as far as I’m aware) and 90.5 Mount Buller (was this ever activated?)
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Not that I can recall. Happy to be corrected.
Yes destroyed in fires. The landscape around parts of Marysville still looked like a weird moonscape 5 years after that horrible tragic event.
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It was in the handbook a few years ago but I don’t think it ever made it to air. Never received it here (Albury) at the very least.
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Originally, was this TX intended for Culleraine between Mildura and Renmark and now has wider intentions into the lower SW corner of NSW?
The one between Swan Hill and Deni is interesting, possibly quite some coverage overlap however the Deni s39 coverage isn’t great. Either low site, low gain array or simply not engineered for anywhere close to 50kW ERP.
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And Meringur too, it was approved for 5kw I think.
Would give good coverage, but given the Flow FM format is somewhat bespoke for a commercial broadcaster, i don’t think SCA would be too concerned… Had it been a Rebel / Breeze duo on the other hand…
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As mentioned in the Am FM Dxing thread, noticing some quite significant changes to the music on Eagle fm, which would carry over to Snow Fm too.
They have dropped Goulburn’s #1 Hit music station and now using the positioner Goulburn’s Best Music, moving away from CHR to Hot AC.
The music in the first 40 minutes it sounded more like ARN’d reegional stations without the 80’s and 90’s rock songs.
The ducts are breaking up now and the reception is fading.
It will be sad if Eagle / Snow fm become another generic AC station, this will probably end up happening if ARN was to purchase the stations in the future.
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Wow Eagle / Snow fm have gone completely over the top, and extremely heavy on the Throwbacks. They now make Nova look like a Fresh HIt CHR station. In the last 40 minutes I have heard one new song and every other song is is a throwback form the 2000-2010’s.
They have completely fucked up these stations. They are probably getting close to the later fringes of XL / GN Fm.
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That’s not good….wonder if GN/XL are lining up for heavy talkback relay from 2GB again?
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Please no. The music they play on XL/GN is one of the best mix on Australian radio
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100% agree
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| 2024-03-05 | 09:08:59AEDT | The Script | Breakeven | 4m 21s | 2008 | G |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-03-05 | 09:16:20AEDT | Crazy Town | Butterfly | 3m 37s | 2000 | |
| 2024-03-05 | 09:19:41AEDT | Daniel Powter | Bad Day | 3m 54s | 2005 | |
| 2024-03-05 | 09:24:01AEDT | Miley Cyrus | River | 2m 43s | 2023 | |
| 2024-03-05 | 09:26:42AEDT | Bruno Mars | Treasure | 2m 59s | 2012 | |
| 2024-03-05 | 09:34:23AEDT | Post Malone /Doja Cat | I Like You (A Happier Song) | 3m 13s | 2022 | |
| 2024-03-05 | 09:37:23AEDT | Newton Faulkner | Dream Catch Me | 3m 56s | 2007 | |
| 2024-03-05 | 09:41:44AEDT | Sage The Gemini | Now And Later | 3m 13s | 2016 | |
| 2024-03-05 | 09:46:45AEDT | Carly Rae Jepsen | Call Me Maybe | 3m 13s | 2011 | |
| 2024-03-05 | 09:50:06AEDT | Lady Gaga | Bad Romance | 4m 55s | 2009 | |
| 2024-03-05 | 09:53:46AEDT | George Ezra | Budapest | 3m 21s | 2014 | |
| 10:00 | ||||||
| 2024-03-05 | 10:03:48AEDT | Elton John /Britney Spears | Hold Me Closer |
Remix|3m 22s|2022||
|2024-03-05|10:06:48AEDT|Fun.|Some Nights|4m 37s|2012||
|2024-03-05|10:11:09AEDT|Lauv|I Like Me Better|3m 17s|2017||
|2024-03-05|10:18:30AEDT|Pitbull / Kesha|Timber|3m 24s|2013||
|2024-03-05|10:21:51AEDT|Ed Sheeran|Castle On The Hill|4m 21s|2017||
|2024-03-05|10:29:52AEDT|Bastille|Pompeii|3m 34s|2013||
|2024-03-05|10:33:23AEDT|Calvin Harris|Feel So Close|3m 26s|2012||
|2024-03-05|10:43:15AEDT|Shawn Mendes|There’s Nothing Holding Me Back|3m 19s|2016||
|2024-03-05|10:46:35AEDT|Adele|Rolling In The Deep|3m 48s|2010||
|11:00||
|2024-03-05|11:04:18AEDT|Harry Styles|As It Was|2m 47s|2022||
|2024-03-05|11:06:58AEDT|Katy Perry|Hot n Cold|3m 40s|2008||
|2024-03-05|11:10:39AEDT|Maroon 5|Sunday Morning|4m 5s|2002||
|2024-03-05|11:14:20AEDT|Mike Posner|Cooler Than Me|3m 33s|2010||
|2024-03-05|11:18:00AEDT|Elle King|Ex’s & Oh’s|3m 22s|2014||
|2024-03-05|11:24:41AEDT|Jolyon Petch /Reigan|Dreams
Remix|3m 19s|2021||
|2024-03-05|11:41:04AEDT|[Matchbox Twenty](
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For a Hot AC / Hit station, that list isn’t too bad I guess.
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