Signal (website)

[tvcl]

Signal: An Australian transmitter map with real coverage modelling – now available in beta

If you’ve been reading this thread, you know that I’ve been building a site called Signal, and it’s at the point where I’d like some actual users on it rather than just me: https://signal.ozdatahub.com

It’s a full-screen map of every licensed broadcast transmitter in Australia, built from the ACMA RRL and refreshed daily. That’s currently 8,527 active services – 2,906 FM, 2,717 TV, 2,482 narrowcast (LPON/NAS), 324 AM and 63 DAB+.

Not all features are live yet, but here’s what you can do with it currently:

• Explore: Click any transmitter for its licence details, site, ERP, antenna height and directional pattern, plus the services running on it
• Receive Here: Set your location and it models what you should actually receive at that spot: terrain-aware (ITM), using each transmitter’s real directional pattern, your antenna height and receiver setup. Works anywhere in the country.
• Coverage*: Pre-rendered terrain-modelled coverage maps (*within 500km of Sydney for now)
• Listen: around 3,200 services have a stream linked for when you want to cross-check a DX catch with a particular stations
• Tropo forecast: a rolling ducting forecast over Australia built from NOAA GFS data, refreshed through the day, with past and forward time steps.
• Bandscan and logbook (alpha): tools for tropo chasing and logging what you hear

Where the coverage maps are up to

The detailed FM coverage layer is computed site by site on a fleet of six PCs, but it is still a very long process (i.e. months). Right now, the area within ~500 km of Sydney is complete for FM (and about ~250 km for TV). Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Darwin are queued next for FM and TV and being computed now – they’ll fill in over the coming weeks. AM, MF-NAS, DAB+, VHF-NAS and SW modelling is already complete nationwide.

Everything else still works everywhere: every transmitter in the country is on the map with full details, and Receive Here models your location live regardless of whether the pre-rendered maps have reached your area yet.

It’s a beta and it will have rough edges. There’s a bug-reporting button built into the site – please use it, including for data that looks wrong. Station naming, networks and ownership are the areas I’d most value corrections on; the licence data is ACMA’s, but how stations are grouped and labelled is my own work and it’s the part most likely to be wrong.

Browsing the map needs no account. Receive Here, the logbook and the bandscan tools need a free one, mostly so the heavier modelling isn’t open to the whole internet and so that your location can be saved.

The site will work on mobile, but it’s a much better/optimised experience on desktop, given how much information it conveys.

A note also that it may go down at any time for new features to be added or for bugs to be fixed.

I’ve posted this here for now, but not sure if it’s better for this to have its own thread so that feedback doesn’t clutter up the DX thread.

Enjoy!

[Mechsta]

Love your work, but the password reset function isn’t working. I tried to reset and change my password but it kept telling me I had the wrong password despite it being correct. Other than that, great job.

[tvcl]

@Mechsta

the password reset function isn’t working.

Thanks for reporting this. The good news is your password was never wrong and the reset function was working correctly the whole time. Your resets all went through.

The problem was in the login step straight afterwards. Usernames were being matched case-sensitively, and phones (iOS especially) capitalise the first letter of a text field by default. So a username stored as yourname but typed as Yourname matched nothing. And because the login error is deliberately vague (“Invalid username or password”) for security reasons, it looked like a password problem and sent you back to reset again.

That’s now fixed. Usernames are matched regardless of capitalisation and any stray spaces are ignored so you can log in with whatever casing your phone gives you. You don’t need to reset your password again — your current one will work.

If you’re still locked out, send me a PM and I’ll sort it out :).

[dxnerd]

Just getting around to having a play of @tvcl 's creation. Wow is all I can say.

You can even use it as a custom built internet radio tuner for Australian stations, by using the ‘same frequency’ menu and bringing up all the stations on that channel. The far flung locales that are listed here are also handy for Es reception.

There are some errors here and there, e.g. I never receive Valley FM Tuggeranong on 89.5 due to its woeful transmitter site, only ABCFM Goulburn, but overall it’s a great starting point for seeing what’s possible in a given location.

Given that it’s still in beta, it will only get better.

[BendigoTV]

Yes, it’s very impressive. The propagation models are quite something. No wonder it’s taking supercomputer levels of numerical processing to create.

[tvcl]

@dxnerd

You can even use it as a custom built internet radio tuner for Australian stations, by using the ‘same frequency’ menu and bringing up all the stations on that channel.

Glad you’re enjoying Signal :). I didn’t mention it before since it’s still under development, but there’s also “What can I receive?” listings for every town/suburb in Australia – e.g. here’s the page for Dubbo or the listing for every suburb in NSW. The suburb/town pages also have streaming links for everything that’s receivable at that location.

@dxnerd

e.g. I never receive Valley FM Tuggeranong on 89.5 due to its woeful transmitter site

I don’t have your exact location in Bungendore, but the modelling shows Valley FM to be pretty marginal in much of Bungendore or below receivable levels. I’ve clipped the coverage here to 42 dBµV/m, which I believe is about as weak of a signal you can get on a car radio. Also worth noting, the default modelling is for an antenna at 10 metres above ground level.

@dxnerd

Given that it’s still in beta, it will only get better.

Not sure there’s much more I can do to improve the modelling, aside from increasing modelling resolution, which will make it take an even longer time (i.e. it’ll add months of modelling time). Sometimes stations are just weaker than they should be. For example, I believe iHeartCountry and Vox FM in Wollongong have the same transit specifications, yet Vox FM comes in much better than iHeartCountry does.

@BendigoTV

No wonder it’s taking supercomputer levels of numerical processing to create.

Mmm, yes, I can see my power bill is going to be through the roof for the next few months with six computers on 24/7 and running at 100% CPU load .

[dxnerd]

@tvcl

I don’t have your exact location in Bungendore, but the modelling shows Valley FM to be pretty marginal in much of Bungendore or below receivable levels.

The Valley FM transmitter is on the roof of the studio at Wanniassa, right down in the Tuggeranong valley and it appears to be facing west as well. Valley FM is an apt name since they cannot be heard much at all outside of the Tuggeranong Valley! Coverage is much worse than, say, Faith FM on 87.6. I agree you can’t model for everything and this is a case where a ‘boots on the ground’ approach is more accurate.

Even up on the DX hill, you only get Goulburn and even hints of 1RPH Wagga at times. At least that makes 3PNN Bendigo possible if you null Goulburn enough.

Page for Bungendore is here:

Radio stations in Bungendore, NSW — AM & FM frequencies

I am impressed that it identifies XL/Snow as a good signal as that matches the on-the-ground reality. I reckon that’s due to the algorithm modelling a good path between Roberts Mountain and Bungendore, through the relatively flatter terrain.

I would add Knights Hill to that map; it’s at least as strong as Braidwood FM in many places. DAB is listed as ‘good’ but I’d put it as ‘fair’; you get dropouts in certain places in town but overall it’s listenable.

[Sharport]

Playing around with the bandscan, the Recieve Here predictor got:

• 4 stations it didn’t list but I recieved (although one wasn’t on Signal anyway)
• 9 stations it said I could recieve but I couldn’t (although one was 2RDJ so LPONs got in the way of it which aren’t on Signal, another was the temp station on 91.6 which I can recieve and another was on 94.1, which has three stations competing for the same frequency where I live)
• 1 station where it got the frequency right but the station wrong (Easy FM vs 2RPH, but they like to compete a lot so it’s not really listenable)

That’s not that bad of an accuracy rate right now in my opinion and it will only get better over time. Admittedly I did put it on deep fringe so that likely made a difference on how optimistic it was - but many stations I could recieve were in that deep fringe zone.

[Mechsta]

Turns out it was my bad. I was inputting an email address as opposed to a username. I blame sleep deprivation thanks to a certain 20 month old toddler who doesn’t like to sleep, lol.

[dxnerd]

Had a look at the coverage plot for 2BRW as well. I must say it’s pretty spot on. Last fleck of possible reception to the north is on the Oberon Plateau; there is an intriguing dot of coverage near Katoomba which I might have to suss out (last time I was at Kat and intended to check reception there, it was pouring rain).

To the south the last possible spot predicted is west of Merimbula, probably Myrtle Mountain. Wolumla just NW of Merimbula gets 2BRW quite well, but I’ve not yet tried Myrtle Mountain Road (between Wyndham and Candelo).

It does not predict any coverage above Jugiong though which is the last spot to the west we can be received, on the hill just on the Gundagai side of town.

[tvcl]

@dxnerd

I am impressed that it identifies XL/Snow as a good signal as that matches the on-the-ground reality.

I should also mention if you hover on the ‘Good’, it’ll give you the signal strength in dBμv/m.

@dxnerd

I reckon that’s due to the algorithm modelling a good path between Roberts Mountain and Bungendore, through the relatively flatter terrain.

I believe the modelling places the antenna at the centre of the suburb, so for big suburbs, you can have a big variation from what it says on the suburb page.

Not sure if you’ve tried Receive Here mode yet? It’ll give you a detailed breakdown of every station receivable at your specified location:

@dxnerd

I would add Knights Hill to that map; it’s at least as strong as Braidwood FM in many places.

The listings are automated based on Signal’s modelling (I wouldn’t have enough time to list reception for every single suburb in the country ) Interesting, your reports about the Illawarra services’ strength though. The modelling shows it as not being so good more on the western side, which is where the town’s page is measuring the signal:

Probably due to terrain obstruction:

@dxnerd

DAB is listed as ‘good’ but I’d put it as ‘fair’; you get dropouts in certain places in town but overall it’s listenable.

I had used 42 dBμv/m as the benchmark for car reception, but that was based on FM; perhaps DAB+ needs a different threshold. The modelling shows suburban/rural grade reception in much of Bungendore.

Also not sure if I mentioned this, but DAB+ modelling on Signal also takes into consideration downwards beam tilt, and you can see this in the “Pattern & Path” tab with a distance slider where it’s in use. Example below showing Brisbane.

Close to the TX vs far:

But Canberra doesn’t appear to have beam tilt.

@Sharport

• 4 stations it didn’t list but I recieved (although one wasn’t on Signal anyway)

What was the station that’s not on Signal? Anything that’s licensed should be on there. If you’re talking about “Receive Here” mode, you could lower the signal and/or distance threshold to see them.

@Sharport

• LPONs got in the way of it which aren’t on Signal,

LPONs are in Signal - but they’re just listed in their own band.

@Sharport

• 9 stations it said I could recieve but I couldn’t

Do you mean because of co-channeling? Or just that it’s too weak to get a signal from? The forecasting doesn’t say whether you’ll receive or not receive a signal as a binary yes/no sort of thing - it just gives signal strengths. Whether you receive them is mostly up to the sensitivity of your receiver and your antenna setup (height, gain, direction, etc.).

@Sharport

• 1 station where it got the frequency right but the station wrong (Easy FM vs 2RPH

Well 93.3, 94.1, 94.9 and 98.1 are a bit of a mush zone in Sydney between the Gosford and Wollongong signals. For me, which station I get for those frequencies is dependent on the direction of the antenna, so it might not necessarily be wrong - just depends on the exact location/direction of your antenna.

[dxnerd]

@tvcl

Not sure if you’ve tried Receive Here mode yet? It’ll give you a detailed breakdown of every station receivable at your specified location:

Yes I did see that page. Some of those in the deepest fringe category can only be received in select parts of town, e.g. 2EC/Power FM Batemans Bay, or alternatively with an FM Yagi aiming right at the target. The Mount Ulandra ABCs are a bit easier to receive, pretty poor but there in most parts of town.

As I said before, Valley FM 89.5 isn’t receivable at all at any strength, which would be the only real clanger in the above list. I think the error arises because the tx isn’t in fact on Tuggeranong Hill as listed, which isn’t the fault of the model. The other Tuggeranong repeaters that are on Tuggeranong Hill are indeed received quite well here (unfortunately, as they block some DX).

The Illawarra services on the other hand are definitely stronger than the model predicts. I even get RDS in some parts of town from Knights Hill.

[tvcl]

@dxnerd

I think the error arises because the tx isn’t in fact on Tuggeranong Hill as listed, which isn’t the fault of the model.

Ah, if it’s broadcasting from its alternate TX, that is actually modelled as well, but hidden by default (since it’s tagged as backup). If you go into Settings (bottom left button), you can change this setting:

You’ll then see the alternate TX on the map:

And you can then see its modelled coverage, with Braidwood being clearly out of reach if we use 42 dBµV/m as the threshold:

I’ll mark the main site as inactive and get it swapped over on the map.

I’ll also change the signal strength thresholds so they’re band-specific once I’ve done some research.

[Sharport]

@tvcl

What was the station that’s not on Signal? Anything that’s licensed should be on there. If you’re talking about “Receive Here” mode, you could lower the signal and/or distance threshold to see them.

There were two, on 87.6 and 88.0. They could be on there but I didn’t see them listed when I tried to put them in the bandscan.

@tvcl

LPONs are in Signal - but they’re just listed in their own band.

That’s understandable, I didn’t check there

@tvcl

Do you mean because of co-channeling? Or just that it’s too weak to get a signal from?

That it’s too weak to get a signal from

@tvcl

The forecasting doesn’t say whether you’ll receive or not receive a signal as a binary yes/no sort of thing

I understand that, I’m just saying my experience

[AustraliaRadio232]

Really enjoying testing out signal so far, its a great website.

Is there a way to report inactive stations? For example, 98.3 FM 3RRP is inactive and should be reported as such or removed from the map.

[tvcl]

@AustraliaRadio232

Is there a way to report inactive stations?

Anyone can report a station through the bug/feedback form for me to change but I’ve assigned you Editor permissions on Signal so you can edit station info directly yourself. If anyone else is interested, please let me know.

@Sharport

There were two, on 87.6 and 88.0. They could be on there but I didn’t see them listed when I tried to put them in the bandscan.

If they’re on 87.6/88.0 then they’d be LPONs - did you have the LPON band on?

@Sharport

That it’s too weak to get a signal from

What’s your antenna setup? For a car radio (which is generally quite sensitive), the receivable threshold is ~42dBuv/m, so if the stations you’re referring to are below this level, then Signal’s forecasts are correct.

[Sharport]

@tvcl

If they’re on 87.6/88.0 then they’d be LPONs - did you have the LPON band on?

No but I understand why they’re in their own section

@tvcl

What’s your antenna setup?

I have an AR1780 radio. I can receive some of the stations below the car radio threshold though, even some I didn’t expect

[ninkeon58]

The site is working very well, very well laid out and easy to use.

One thing I did notice is that with the higher powered transmitters the AM maps are sometimes a bit pessimistic with the coverage. 594 3WV is a good example, the coverage extends much further than the maps suggest especially to the north and east, rather than just reaching Mildura. The lower powered 2kW commercials nearby are just about perfect, with even the large coverage area of 5RM shown perfectly.

[AustraliaRadio232]

@tvcl

Anyone can report a station through the bug/feedback form for me to change but I’ve assigned you Editor permissions on Signal so you can edit station info directly yourself. If anyone else is interested, please let me know.

Still just comes up with this when I try to edit. Not sure if I need to login somewhere else, or if im missing something.

[dxnerd]

@tvcl

I’ll mark the main site as inactive and get it swapped over on the map.

Yes, that new coverage map with the Wanniassa tx site is fairly accurate. You can (just) hear it in parts of Queanbeyan, though not really in central Canberra (Civic). The last reception heading towards Bungendore is on the ridge just east of Queanbeyan, as shown. Good coverage (green) is limited to the Tuggeranong Valley itself.

I think at one point, Valley FM was on Tuggeranong Hill- but possibly the rent was too much for them. I think they need to get up there by hook or by crook as they have some decent shows on; pity I can’t listen unless I stream.