[HCDX]: Station on 1620

[David Diamond <ddiamond@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

A new station 'GB Radio' has popped on the band here in Victoria on
1620kHz. I recently made contact with the owner (Pieter Marchant) and below
is an extract from a message I recieved from him. It may be interesting to
note that this station seems to be broadcasting in parrellel with 4860kHz

Our business is called GBRadio. We re-broadcast radio stations from around
the United Kingdom, targeting the British Expats in Australia. I am the
Australian side of the 
partnership with Roger Thomas, who is based in London, being the other 
half. Currently, some five stations have been equipped with our 
computers, in the UK, which are linked to the Melbourne computer via 
mega-fast cable. Although this facility easily allows 'live' broadcast, 
we have decided to delay transmission, for the time being, to the same 
time clock as Oz. In other words, the English 0700 programme is 
broadcasted at 0700 in Melbourne. In the near future, programmes will be 
live.

Over recent months, we have been testing 'the system' using an old 
Teleradio 80 (with lots and lots of fans to keep it cool!!!). Obviously 
the harmonic supression ain't that hot, which is why you also pick it up 
on 4860.  Which is also why we're not on air all of the time.

Our studios are in Bayswater. We have a simple inverted L, 1/8th wave, 
on the roof.

Currently an engineer is tuning our 1Kw unit ... an ex ABC unit from 
Omeo. This will doubtlessly work a lot better than the current job, 
though the power bill may be a bit higher ! Within the next few weeks 
you should receive GBRadio very clearly on 1620 and, hopefully, not so 
clearly on 4860 (though I won't completely object if a few harmonics 
stray around the places GBR can't reach). We also have a licence for 
1611 in Sydney, which we anticipate to be on air before year end.

Currently, our programmes consist of BCR from Belfast, Swansea Sound 
from Wales, Thames FM from London, Bay FM from Cumbria (north country of 
England) and Scot FM from Scotland. Swansea Sound and Scot FM are 
probably two of the largest stations in the United Kingdom. We have 
further stations in the UK ready to receive our computer equipment, the 
overall object being to run 24 hours a day, with just one or two hours 
from each station. In addition to Australia, our signal will also be 
broadcasted to Expats, through local broadcasters, in New Zealand, South 
Africa, Canada, USA, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Hong Kong & Singapore within 
the next few months. We will also have our Internet site up within the 
next month (hopefully).

I hope the above gives you some detail. Please feel free to email me at 
any time (gbradio@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx), or you can contact me at Knox FM
(another small radio project!!!) on 9720 9696. Please accept this letter as
our permission to 
pass on details of GBR to other DXers, and any help you can give us, in 
this regard, would be very much appreciated. Roger and I have been 
working for over 5 years on this project and now, with just weeks to go 
before it is properly up and running, every bit of publicity is not only 
appreciated, but stands a good chance of helping us put food on the 
table again !!! 

By the way, if you know of anyone with a decent solid state AM TX we'd 
love to hear from them. Wattage unimportant as long as it's over 100 
watts. Thanks.
Pieter

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