Apologies if this question has been covered before, but I couldn’t find a reference to it here (or on the wider internet, as a matter of fact).
Growing up in Wollongong, I can remember seeing quite a bit of remnant Wave FM advertising with the old 2WL callsign, and a few banners and stickers which still had “Stereo 13” underneath. What did Stereo 13 refer to? Am I right in guessing shortwave? And if so, were there any other radio stations which simulcast on AM and shortwave? Not that I’ve actively looked for it, but I can’t recall seeing anything similar for other radio stations in the region or in greater Sydney.
Yes, also because most radios back then didn’t have digital tuning, they mostly used the old slide rule method which only had the first 1, 2 or 3 numbers with x 100 or x 10 written at the end to convert that… See below for an example
So Wollongong listeners needed to put the marker near 13 on this radio to hear 2WL
Yes indeed. One of the more obscure examples of this was 4GY in Gympie during the 80s, they ID’d as “Stereo 56 4GY” with their frequency being 558 AM.
And of course there’s still Radio 97 on the Tweed Coast which is 972 AM I think.
Wish there was more investment in engineering to maintain sites correctly. 4GY when stereo sounded great, also a much better coverage area than in recent decades. Of course, still AM, so you have the AM/FM band switch which is a hurdle for lots of audience. FM 107.1 translator serves the southern section of its licence area and beyond very well. Perhaps the FM translator is best suited for today’s conditions.
Also, at the time of Stereo 56, Stereo 10 were referring to ‘southern Queensland’ from saved audio I’ve heard in recent years and their promotional activity spread as far north as Noosa.
Yes Stereo 10 very much differentiated themselves from other Brisbane stations by identifying as ‘southern Queensland’. No other stations attempted this. Stereo 10 even had a part time studio at Grundy’s in Surfers Paradise.
Stereo 56 4GY did a similar thing and identified as ‘wide bay, cooloola and sunshine coast’. An area from Hervey Bay to Caloundra - similar to Zinc 96’s coverage area today.
Was in the Southern Highlands yesterday and was listening to Power Fm and Eagle Fm on the car radio.
As previously posted Power Fm reception from their new site (Win digital Tv tower) was good in the Southern Highlands around Bowral. However Power Fm only makes it to its licence area boundary at Hill Top with co-channel interference from Rhema starting to occur around Phesant Nest. Around Douglas Park / Nepean River Co-channel interference was severe. After this Rhema dominated the frequency.
Eagle Fm was fair to good around Bowral but only makes it to Hill Top. Once you descend down the Hill towards Sydney reception became patchy to none.
2ST was good all the way to Campbelltown and can be received quite well at my location at Stanhope Gardens which everyone knows. Next time I am in the Southern Highlands I will try and make it to Knights Hill and get some photos to post up here of the new Power Fm / i98- Wave Fm antennas, and not get arrested in the process!!
You can get quite close to the towers iirc; Knights Hill is made up of several farms/estates around a common access road, with the towers occupying small slices of land. It doesn’t look this way when you look up from the Illawarra coastal plain though. The access road- Knights Hill Road, logically enough- turns off the Jamberoo Mountain Road (left turn from Robertson); turn left again at a T-intersection a little further down and you will arrive near the towers.
Did my annual trip down to Bowral today for Tulip Time so decide to do a side trip down to Robertson to have a look at Knights Hill broadcast sites and the new Power fm and i98 / Wave fm antennas on the new WIN Digital tower.
I have posted up some updated photos of the site including where the old Win tower use to be. This is where Power Fm, i98 / Wave Fm had their previous broadcasting panels.
Photo 1. Is the Broadcast Australia site. The guyed mast has no UHF panels on it, but is used for the transmission of the Illawarra national fm services 90.9, 95.7, 97.3, 98.9. Could the top section of the tower be reserved for future DAB+ broadcasts?
Photo 2. Is the new Win guyed tower with the new Power fm and i98/Wave fm, fm bays mid way up the tower. The top one which looks like a 4 bay antenna is for Power fm and is orientated in a SW direction.
The bottom one is the new i98/Wave fm broadcast antenna, and looks like a 6 bay pointing in a NE direction.
The last photo is where the old win tower stood and was the previous site for Win analogue TV, i98, Wave Fm and Power Fm.
Reception wise the new higher site at Knights Hill for i98/Wave fm has significantly improved reception for the Wollongong Commercials in Robertson and especially along the Illawarra Highway around Burrawang where the signal is weak but not loosing signal as before. Even in Bowral the signal seemed stronger on my car stereo and on my portable tuner.
Power fm seemed to be at similar strengths across the highlands towards Bowral as before, and then suffers from Co-chanel interference from Rhema from Phesnts Nest north bound as previous reported. Could they have reduced ERP to the north and North East when moved to the new site. As reception has not improved or possibly got worse into Sydney or Campbelltown.
The only stations that were strong from Knights Hill in Bowral was the national fm’s. Power fm was at a similar strength to the Sydney Commercial Fm’s.
To provide a strong signal strength into Bowral, Power fm would need to be on the same antenna as the Illawarra national fm’s at 150Kw at 160m v 50Kw at 80M. However they would then need to further reduced ERP to the north / north east.
The guyed mast at the BA site used to have the analogue UHF array on top, it was a different type of array & looked different to the digital TV UHF array on top of the other BA tower though. I wonder why they’ve removed the antennas, but not the mount, most other sites still have the old antennas on them just not in use, because it’s not feasible to spend the money removing them yet?
It’s highly unlikely they’ll use the top section of the tower for future DAB+ use, I don’t think that top structure would be suitable to mount a VHF side mount or VHF panel antenna to, they’ll put DAB+ antennas below the FM’s, or on the other tower below the Digital TV UHF array.
On the old WIN tower, the 2 antenna arrays used the same type of antennas (just one was 4 bay & the other 6 bay), & I don’t know if anyones noticed, but the new antenna arrays are different, one uses horizontal & vertical elements in a square shape & the other uses cross ( X ) elements.
The 4 & 6 bays will throw the signal differently & give different directional characteristics to each other, but the old arrays were 4 & 6 bays too.
Both the old arrays were a X element, & were enclosed in a circular mesh cage reflector, essentially stopping any major signal out the side of the array, the new ones are different in the fact, the i98/Wave array has a slight wrap around on the side, but the Power antenna has nothing stopping RF going out sideways.
The differing new element setup & a better back reflector not allowing as much RF behind the antenna, could well be the reason Power FM now has more power directed South & not as much North from the new tower & why i98/Wave has better reception around Robertson/Bowral?
Due to his concert being held in Wollongong last night (his only one in NSW for his current tour), i98 were playing 12 hours of non-stop Elton John songs from 4pm to 4am yesterday/early this morning. i98 was the station that sponsored the concert, rather than Wave FM.
The i98FM Illawarra Convoy has won an ACRA for “Best Community Service Project (Provincial)” for the 9th time tonight, in which they first won it back in 2008 & has won it every year since 2010.
