I thought the same.
It would require swapping freqs for all services a la 3EE/AW.
However, see my comment about the horse bolting and that all commercial AM licencees should apply for a Toowoomba FM translator with same specs.
After all, where do you think Paul Amos’ team call the majority of the audience for their phone poll surveys? The largest town in a licence area of course.
4WK had the advantage of already having a Toowoomba translator on AM since the city of Toowoomba (allegedly) has poor reception from Warwick/Allora.
4AK and 4GR don’t have those same issues - 4AK’s main transmitter in Oakey is much closer to Toowoomba, and 4GR’s transmitter is on the outskirts on Toowoomba.
Yes that’s true. But it still seems very unfair to 4GR and even 4AK. Toowoomba is not only the largest population centre in the broadcast area but also the largest inland city in Australia after Canberra.
If only Bill knew what to do with this advantage i.e. launch an adult music format on FM to compete with Hit (albeit a lot would already be tuned to River 94.9 from Ipswich). I just can’t see any long term viability for AM stations in a market like this. Similar to 4CA, 4MK, 4RO/4CC. They’re all doomed unless they get some sort of FM conversion.
For Toowoomba, the ideal solution would be convert all the AM stations to FM - but there’s a lack of frequencies available in that area so not sure how possible it would be.
As for all the other AM stations, that’s the same case for every AM station in the country - although they do have the advantage of better reception into remote areas and fortuitous reception into neighbouring areas.
Yeah that’s true enough for all AM stations but I think it’s a bit worse in places like Cairns, Mackay and now Toowoomba where you’ve effectively got AM stations up against three commercial FM’s. I’d say they’re the only three regional markets with that situation. There’s Newcastle of course but it’s a lot bigger.
What are the 3 FM stations in Toowoomba? Are you counting River?
Yep I’m counting River for Toowoomba.
Based on the last ratings for Toowoomba it’s clear a big chunk of the audience is on River. It’s effectively a local station based on the proportion of Toowoomba ads. The reception of 94.9 is as good as Hit 100.7
I know Prime Radio back in the day when 4CC was Zinc tried to get a FM conversion for that station, there was frequency space but got knocked back. I could not never understand the ACMA.
The 4WK translator and the main 4RGD (hit100.7) transmitter are on completely different sites, the WK antenna is a single bay at 30 meters and the hit antenna is a 4 bay array with back screens st 45 m this would explain why 95.5 gets into brisbane a little better.
They’re 60m apart, so that sites are essentially the same. The difference probably comes down to it being cheaper for 4WK to use Vertel tower, which would be too short for 4RGD. But yes, the specs are vastly different between the 2 services.
We do not brand the “point” and the station has never had a name apart from FM1047 since it launched. When we tinkered with the music and tightened the format two years ago we put NEW in front of it, carefully avoiding “The New” and “FM”. Given we take the NEWFM format after hours we feel it ties in with the network.
Will we see a new logo or updated website to follow this rebrand?
I came across a spelling error on the artist name on the “Now Playing” info on FUN Classic Hits Digital yesterday:
Torn - Natlie Imbruglia
Which gave me the impression that the Super Radio Network create their own music files? But to not even use something like Gracenote to populate this info automatically (as you would when ripping your own CDs) seemed quite odd?.
I always assumed Radio stations sourced their music directly from record labels and would have received “ready to play” music files…
Nope, Been a PD at Both Broadcast Operations & Grants & have always had to rip & then Name & Mark all files on the Play-Out. Even the stuff from Play MPE You have to type the data info yourself.
That’s interesting! Thanks for that.
Is there a standard in Broadcast Operations for the codec eg. MP3, WMA, AAC and/or bit rate to be used?
Or what does NOW FM use?
Pretty much all stations record all Audio as an uncompressed wav file
I don’t think it was a cost issue… more the main tower is loaded now and couldn’t accomodate another antenna, nor did the site owners want another fm transmitter on site due to heavy desense on their RT systems
Seven’s Sunrise took a tour of the 2MO/Triple G studios on national television.
Sam Mac’s highlight was to ask the “GM” what their favourite stain was on the curtains.
The curtains were conspicuously dirty?
Yes, very dirty. Original from the 1950s apparently.
Video is now online: Yahoo Australia | News, email and search - watch from about 1:15