Curious as to how they decided for Radio 531 and Radio 97 not to use their callsigns like all their other AM stations. Interesting also how 2HD doesn’t mention their AM frequency at all in their ID – only the FM ones.
I suppose I could have also added in 2BS on 95.1 into the compilation, though not on AM.
Radio 531 is anyone’s guess but i think because of the border issues they wanted a callsign that didn’t sound too NSW or QLD centric, like how it used to be 2MW years ago, so they went for something more generic, which is also from before the Super Radio Network era.
Depends what sweeper you hear, they have multiple ones, one mentions all the 2HD frequencies, one mentions the 2 FM’s & there’s one only mentions the AM 1143 frequency.
In the case of 97 it’s probably a legacy from the 1980s when it used to be known as Easy Listening 97 and they’ve just been too lazy to do anything with the branding since
The next piece of the puzzle is 2SM Mornings. With the retirement of both commercial radio talk presenters in the slot, John Laws andRay Hadley, we wait for those announcements from Nine and the SRN.
Strange isn’t that decided?
Edit: the article is from early Dec. Ignore this post.
Yes it’s been known as Radio 97 or Easy Listening 97 for a very long time. They probably dropped the 2MW branding originally due to most of their listeners being in Queensland rather than NSW, as the Gold Coast grew exponentially compared to Murwillumbah.
Yeah it’s getting a bit confusing in the FM age. Radio 97 now sounds like it should be on FM. It’s 972AM.
And of course it actually IS on FM on the GC, but on 104.1
I wonder how many people actually listen on 972AM? Maybe a couple of sugar farmers’ tractors in Murwillumbah might be tuned in to the AM signal? Otherwise I’d think 90% or more of their listeners would be listening on FM already.
I know the overlap is an issue but surely it’d be ripe for an FM conversion. Just turn the power up on 103.5 and get in into Murwillumbah itself a bit better, and save the power on the AM transmitter.
Its pretty hilly between Mullumbimby and the Murwillumbah and they’re about 30 km apart.
Finding a suitable spot for an FM signal to cover both Murwillumbah and Tweed Heads could be a challenge (Springbrook doesn’t get into Tweed Heads very well). Might need two separate sites.
And 104.1 sends most of its signal north at the moment from Elanora (so I think most Tweed listeners would still be on AM) but once an FM conversion happens, increasing the power to the south would cover Tweed (but not Murwillumbah).
The 2HC website still has 160 Pacific Highway Coffs Harbour as its address. The strange thing is the office is completely empty and 2HC is run entirely from Grafton now.
I noticed that too.
The brockfm.com.au (original website) has a program guide that seems to be updated, where it’s local to midday.
The SRN website has listed the local announcers that appear to have gone!
Same for Nqradio. Two sets of websites!
While it’s great to see all stations get a professional website… some of the local websites were much better in terms of appearance and content - 2TM, 92.9, MAX FM, 2MG, REAL FM, Radio 531 were some of the better websites now gone, replaced with a generic SRN site that don’t offer all that much.
