Digital Radio trial for Canberra

Well, it looks like Canberra is going to be the first ‘regional centre’ to receive digital radio, after its introduction into State capital cities last year.

This will be a trial, commencing from July this year. Apparently the stations that will be available on DAB+ will be:

• 2CA – Capital Radio Network
• 2CC –Capital Radio Network
• Capital Radio Network – 2 additional commercial services to be announced
• Mix 106.3 FM –  Canberra FM (Austereo/ARN)
• 104.7 fm – Canberra FM (Austereo/ARN)
• Canberra FM (Austereo/ARN) – 2 additional commercial radio services to be announced
• SBS Radio 1 – News & Information Network
• SBS Radio 2 – News & Information Network
• SBS Pop Asia
• SBS Chill

That’s the good news. The bad news for those of us who live in the deep, deep south (aka, Tuggeranong) is:

[DAB+] will transmit from the Broadcast Australia transmission tower on Black Mountain. Although the signal will be at relatively low power for the trial, it is still expected to cover a large part of the Canberra area.

Somehow I think those large hills between me and Black Mountain may prevent that.

Then, oddly:

The second phase of the Canberra trial will be a retransmission of the trial signal into Parliament House to allow Federal politicians to experience digital radio first hand.

… even though Parliament House is in direct line of sight of Black Mountain.