I recall the Sydney commercial FMs being similarly affected around 2001 when they had to broadcast from their back up site which was on the old TCN-9 tower at Willoughby (due to major works at Artarmon). That lasted for about 6 months.
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Marty Haynes OAM celebrated 20 years as i98FM Breakfast Announcer today.
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20 years in FM breakfast radio is pretty rare. For me i98 will always be associated with âMaroon and Millyâ in the mid 90s. I am not sure when Milly moved to Adelaide, though?
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Was in Adelaide for several years. Currently at Bay 93.9 Geelong doing breakfast radio.
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Agree that 20 years is an incredible milestone. I canât remember a time where Marty wasnât hosting the morning program. Marty and Erica were the breakfast hosts when I was growing up.
I can also remember them doing a Sunday afternoon show at one point as well, but I feel like it was a special one-off? People were calling in complaining about the high cost of everything, and then the GFC happened about 6 months later.
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They were together for the breakfast show on FM104.7 in Canberra for a few years before they moved to Wollongong.
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Has anyone noticed that they have reduced the power even further on some of the national fm services at Knights Hill?
For me 98.9 JJJ and New Radio seem the most affected with ABC Illawarra and Classic fm closer to normal strength.
98.9 Triple J is currently at similar strength to Power fm at my location in NW Sydney. I would estimate based on their antenna specs they would be at an ERP of approximately 2KW towards Wollongong / Sydney, and maybe around 5KW towards the south coast / highlands.
They are normally at 40kW / 150KW. The reception around the northern suburbs of the gong would be quite poor especially where there is poor LOS due to the escarpment.
@Dani-Chan how is your reception of News Radio and Triple J Illawarra around Bowral?
Does anyone know what work they are doing at Knights Hill, array replacements???
Obviously they must have people climbing up the tower with the nationals constantly on low power.
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Ironic as it sounds, 98.9 is weaker here than 105.7 and the reception of Knights Hill is possibly around i98/Wave strength.
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I have noticed some issues here in Bungendore at times. The Knights Hill ABCs are usually listenable on the car radio but have dipped below Power FMâs strength on a regular basis. Not that I listen to anything from Knights Hill that often.
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Just found thisâŚ
2022 Illawarra FM Planned Works
- 22 days ago
- Updated
Planned works will be ongoing at the Knights Hill transmission site until late June. Temporary antennas are in place at the site and are expected to provide normal FM coverage for the duration of the works. However, for periods some frequencies will run at reduced power, and the use of a temporary antenna may provide a slightly altered transmission footprint. We are aware that this has particularly impacted the parts Southern Highlands. If you experience significantly worsened reception during these ongoing works, please contact usfor advice on improving your reception.
Which services will be impacted?
- ABC Illawarra 97.3FM
- triple j 98.9FM
- ABC Classic 95.7FM
- ABC NewsRadio 90.9 FM
How can I keep listening?
You can listen live online or via the ABC listen app or on your TV.
Listeners in some parts of the Illawarra may also be able to keep listening on Sydney frequencies:
- Radio Sydney 702 AM
- Radio National 576 AM
- NewsRadio 630 AM
- ABC Classic 92.9 FM
- triple j 105.7 FM
If they are running off temporary antennas maybe they are replacing the whole array???
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4-5KW towards the highland would be about right then, and the temporary antennas would be mounted lower down the tower too.
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Sounds like they are doing major tower works, (strengthening/rusty parts replacements), they probably had to remove the main antenna array to do this, & may replace it with new when done?
They would have to allow for no work weather days, but the project length time seems far too long for just a antenna array replacement to me, this sounds like more of a major tower project.
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If only the ABC had backups on the Win tower, like what the they do at Artarmon for the national fmâs. There would not be the current coverage issues and outages, but this is regional and not capital city.
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Knights Hill BAI is a guyed mast and as I recall everything there is working hard - multiple UHF TV into one array and multiple FMâs into one array. Some BAI sites had 100Kw of FMâs which is often pushing the friendship with tails and dividers getting burned easily. There worst fog I have ever driven in was at Knights, so corrosion would be bad up there too. I have also struck rain up there so heavy the off air SBS CH28 backup program from Gore Hill was in the noise and unusable when the satellite rain faded.
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Thereâs ABC TV & SBS TV at Artarmon, but thereâs no ABC/SBS FMâs at Artarmon, the National FMâs are only at Gore Hill, they donât have an alternate site. They donât even all have alternate transmitters at Gore Hill, they have 4 transmitters in a N+1 configuration, each has a main transmitter, then thereâs one spare that can be used for any of the 3, if more than 1 main goes faulty at the same time, only one gets to stay on air.
Yes Knights Hill has a guyed mast. Last time I was at Knights Hill was back in 2007 I think, the Analogue UHF TV & FMâs were on the newly built guyed mast & the digital UHF TV was on the self supporting tower.
I have no idea whatâs there now, & whatâs on what tower, I donât even know if both towers are still there?
At the WIN site they moved the FMâs to the guyed tower with the DTV after analogue TV shut down & pulled down the self supporting tower, in the early years after start of DTV there were 4 towers at Knights Hill, I donât know if thereâs still 3 or only 2 left now?
Hereâs a photo of the BAI site when I was last there.
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Yes, i have noticed that sometimes either 95.7 or 98.9 will have normal reception and the other will be significantly weaker, and then vice versa.
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Must have been some time ago; the Robertson/Knights Hill area has barely seen the sun for months.
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Sorry I was confusing the ABC tvâs.
I have one discover NSW voucher left, might have to use it at Illawarra Fly at Knights Hill between now and the end of June.
For me it is just Triple J and News Radio that are very weak. When I was out driving earlier today I tried them on the car radio, they were received better then on my hifi with the dx setup.
They were both received better then Power fm. I am guessing they are probably ERP around 5-10KW, with the temporary antenna being omnidirectional, and mounted much lower down the tower. This is based on @Dani-Chan reception around Bowral.
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Your knowledge of Knights Hill is more up to date than mine then - thanks for the photo. Prior to the DTV going in they were going to demolish the self supporting tower as it had nothing on it except the defunct Band 2 Tv array.
I did have some involvement at BAI Gore Hill with the N+1 backup Tx for the FMâs: back then it was an Itelco(or was it R&S?) DOLP frequency agile Tx which ran into a wideband port on the FM combiner. It gave no end of trouble, so hopefully itâs at the bottom of the harbour now.
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The current Nationals FM transmitters at Gore Hill is a R&S THR9 2-Racks, 2 x TXâs in each rack. Iâve never paid much attention to it as Iâve never had to work on it (being BAIâs job), but looking at the specs for it online, they must be all only 15kWâs (3 PAâs per TX), because R&S donât give you the option to fit 2 x 20kW TXâs in one rack. This TX was installed about 3-4 years ago.
If thatâs the case, the Nationals run 15kW into the antenna, ARN & SCA run 15kW into the antenna, but NOVA & Smooth FM at Gore Hill run 20kW into the antenna, I honestly thought the nationals ran 20kW into the antenna, maybe itâs a special build with 4 x PAâs per TX to give them 20kW?
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