Carols In The Park has gotten off to a good start at Norwood Park, with the 2CC broadcast going well as well. If you want to send a Christmas message to anyone, ring 2CC on 62554444 and you will probably have the opportunity to do so, depending on timing of events and how many other calls they get.
Samuel
1 comment December 17th, 2005 at 06:42pm
Carols In The Park is on tonight here in Canberra, from about 6PM. The venue is Norwood Park in Gungahlin, entry is free and all proceeds from sales go to charity. For those of you who can’t make it, there will be coverage on Radio 2CC and Foxtel’s Aurora channel.
Mike Frame will be running 2CC’s broadcast, and if you look carefully, you might spot some other 2CC staff in the crowd.
You can find the official guide in this week’s Chronicle, it includes the words to many christmas carols, which will (hopefully) keep the audience on the same words as each other, even if they aren’t in tune! But it is christmas, so it hardly matters if we are in tune.
UPDATE: TURNIP ALERT: Chief Turnip Jon Stanhope will be in attendance and will run the official opening, hopefully he will avoid his trademark political grandstanding and let everyone enjoy their night. Remember Jon, Aurora (Foxtel’s Christian Channel) are replaying this twice on Christmas Day, think about appropriate publicity before you speak, you will have plenty of other, and more appropriate, times for your political views.
Samuel
2 comments December 17th, 2005 at 10:54am
As 2CC listeners would know, Mike Jeffreys is now on holidays for four weeks, he will return on Monday, January 9 if all goes to plan.
At this stage I am led to believe that Mike Welsh will fill in for Mike Jeffreys on the breakfast show in the coming week, and Mike Frame will fill in for Mike Welsh on the drive show. Mike Welsh is taking the week off between Christmas and New Year, I have no idea what will happen during that week or the weeks after, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we hear the voices of Mike Frame, Kevin Woolfe and Leigh Zaghet running various shows.
This morning a number of people rang in to wish Mike Jeffreys a merry christmas and a happy new year, I was going to, but only had 80 cents of mobile credit, and left a message for him instead (Thankyou to Kim for passing that on).
Samuel
December 17th, 2005 at 01:01am
The tree has been removed and the roof needs a bit of repair, but other than that the building is fine.
I’ll have photos from that story and the New Day Australia Christmas Cruise online ASAP.
In the meantime, Loadedog, who is a friend of a next door neighbour, passed by last night and took some photos, I was already in alternative accomodation for the night at this stage.
If you were listening to Stuart Bocking after 1am you may have heard me chatting with him about the Canberra storms.
Samuel
1 comment December 3rd, 2005 at 02:00pm
According to a discussion over at Bus Australia, ACTION are attempting to sell some of their old fleet. The following Renault (Presumably PR100.2 with Ansair MK1 seating) are up for tender:
692, 693, 698, 750, 751, 757, 759, 761, 763, 764, 767, 769, 771, 772, 774, 775, 776, 778, 782
I’m not sure what the procedure is, you would probably need to ring ACTION to find out, but the bidding ends at the end of the month. Unsold buses will be returned to service.
Now, not that I can aford one, or drive one for that matter, but I would personally love to own a particular bus in the 800 series.
Samuel
28 comments November 28th, 2005 at 07:35pm
There is something very wrong with the electricity infrastructure in the Canberra suburb of Mitchell, where 2CC and 2CA broadcast from. Mitchell, it would seem, suffers from the most blackouts of any part of Canberra, which is very odd considering that Michell must use a huge amount of electricity and would be one of ActewAGL’s main revenue sources. Todays outage is understandble as there has been a large amount of thunderstorm activity around Canberra, but it has been known to go out in Mitchell at random from time to time.
Today, for the first time since my journey to Erindale to see the 2CC Kingswood, I had the strange “wince-and-pleasure” of hearing some alphabetical love song (presumably from the late 40’s or early 50’s) which forms part of the 2CC emergency tape. This was due to a power failure in Mitchell which caused the 2CC and 2CA studios to lose power, and the emergency tapes which are presumably off site to kick in. Last time I heard the Alphabet song it was due to a power failure. The 2CC emergency tape is cleverly constructed to have an ad break at the start which runs long enough to cover most ad break failures (and give general outages long enough to recover), this is followed by “Down Memory Lane” which is a purpose built program filled with a large array of music, including the light and bubbly alphabet song which has a habit of getting into your head…A you’re adorable B you’re so beautiful…
2CA on the other hand a slightly more unusual emergency tape. It starts with a station ID which they stopped using two or three years ago, it then launches into The Rolling Stones “Brown Sugar”. Unfortunately, there seems to be excess noise between the studio and the tape which makes it cut out, wait 15 seconds and start again, effectively driving people insane. 2CC’s emergency tape also started repeating itself at one stage, but nowhere near as often as 2CA who were on the first song for most of the 20 minutes.
The power outage did acheive one thing, it more or less removed the sydney-centric “Radio Trading Post” segment of the Glenn Wheeler Weekend Afternoon show. That segment, along with Sydney Gardening, might be useful in Sydney, but they provide a monotonous experience for Canberra listeners who have already heard hours of similar programs in the morning. Overall I enjoy Glenn’s show, but I don’t think the 2 hours of Sydney gardening or the half hour of Sydney Trading Post is terribly relevant in Canberra.
John B1_B5 also reported hearing 2CC lose Sydney programming between 4:45 and 4:55 and play music in the comments here. I don’t know whether this has to do with electricity problems or satellite failures as I didn’t hear it for myself. I’ll assume it was a satellite failure in this timetable of events below.
Since 6PM things have been fine, lets hope they stay that way.
People might think that emergency tapes are boring, but really they have to be one of the most interesting things on radio, because you usually don’t know what’s going to happen next, will the program continue? Will the normal programming come back? And depending on the length of the outage, what happens when the tape reaches the end?
Samuel
5 comments November 26th, 2005 at 06:26pm
The Section 84 development in Civic is certainly progressing well, and seeing as I took a photo of it a while back and was walking passed it with a camera today, I thought I might give you an update on it’s progress.
Here it is on October 4, 2005
And here it is from an angle which allows me to take more meaningful photos today (Nearly two months after the last photo).
The building on the left of the photo is the same one shown in the first photo.
Here is a picture showing two buildings.
Are the construction workers aliens?
There is still plenty of work to do though.
Samuel
13 comments November 25th, 2005 at 06:17pm
The Retirement And Lifestyle Expo did appear to be very interesting, there wasn’t much there that was relevant or useful for myself, but those who are looking to retire soon or have already retired will find it interesting and find plenty of useful information. At one stage I could hear Denise Drysdale performing but I did not actually see her.
I did say that I would have some photos, I didn’t get as many as I was hoping for due to the fact that I don’t really want to take too many photos of the people involved, and I’m sure they don’t need me taking a few zillion photos. I stayed for about 45 minutes, but it is understandably off putting having spectators, there is a large difference between public speaking and radio broadcasting. It is much easier to forget that you are talking to a lot of people when you are in a studio, when you have spectators it does become a bit more difficult as the “public speaking issue” comes into it.
Anyway, I took two photos, the first one showing the studio at the exhibition.
And there is one of Mike Welsh’s first interview of the afternoon, this photo is badly out of focus due to a mistake on my behalf. This camera is new to me and I really need to read the instruction manual properly. My experience with it so far indicates that it focusses better with a flash, but a flash is very off putting when broadcasting and I didn’t want to cause any problems.
If you happen to be at the retirement expo over the weekend, you should be able to drop by and say hello or wave to David Young and Mike Frame, I’m sure they will be happy to say hello or wave back.
Samuel
4 comments November 25th, 2005 at 04:55pm
Alrighty then, time for me to head off to Exhibition Park to see the 2CC Outside Broadcast (which is actually indoors, but what else can you call it when you use the “OB” abbreviation?)
You can expect photos soon!
Samuel
1 comment November 25th, 2005 at 01:59pm
This will be my final Retirement Expo weather report, you can easily follow the weather on the “Canberra Weather” section of the sidebar. The images act as links to the full weather report.
I will be there tommorow from a bit before 3pm until about 4pm, I will be most interested to see how 2CC manage this, will they have the caller names on a screen at the Retirement Expo or will someone in the 2CC studio at Hoskins St inform the presenters of caller names. If it is the latter, that could become messy during The Trading Post.
2CC will be broadcasting from stand 159, whioch can be found on this map here. It would appear that this will be a fairly prominent position just to the left of the entrance.
Mike Welsh just said that 2CC will be there on Sunday as well, a full weekend of 2CC at the retirement expo is quite a clever move in my view.
2CC are going to be promoting themselves to their target demographic, without any opposition from their direct competitiors over at the ABC.
Anyway, weather for Friday, Saturday & Sunday.
Friday: Possible Thunderstorm 12-22
Saturday: Showers 12-23
Sunday: Showers 8-19
Thankfully the Retirement Expo is indoors!
Samuel
2 comments November 24th, 2005 at 05:06pm
Looking at the weather report for the Canberra Retirement Expo, I am somewhat convinced that Capital Radio Network Outside Broadcasts (which in this case are defined as “any broadcast by a Capital Radio Network station which takes place from a location other than a Capital Radio Network building”) attract thunderstorms. Take a look at the current weather report (at time of posting) for the retirement expo.
Image courtesy of The Weather Company
As you can see, the two days on which 2CC are broadcasting from the expo, thunderstorms are predicted. Yesterday the weather report was for thunderstorms on only one of those days, but as it draws closer, more storms are expected.
This may seem like a coincidence, but I clearly recall a 2CA outside broadcast at Floriade a few years back where thunder was clearly audible over the airwaves. It was actually fun comparing the time that I hear the thunder at home and the time it came over the radio.
Mike Welsh, who will be at the Retirement Expo on Friday thinks I’m “drawing a long bow”, and he is probably right, but it is an interesting coincidence.
In other related news, whilst I was having lunch in Dickson, 2CC’s Mike Frame (who heard me on the John Laws show the other morning and will be at the Retirement Expo on Saturday) was walking past and stopped to say hello before going off to play lawn bowls. I remember playing lawn bowls as a school activity in year 8, it was good fun, and it truly is a sport which I would highly recommend.
Samuel
23 comments November 23rd, 2005 at 06:24pm
Here is a picture of a nice garden I noticed the other day whilst Nattie and myself were going for a walk. The garden itself is segmented into a few sections with some lawn, rows of flowers along the path and another section of lawn which is bordered by plants. The picture here is of the flowers along the path.
The thing that makes this garden especially special is that only a couple years ago it was really just a big hedge that some idiot decided would look better if it was on fire. The burnt hedge has since been removed and the front bit of the garden is where the hedge once was. The way the owners have recovered from the tradgedy of the firebug is truly sensational.
Samuel
2 comments November 21st, 2005 at 02:48pm
For the first time ever the popular Retirement And Lifestyle Expo, as seen in Sydney and Melbourne, is coming to Canberra.
Denise Drysdale will be making an appearance, and more importantly in my view, 2CC will be there with some outside broadcasts.
Regular 2CC and 2UE listeners will know that 2UE broadcast from their own fully fledged studio at the Sydney Retirement And Lifestyle Expo, and for them it is a very large and exciting event, I wouldn’t be surprised if 2CC treat it the same way.
2CC will be broadcasting the Drive Show on Friday November 25 from 3pm-6pm and Weekend Magazine & The Trading Post from 9am-2pm on Saturday November 26 (according to the information I heard Mike Frame distributing today). I personally plan on making my way down to the expo on the Friday and (hopefully) taking some photos of the 2CC outside broadcast. I can’t make it down there on the Saturday but if I could I’m sure I would be making the journey on that day as well.
The expo is taking place at Exhibition Park In Canberra from Friday November 25 to Sunday November 27 between 10am & 4:30pm
Entry is $8 for adults and $6 for Seniors Card holders and Pensioners. Accompanied children get in free.
For more information about the expo, click here for the five page PDF.
Samuel
2 comments November 19th, 2005 at 10:11pm
Alrighty then, Nielsen have put their report up on the web here and I’ve summarised it all below. Unfortunately Nielsen don’t release detailed reports to the public for regional areas (Yep, Canberra is regional in radio), so we will just have to make do with overall results.
The general trend is for losses by the AM stations and gains by the FM stations. Interestingly, FM 104.7 managed to take over the top spot from Mix 106.3, the survey was undertaken from October 9 to November 5.
The results are as follows:
Samuel
November 17th, 2005 at 05:14pm
Survey 2 for Canberra Radio has been released, with FM 104.7 taking top spot from Mix 106.3, both 666 ABC Canberra and 2CC recorded losses, as did 2CA and radio national. The general trend was a loss across the AM band and gains on the FM band, which isn’t exactly what I wanted to see, but it is interesting none the less.
I’ll wait for Nielsen to release the full details before running a more comprehensive story on the issue.
Samuel
9 comments November 17th, 2005 at 01:51pm
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