Just announced Redwave stations are rebranding to MMM and Hit on March 16
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How will SCA split the Redwave stations (which it bought from Seven West Media) into MMM and Hit stations?
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Spirit is MMM
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Letâs hope this brings about an improvement to sound quality on the network feed.
Will also be interesting to see what happens to 621 Bunbury on March 16.
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Could they become a narrowcast station if no buyer can be found?
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Part of the reason Seven West Media sold them was because when ISDN is switched off (very soon), they had no idea how they would get programs out to the TXâs, some sites are so remote & will never be upgraded to Fibre, NBN, etc. Satellite would probably be the only option & thatâs expensive for a small amount of stations needed, but SCA will probably use Satellite via Nine Radio Syndication?
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Isnât that Spirit radio, so wouldnât it become 621 Triple M?
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No.
ACMA and the Minister would not want to be seen reducing listening options.
Bunbury is a viable market for three licences over two ownersâŚ
Hopefully the FM re-allocation will see space for both AM Bunbury stations to convert to FM or DAB+ be introduced (the latter being less helpful).
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The sound quality is awful and inconsistent when local stations drop out for commercial breaks with superior sound quality. The quality was never that bad when WAFM was broadcast from Karratha via North West Radio.
Stations with a similar setup like Rebel in QLD seem to have a decent sound on their network feed.
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Doesnât SCAsat have a satellite delivery option as well as IP?
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No, it will be sold off. As to who will buy it remains to be seen. And seeing as they already have
963 Triple M, they wonât have two Triple Mâs there. Iâm guessing it will keep the Spirit name as a sole station until itâs sold.
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Arenât the Redwave stations on VAST? Surely thatâs the best option to get audio to all the transmitters? Surely there not feeding 100-odd sites by ISDN - that sounds very expensive.
Yes, but it is really designed for distribution to other studios. VAST equipment would be a lot cheaper than the SCASat gear at 100 sites.
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Yes, but only at (then) Redwaves discretion.
https://www.myvast.com.au/register
From what I can work out here in WA, Triple M uses satellite to distribute programs. Shows originating in Bunbury are half a second delayed to places like Margaret River, Bridgetown or Augusta. (Augusta BTW now full FM stereo and RDS). Hit Bunbury is a 5 plus seconds ahead of the rest of the network, presumably using IP feeds.
Yes, VAST seams like the best option. Either way, great to hear about the brand change. Lets face it, SCA will give the network more attention and investment than Sevenwest ever would.
More recently Iâve noticed Spirit Geraldton âdowngradeâ their commercial break quality to mono to âfit inâ with network feed quality. Just horrid!
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Geraldton used to have good processing when they were local. The switch from ISDN canât come soon enough.
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SCASat is a two path redundant content distribution network. The main feed for programs being fed to SCASat is actually VIA satellite - itâs a great one to many approach for those more remote TX sites. The IP side is used for a backup to Path 1 (in case of packet loss on the satellite). The IP is also used as a connection tool between other SCA Sites.
Knowing the system intimately, I would imagine SCA would look at rolling SCASat out to those TX sites, otherwise it goes against what the system was designed and built for. Not to mention cohesion on technologies used - which theyâve really been emphasising a lot over the last few yearsâŚ
But what would I know 
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Thereâs actually 2 distribtution needs here. The first is to get programs from a network hub to local studios. This is what SCASat is designed and used for. For example, a network program for Triple M WA originates in Bunbury, is sent to SCASat and then received in other markets, eg. Kalgoorlie, when local ads are inserted by the local install of Zetta, and then the complete program is sent to the transmitter. For most existing SCA TXâs in WA, this is via a wireless STL, the same as most other stations around the country. This is why Bunbury is ahead of the rest of the state as their program originates locally and doesnât have to go via satellite.
SCAsat will almost certainly be rolled out to Redwaveâs local markets - Geraldton, Karratha, Hedland and Broome for this purpose. STL in these markets is wireless STL links and will therefore stay the same.
Then there is the Remote WA licence area which 100% originates in Perth currently. It will be interesting to see what SCA does with that from a programming perspective, but from a technical view, they have to get the program from the studio (Perth) to approx 100 sites around the state (x2 when you consider both stations). There is no way this is currently done by ISDN - that would mean running 200 ISDN lines from the studio, to some sites that would never have even had ISDN available. This is almost certainly currently done by VAST, and thereâs no reason to discontinue this. Installing new gear at 100 sites would be an enormous task, especially when you consider that some sites would only have a handful of listeners. In fact, some of these sites are self help sites not even managed by Redwave. To use SCAsat would require new gear, including the Telos Zephyr iPort (worth about $5k each) to be installed at each site - 2 units would be required if they wanted to take advantage of the IP redundancy. I just canât see this happening.
So long story short, the audio quality will probably improve for Geraldton, Karratha, Hedland and Broome, but no change for the Remote TXs.
SCAsat actually doesnât prioritise between Satellite and IP - it takes each packet from whichever source delivers it first, although satellite may be the more reliable connection most of the time. It could also be deployed with 2 Satellite dishes or 2 IP connections if they so wished.
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I hope they keep the current Spirit music format. I donât know how people in these mining areas would act if these stations adopted that repetitive female skew regional Triple M music format.
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Keep going!.. with optional TZ delay and APTX even more! last time I saw a price was $12k not bad for a linux PC in a custom box
thats not actually true⌠all packets are thrown into a pool and picked out could be from either path.
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West Coast Broadcasters in Mandurah are most likely to buy 621am and Convert it into a Relay of 6PR most of the Time.
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