New Radio Station for Canberra
February 20th, 2007 at 03:17am
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) have auctioned off a new High Powered Open Narrowcasting (HPON) licence for Canberra. The purchaser of the licence is ANC International Holdings Pty Ltd, who have paid $200,000 for 1323 kHz on the AM band.
Apparently there is an association between ANC International Holdings and BoardRoomRadio.com which appears to be some sort of “communicate with your shareholders” podcasting service. At present it is unclear whether the new radio station will have anything to do with this partnership, but if it does, then it will obviously be a business/stock market station.
Unfortunately the ACMA press release makes no mention of what restriction this station has in order to make it a narrowcast station…being high-powered it has to be a subject restriction, so being a business/stock market station is certainly a possibility.
According to ACMA’s transmitter list, the station’s transmitter will be located on the Broadcast Australia facility (ABC, SBS, RPH transmitters) on the Barton Highway and will have a transmission power of 400 watts, 100 watts higher than 2KY Racing Radio which runs a HPON racing service on 1008 KHz (AM), 4,600 watts less than ABC Local Radio in Canberra, 2CA and 2CC and 9,600 watts less than Radio National in Canberra.
Unfortunately ANC Holdings haven’t informed ACMA as to what their restriction or on-air ID will be as yet, but they’ll have to do that before going on-air.
Currently their is no carrier on their frequency.
The new radio station must be up and running by June 21, and I’ll be following the progress of the station. More information as it comes to hand.
Samuel
Entry Filed under: Canberra Stories,TV/Radio/Media
5 Comments
1. John B1_B5 | February 20th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
400 watts power output ? What sort of a flea powered Mickey Mouse AM station is that ?
Any self respecting AM broadcast transmitter is at LEAST 2 Kw (2000 watts), with most transmitters being 5 or 10 Kw.
High powered AM transmitters such as 4QR Brisbane are 50 Kilowatts !
2. Samuel | February 20th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Well…it is a narrowcaster, cheap licence, less power.
3. John B1_B5 | February 20th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Hmmmmm- Yes, low power and extremely limited range.
The term “narrowcasting” is misleading, because it gives the impression that the transmitted AM radio signal uses a narrower
bandwidth than a normal AM transmitter, when in fact it’s basically
the same.
4. Samuel | February 22nd, 2007 at 5:39 am
According to Johnboy of RiotACT fame, it will be a Chinese Language station. I still intend to find out from ANC International Holdings.
Unfortunately ACMA think it means “Narrow appeal broadcasting”.
5. John B1_B5 | February 22nd, 2007 at 11:41 am
“Narrow appeal” ? Hmmmmm … I guess that’s ONE explanation.
A better description would be “Limited Range Broadcasting”, but in this day and age of abbreviated cliches and 2 second ‘sound bytes’, that title would be deemed excessively long !