FM radio in the middle of nowhere

Radioland supporter Dafydd - you can become a supporter here - contacted me and asked: “What’s the deal with triple j broadcasting on FM from dozens of ore mines? Is it purely because the mines are central and the most populous areas, or are they piping the Js in underground for the miners to listen?”

Indeed, here’s a partial list of broadcast radio stations in Australia. And - weird - there’s a lot of stations available on FM in “Newman Area C Mine”, just picked at random.

Well, Dafydd. Anything for a supporter. And anyway, you’ve got me interested.

Newman

Newman is a town with a population of 6,456. Who owns Newman? BHP, the mining company. When was the town of Newman built? 1966. Why’s it called that? After the nearby Mount Newman. Why is Mount Newman called that? After Aubrey Newman, a government surveyor. They named it after a girl? No, don’t be silly. Aubrey was a bloke. In 2017, they opened a second supermarket, as part of a $30mn investment. Who paid for that? BHP, the mining company. They’re the second largest public company in Australia. (It stands for - well, stood for - Broken Hill Proprietary; Broken Hill is a mining town in New South Wales. Yes, “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”. That Broken Hill.)

Newman has its own gas-powered electricity generator, and a 11MWh battery, powering the town. And if you’re interested, the daily temperature is anywhere from 6.5 degrees up to 39.4 degrees. The record high is 47 degrees (116 deg F).

The closest (proper) Starbucks, in Ellenbrook on the outskirts of Perth, is a 12 hour 20 minute drive away. (Or, a flight taking less than 2 hours, costing almost $1,000). The closest McDonald’s is a 25 minute drive. From the Starbucks. It’s a 12 hour 38 minute drive from Newman.

It’s quite remote.

Newman has its own transmitters for FM radio, for those 6,456 people.

The ones Dafydd’s asking about aren’t for here.

Newman Area C Mine

Newman Area C Mine is an iron ore mine, 92km away from Newman itself - another 1 hour 24 minutes drive up the Great Northern Highway. But, once you get there, a Google satellite view shows you that there’s plenty of housing there (at the top of this screengrab).

It’s BHP Packsaddle Camp, where there is a cafe, a gym, a retail store, and a “wet mess” (actual review on Google Maps: Great to get a feed to take back to yr donga). People live there for a while, as they work at the mine, so they need some creature comforts: so there’s Telstra coverage there, some poorly-reviewed wifi which often doesn’t work, and… the radio.

BHP operates an FM retransmitting station with ten channels on there. They are: ABC News Radio, ABC Grandstand, ABC Classic, ABC Country, ABC Radio Perth, ABC Western Australia, Triple J, SBS Chill, Triple M, and Hit Western Australia. (The latter two used to be known as Spirit Radio and Red FM). If I had to lay a bet, I’d suggest that the signals come via satellite.

The transmitter is on the mining terminal itself. Each station runs about 20W ERP. The licence - here’s one - is held by BHP, with specific requirement to only rebroadcast the specific stations registered. They appear to be yearly licences, but are presumably renewed automatically.

In a country as big as Australia, this is something that ACMA can offer - there is a specific retransmission licence you can get. ABC and SBS channels are all national licences by default; Triple M and Hit WA are both licensed already for that transmission area, and it’s much easier to get these licences if you’re an “in-area retransmission” as these are. Broadcasters themselves can’t get these licences - only “self-help providers” can (which includes mining, petroleum, oil or gas companies), though broadcasters are fine to help them.

Spectrum has to be made available for this; copyright is specifically mentioned in the law (you’re covered, basically, for in-area retransmissions at least); and there is a small licence fee (looks like below $100 per station, but it’s just a guess because my goodness, it’s all quite opaque).

I don’t see anything mandating it has to be on AM/FM; and it strikes me that “friends of the ABC” could put up a DAB multiplex of ABC and SBS services if they wanted to in much of Australia. Now, there’s an idea.

Anyway - after a hard day’s yakka working on the mines, isn’t it nice to know that people want to relax listening to… the radio? And even nicer to know that a mining company has paid for that as an amenity.

Radio - reaching the parts of Australia others can’t.