New digital station.

A new digital radio station called The Buckle will be launched by the Fairfax Radio Network at next Tuesday December 22. The station will only be heard in Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. It will have a modern contemporary country music format, created specifically for capital city listeners.

Christmas digital stations.

ARN has a new digital radio station especially for Christmas called Elf radio. The station will be on air until just after Christmas.
ABC is also planning a Christmas station to begin closer to the day.No doubt it will be a bit more Classic than Elf!

New Talk station for Melbourne?

Macquarie Radio Network Limited (Sydney)and Pacific Star Network Limited (Melbourne) have announced taht they are forming a potential partnership that may see a third talk station in Melbourne.
John Singleton's Macquarie Radio Network and Pacific Star Network, owner of 3MP and SEN (formerly 3AK), announced they have "concluded a Heads of Agreement that contemplates the formation of a joint venture for the production and supply of radio programming in the Melbourne market.
The new company has apparentely approached both Neil Mitchell and Steve Price to work on the new station.

Results of digital auction.

In Brisbane, the successful bidders were Austereo, DMG and Australian Radio Network (ARN)
In Melbourne they were Austereo, Sport 927 and ARN.
In Sydney they were Austereo, Supernetwork and ARN
In Perth they were Grant/Capital Broadcasters and Austereo
In Adelaide it was Austereo
So Austereo were the big winners Australia wide. Wonder what new stations we are going to get? Hopefully something other than dance and pop!

Excess digital capacity auctioned off.

Australia's Digital Radio joint venture companies have auctioned off excess digital capacity on the digital radio multiplexes. Auction results are expected to be announced this week. The excess spectrum was offered for auction last Friday at an auction house in Sydney. The Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney digital radio joint venture companies will hold auctions to allocate excess capacity access entitlements.

All Music Breakfast

Seems vega 95.3 has already gone to their all music breakfast due to support staff leaving. What a good idea this is! Nothing new though! So good to hear a station with no so called comedy in breakfast, just the info that is needed to start the day. Hopefully it will rate well for them. Wondering how Dicko, Dave and Chrissie are feeling at Melbourne's vega 91.5?

Saw a (new to me) brand cheap DAB+ radio in Dick Smith's Chadstone, today. The brand name was Kaiser Baas. Checked them out and manged to ascertain that they are an Australian company.

Kyle is at it again!

By all reports today it looks like Kyle Sandilands career is on very shaky ground. It's a pity the producers of his show can't keep their finger on the button; or maybe there is no button?

Launch of Digital Radio in Federation Square.

The launch of digital radio this morning was a very successful function. I enjoyed talking to those such as Graham Redmond that I had bought my PURE radio from. I also had a long conversation to the Sangean rep.
All Melbourne stations were represented except Gold amd Mix.
AW were the only station broadcasting from behind glass. All other stations were in open stalls.
The most popular station was ABC's 774!

More to follow.

From DigitalradioPlus website.

Radio unites in massive outside broadcast

In a world first, Australian commercial radio broadcasters and the public service broadcasters are putting competition aside on 6th August 2009 when more than 40 different radio stations hold a simultaneous outside broadcast in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide to promote digital radio.

The event billed as “Radio United” will see the highly competitive commercial sector broadcasting side by side with their commercial counterparts and public service broadcasters to promote the benefits of digital radio.

Joan Warner, chief executive officer of Commercial Radio Australia said the radio industry was coming together with one voice, at one time, on one day to highlight the new digital radio technology.

“Breakfast radio is a very powerful medium with Neilsen research figures for survey four 2009 showing the average cumulative breakfast radio audience Monday to Friday in the five state capitals for all stations is 8,761,000 people. Radio is a big part of Australians way of life and we want to tell them about our new digital technology,” said Ms Warner.

“As an industry we will be speaking to this audience about digital radio in a unique event. We are inviting listeners to come to the outside broadcast in each city, meet many of the top radio personalities and listen to digital radio,” said Ms Warner.

The outside broadcasts in each city will be held from 5.30 am – 9.00 am in central city locations; Sydney - Martin Place, Melbourne - Federation Square, Brisbane - Reddacliff Place, Adelaide – Victoria Square and Perth – Forrest Place.

Each city location will have a digital radio “Listener Post” where digital radio manufacturers: Roberts, Sangean, Yamaha, iRiver, Bush, Revo, Grundig and Pure will showcase a range of digital radios and enable listeners to hear and see digital radio on a variety of different receivers.

A fully fitted out car featuring a digital radio adaptor will also be on site in each state. Plus there will be a preview of the first screen based digital radio showcasing the visual aspects of the new technology with the transmission on screen of album covers, radio presenter photos and station logos.

Hundreds of digital radios will be given away to lucky listeners on the morning but they must attend the outside broadcasts and enter on site to win.

A countdown clock to the start of the Radio United event begins today at the www.digitalradioplus.com.au website and all participating stations start the countdown on their websites soon.

Radio United Event - Participating Stations

SYDNEY – MARTIN PLACE

Super Radio 2SM 1269AM Breakfast - Grant Goldman
Austereo Triple M 104.9
Austereo 2DayFM The Kyle and Jackie O Show - Kyle Sandilands & Jackie O
DMG vega 95.3fm Tony, Bec & Mikey - Mikey Robins, Tony Squires & Rebecca Wilson
Macquarie 2GB 873 Breakfast with Alan Jones - Jason Morrison broadcasting on-site & crossing to Alan Jones in-studio
Macquarie 2CH Easy 1170 Breakfast with Gareth McCray
Tabcorp Sky Sports Radio Big Sports Breakfast with Terry Kennedy & Michael Slater
Fairfax 2UE Breakfast with Mike & Sandy - Mike Carlton & Sandy Aloisi
DMG Nova 96.9fm Merrick & Rosso & Kate Ritchie - Merrick Watts, Tim Ross, Kate Ritchie
SBS Radio Foreign Language Programming
ABC ABC702 702 Breakfast with Adam Spencer
ARN The EDGE Digital Mike E & Carmela - Carmela Contarino & Michael Etheridge

MELBOURNE – FEDERATION SQUARE

Pacific Star 3MP The Easy Breakfast - John Burgess
Fairfax Magic 1278 Magic 1278 Breakfast - Ann Gilding & Kevin John
Austereo Fox 101.9 The Matt & Jo Show - Matt Tilley & Jo Stanley
Sport Entertainment 1116 SEN Morning Glory - Tim Watson, Bill Brownless & Andy Maher
Fairfax 3AW Breakfast with Ross Stevenson and John Burns
DMG Nova 100 Hughesy and Kate - Dave Hughes & Ed Kavalee
DMG Vega 91.5fm Dicko, Dave & Chrissie - Ian Dickson, Dave O'Neil, Chrissie Swan
Austereo Triple M 105.1
SBS Radio Foreign Language Programming
ARN The EDGE Digital Breakfast Broadcast
ABC ABC 774 Breakfast with Red Symons
Tabcorp Sport 927am Prime Time Sports Interactive with Michael Christian and Angela Pippos

BRISBANE – REDDACLIFF PLACE

Fairfax 4BC Breakfast with Jamie Dunn Jamie Dunn
ARN 4KQ 693 Laurel, Gary & Mark In The Morning - Laurel Edwards, Gary Clare & Mark Hine
Austereo Triple M 104.5 The Cage - Ian Skippen, Emily-Jade, Greg "Marto" Martin, Greg "Sully" Sullivan
Austereo B105 Labby, Camilla & Stav - Jason "Labrat" Hawkins, Camilla Severi & Stewart "Stav" Davidson
DMG Nova 106.9fm Breakfast with Meshel, Ash & Tim - Meshel Laurie, Ash Bradnam, Tim Blackwell
Fairfax 4BH 882 Moyd and Loretta - Moyd Kay & Loretta Ryan
ABC ABC 612 Spencer Howson's All-day Breakfast - Spencer Howson
UNiTAB RadioTAB Sportsbet Breakfast Program - John McCoy, Graham Rigby & Ray ”Razor” Phillips

ADELAIDE – VICTORIA SQUARE
DMG FIVEaa Breakfast on FIVEaa - Keith Conlon, Tony Pilkington, Jon Blake, Jane Doyle & Chris McDermott
Austereo SAFM Rabbit, Amber & Cosi - Rabbit, Amber Petty & Cosi
ARN Cruise 1323am Cruise Breakfast with John Dean John Dean
ABC 891 ABC Adelaide Breakfast with the Bald Brothers - Tony McCarthy & John Kenneally
Austereo Triple M 104.7 Kym, Ali & Dzelde
DMG Nova 919 Fitzy, Claire & Jules - Ryan “Fitzy” Fitzgerald, Claire Murphy & Julian “Jules” Schiller

PERTH – FORREST PLACE

Austereo Mix 94.5 The Bunch with Fred, Lisa, Joss & Capt. - Paul Fred Botica, Lisa Shaw, Joss Dwyer, Paul Shepherd
Austereo 92.9 Em and Sam Mac now with Basil Zempilas - Emelia Rusciano, Sam McMillan & Basil Zempilas
DMG Nova 937 Nathan & Nat with Shaun McManus - Nathan Morris, Natalie Locke, Shaun McManus
Fairfax 6PR Breakfast with Millsy & Tony Mac - Tony McManus & Steve Mills
Fairfax 96fm The Crew with Gary, Fitzy & Aleysha - Gary Shannon, Brad "Fitzy" Fitzgerald &
Aleysha Knowles
Capital 6iX Johnny Young's Big Breakfast
ABC ABC 720 Breakfast with Eoin Cameron Eoin Cameron

Review of PURE Evoke - 2S on ABC Shop online.

Have a look at my review for the PURE Evoke 2s on the ABC online shop page.

http://www2b.abc.net.au/tmb/Client/ReviewMessage.aspx?b=65&tn=886008&pd=2&am=2572#m2572

ABC coverage of Melbourne.

Have a look at the coverage for Melbourne (from the link below) which is listed as interim coverage. Seems the ABC will not be broadcasting from their main transmission tower until, at the earliest, November. This seems to be very late notice! Maybe it was known previously but I am unaware of it. I trust the ABC to be more honest and open than the commercials. Ah well, silly me

They have been on/off (mostly off) today. It looks like their 5 music stations are all @ 80kbps. 774@ 64Kbps Radio National@ 72 News Radio@ 56 and they still have Extra@48 playing Waltzing Matilda Nothing has changed with SBS STILL only on 32kbps! Have had no reply from my email to them but will follow it up in the next few days.

http://www.abc.net.au/radio/digital/img/Me...rne_DAB+sml.jpg

ABC, SBS Update.

Looks like ABC and SBS are gone again!

ABC and SBS

This morning the ABC is on the air! Can't say the same for SBS! I would think that these are only test broadcasts as the volume on some stations is going up and down. SBS is almost non-existant with the same number of stations as Adelaide and Brisbane all on 32kbps. Surely they won't keep all these stations! if so, why? I am listening to 774 which is the only station that seems to be ALMOST normal. It is good to hear ABC news on my dab radio
As I am writing most of the stations seem to have gone of air. They all have ? before their station names. I am still listening to 774. We can all relax, hopefully by next Wednesday at least the ABC will be up to speed. Wonder what SBS is up to?

UPDATE ABC stations have increased power a little during the day but SBS is still pretty bad! I see the website now says ABC & SBS to commence services on or around 1st July on low power. ABC sounds fine even on low power but surely SBS can do better!
Melbourne is now showing 39 stations. One, ABC Extra, is continously playing Waltzing Matilda and ABC Grandstand is duplicating Dig.

Article in todays Australian

This is an interesting article from todays Australian.

First national signal of new-wave radio hits cities

Had a listen to a number of stations today and all except the FRN stations sounded excellent. It seems that the Melbourne stations are now broadcasting at full power as they come in loud and clear with little use of the antenna. Previously the antenna had to be fully extended.
Listened to AW for about 20 minutes and thought that they had gotten over their problems, but NO... the problem is still there and was even worse today. Not being a tech or engineer I don't know what the technical term is but the speech just keeps repeating and today it became hard to even understand what was being said. I switched over to Magic the other FRN station and they were having the same problem. Whatever the problem is it is emanating from the FRN studios and not a fault of the DAB+ broadcasting. I checked the multiplex that the other stations are in with AW and Magic and they all sounded fine. Hopefully FRN can fix this soon!

I see PURE in conjunction with Pioneer had the official launch of their DAB+ products at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art today. Congratulations to Graeme Redman, Managing Director of Pure Australasia Pty Ltd, who has worked very hard to get these products up and running in Australia. I bought my first DAB+ radio from Graeme.
PURE and Pioneer have high hopes for their Pure Highway, the in car DAB + radio with FM tuner which will be marketed via Pioneers existing automotive distribution network of over 400 retailers. Hope it all goes well for them. I have enough digital radios so I will wait and see how this goes! Should be a big advantage though for PURE being able to use the Pioneer selling network.

Further Pac Star News.

News on Pac Star post, it was unfortunately only a test broadcast but the good news is that Pacific Star is planning extra digital content.

Pac Star.

This morning Pacific Star owners of AM stations SEN and MP are broadcasting a new station with just music under the name Pac Star. It is an eclectic mix of music with no ads and no announcers. It is being broadcast in stereo. Don't know if it is permanent or just something they are trialling. I say good on them, would be nice to see the "minnows" of Melbourne radio come up with something new. It is a mix of probably, MIX, pop and some of Koffee's chill and certainly not anything like MP. Check it out! This is why I like digital radio!

Have listened for some time to Pac Star and it sounds like a test as they have begun to repeat the songs. They have about an hour and a half of songs on a loop. Pity the mix was good;-(

Latest on DAB+ launch.

The latest on the launch of DAB+ from todays Australian.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/busin...05-7582,00.htm

Review of my PURE Evoke-2s

I stated in a previous post I would review my PURE Evoke-2s once digital broadcasting began, well here is my review!

This is one hell of a powerful radio. It uses PURE’s Clearsound technology and has 30 watts of power from its speakers. The sound on music stations on DAB+ is awesome and it is excellent on spoken word stations also. It is so good to hear AM music stations which used to sound "tired" revitalised by this radio and the DAB+ broadcasting system. The 2S can also be used to connect an iPod or MP3 player or portable CD to play through its powerful speakers.

If you wish the Evoke =2S is ChargePAK® Ready – an optional fit-and-forget ChargePAK provides around 20 hours of portable listening. I intend to get one of these in the near future.
It has a feature called ReVu where you can pause and rewind live DAB+ radio for up to 15 minutes. You can also browse stored scrolling text and pause and control scrolling text.
You can save up to 100 station presets (50 DAB+ & 50 FM). New features can be added as they become available via USB.

I have owned many radios throughout my lifetime and this would have to one of the best (if not THE best).

If I had to do crass things and give my PURE Evoke radio marks out of 10, it would rate 9.5. The .5 loss is only because I would have liked just a wee bit more info on station bitrates etc. But not to quibble, this is one hell of a radio and I am proud to own it and no words I can write can do it justice!

If you wish to read more on this radio or on any of the other radios in the PURE range checkout the link below.

https://www.pure.com/au/

New Roberts DAB+ radio.

Got another radio today which shows bitrate etc. It's a Roberts 'Ecologic 4' DAB+ Digital Radio. Will do a review of it once I have listened to it for a few days.

Good to see Magic has pumped up the bitrate, sounding almost as good as MP! Listening to the cheaper model I bought and comparing it to my original has made me appreciate the original even more. The new one is good but doesn't compare with the original. So as I said in a previous post be careful what you buy!See there 20 stations listed at present but still only the 4 new ones

Report 13th May.

3AW and Magic are now sounding fine.
As I work from home and don't have a "go to work time", I have been listening overnight and there doesn't seem to any reduction in power. My signal quality hovers between 95-100% most of the time, day and night.
ARN began with The Edge but changed to a relay of Gold by Monday night. FRN are dupicating AW and Magic and SEN, MP and Sport927 are single stations, so we have 15 stations as expected.
Did a bit of a scout around my area (Werribee/Hoppers Crossing)yesterday and Monday and there are still very few DAB+ radios available. There are a few of Sangean's cheapest model at Good Guys and Retravision and a Roberts and Revo at Harvey Norman. Dick Smith seem to be ignoring them! In another shop (not one of those mentioned previously) a guy tried to tell that an AM/FM radio with a digital display was a digital radio! When I mentioned DAB+ to him his reply was "what's that".
Will report anything else of interest.

Melbourne - The first day!

Well, Melbourne DAB+ is up and running and sounding great! That is all except Fairfax Network stations!!!! 3AW and Magic sound dreadful. Sounds like they are on repeat and the bitrate of Magic and the sound level is way below all other stations. Fairfax has also got FN1 and FN2 but are only relaying AW and Magic over them. ARN is relaying The Edge and calling it The Edge Digital. So there are 18 stations instead of the expected 15. Not a lot of different scrolling info yet, similar to FM RDS at present but I notice Sport927 is giving racing odds. I do like that it makes 3MP sound a bit more "modern" with the better sound etc. Pity FRN can't do the same with Magic. My station of choice Vega sounds great but on my new DAB radio it sounds great on FM too. I'm pleased I spent a wee bit more than I meant to and got a GOOD radio. Could't handle one of those mono speaker "things"! Maybe as a cheapie clock radio but not as my main one. I intend to get a Sangean component in the not too distant future when I'm sure all is well with dab and when I can afford it!Anyone else listening in Melbourne?

Melbourne switches on 11 May!

Melbourne first on the east coast to switch on digital radio (8-May-09)Commercial radio stations in Melbourne MIX, GOLD, SEN, 3AW, 3MP, FOX, MAGIC, TRIPLE M, NOVA, VEGA, Sport 927, Radar, Pink Radio, Koffee and NovaNation create radio history on Monday, 11 May 2009 when they begin broadcasting the first permanent DAB+ digital radio services on the east coast of Australia. http://www.digitalradioplus.com.au/index.cfm?page_id=1013&display_news_id_1104=1026 From today's digital radio news.

Anyone in Melbourne have a DAB+ radio and ready to listen on Monday? I am looking forward to Monday morning!

Perth to be first Australian City with full DAB+ digital radio service!

Congratulations Perth, You're first!

Commercial radio stations in Perth - Mix 94.5, 92.9, Nova 93.7, 6PR, 96 fm, 6ix, Radar, Pink Radio and Novanation create radio history on Monday, 4 May 2009 when they begin broadcasting the first permanent DAB+ digital radio services in Australia.

Commercial digital radio services are expected to be switched on in each city from the dates below barring any weather delays. For the first 10 -14 days services might be on low power at night as any potential interference is addressed.
Perth - 4 May Melbourne - 11 May Adelaide - 20 MayBrisbane - 25 May Sydney - 30 May

This news is from todays Digital Radio Plus News.

New DMG digital stations.

DMG has got their two new digital stations streaming on the 'net in aacPlus audio. A station for older listeners http://www.koffee.com.au/ and a dance station for younger listeners http://www.novanation.com.au/
Both have good sound quality but the koffee one is more my taste. They are being broadcast from Brisbane nationally.

Austereo launch 1st Digital station.

In December 2008 Austereo launched Australia's first commercial digital radio station, RADAR. Radar Radio is dedicated to undiscovered artists and their music and is now streaming live online at www.radarradio.com.au. When digital radio officially launches in August 2009. Radar it will broadcast free to air in digital quality in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.

Bought my first DAB+ radio today.

Today I bought my first DAB+ radio in preparation for when broadcasting starts in May. It is a PURE Evoke-2S and it sounds terrific in FM. When digital broadcasting begins I will do a review for this blog.

A brief description of DAB+ digital broadcasting from Wikipedia.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
For other digital audio broadcasting systems, see Digital radio.

Countries with DAB, DAB+ or DMB broadcasts[1]
Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB), also known as Eureka 147, is a digital radio technology for broadcasting radio stations, used in several countries, particularly in the UK and Europe. As of 2006, approximately 1,000 stations worldwide broadcast in the DAB format.[2]
The DAB standard was designed in the 1980s, and receivers have been available in many countries for several years. Proponents claim the standard offers several benefits over existing analogue FM radio, such as more stations in the same broadcast spectrum, and increased resistance to noise, multipath, fading, and co-channel interference. However, listening tests carried out by experts in the field of audio have shown that the audio quality on DAB is lower than on FM in the UK on stationary receivers, due to 98% of stereo stations using a bit rate of 128 kbit/s with the MP2 audio codec, which requires double that amount to achieve perceived CD quality.[3][4][5]
An upgraded version of the system was released in February 2007, which is called DAB+. This is not backward-compatible with DAB, which means that DAB-only receivers will not be able to receive DAB+ broadcasts. DAB+ is approximately twice as efficient as DAB due to the adoption of the AAC+ audio codec, and DAB+ can provide high quality audio with as low as 64kbit/s.[4][6] Reception quality will also be more robust on DAB+ than on DAB due to the addition of Reed-Solomon error correction coding.
Australia, Italy, Malta and Switzerland have started transmitting DAB+ stations. Hungary is due to launch DAB+ stations in 2008 and Germany is planning to launch DAB+ in 2009. The radio industry in the UK is expecting DAB+ stations to launch between 2010 and 2013,[7] and podcast services using the DAB+ format will be launched in the UK in 2009.[8]