PRESS
RELEASE
UGFM
TRANSMITTERS FOR MARYSVILLE & YEA
UPDATE
After almost a year, Ugfm was finally able to turn the Marysville/Triangle transmitter on permanently. During our test transmission, small group of people objected to the ABA's proposal to finally allow us to extend our area to cover the other half of Marysville. This meant that we had to switch off until the ABA plans were to be considered for the Melbourne area, which took almost a year.
Ironically, the objecting group disbanded after months of lobbying against us, due to lack of support. This occurred only days before the ABA decided to grant the extended area licence that we had been seeking since 1993. We were not very impressed by members of this group, who at no time spoke to UGFM re their aspirations, and denied our service to the "hard to reach" area of the valley for many more months. Ugfm did however continue to transmit and provide service to the people of the Yea and environs area during this time.
Ugfm now transmits permanently in Marysville, Yea and from Mt Eildon for the Alexandra/Eildon area.
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OLDER NEWS
7 February 2000
The
Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA), has announced that it proposes to
provide frequencies for supplementary transmitters at both Mt Gordon & Mt
Broughton to fill in the poor signal areas around Marysville and Yea for Upper
Goulburn Community Radio Inc. (UGFM). This is great news, as UGFM has been
extensively lobbying the ABA ever since it’s initial application for a
community radio license in 1993.
UGFM,
being a licensed Community Radio Broadcaster since 1998, initially intended to
service the Shire of Alexandra, taking in the
towns of Alexandra, Buxton, Eildon, Marysville, Narbethong, Taggerty, Thornton
& Yarck, but in 1994 when the Shire of Yea amalgamated with Alexandra it was
decided to amend our application to take in the whole Shire of Murrindindi and
provide a quality radio signal that could be received by everyone in our shire.
Unfortunately,
due to our proximity to Melbourne, our license boundaries could not be finalized
until the metropolitan radio license boundaries where defined. This has now been
done, and the ABA now proposes our boundaries be amended to take in Yea and the
area south of Marysville, to suit our original application to service the
Murrindindi Shire, and include supplementary transmitters for Marysville and
Yea.
Since
our first broadcasts in 1994, UGFM has continued to promote our Shire, and
provide for everyone who lives in or visits our Shire. UGFM’s aim is to
provide local news, information and of course great music with variety for the
whole Murrindindi Shire, UGFM is your community radio
station.
With
our outside broadcast unit, we attend and promote, over 15 venues a year from
all over the Shire, which is unheard of by other community radio stations in
Australia. We have weekly Town roundups from around the Shire, and along with
the Community Diary and regular interviews, keep everyone including visitors
well informed of happenings everywhere.
Over
the past six years, UGFM has been keeping in regular contact with concerned
residents and listeners, especially from both the Triangle and Yea districts,
who have been having difficulty in receiving our signal. We have always been and
still are very encouraged by the support to provide transmitters for these
areas. The new frequency allocations by the ABA address these problems.
The
frequencies, being 98.5 MHz for the Triangle area and 88.9 MHz for the Yea area,
have been proposed by the ABA, and as these frequencies have not been tested for
compatibility, UGFM will begin transmissions on these frequencies from Wednesday
1st March. UGFM will continue to transmit on 106.9 MHz as well. This
for the first time will give Shire wide reception for listeners.
Prior
to our last report in this paper in November, UGFM was planning to use 106.9 MHz
as a frequency for the triangle area, as this was the only option at the time.
But the ABA has now allocated 98.5 MHz, with this ultimately being the preferred
option, to service the triangle area.
UGFM
provides a 24 hour service, with 17 hours a day being produced from our
studio’s in Alexandra, with an up to date, hourly news service along with
current weather and emergency service information. The breakfast program starts
at 6.30am, with an easy listening format with interviews and local news until
5pm, when dedicated programs begin.
If you would like to be involved as a presenter with UGFM, and become one of over 50 dedicated volunteers, please contact UGFM President, Peter Weeks at, PO Box 270, Alexandra Vic., 3714 or Phone 57 722722 Fax 57 722 414, or you can visit our web site at cute.com.au/ugfm
This site was created by
The Cucumber Entertainment Network
www.cute.com.au