AFANA Footy BBS

I just got one of those Sirius satelite radios today and had an idea.

Has anyone considered perhaps lobbying Radio Australia to add its stream on either of the two satelite radio providers? I thought their coverage was really good on Friday nights last year on Shortwave, I thought they had great commentary. I even remember being able to listen in to some Footy call-in show they had on once. Now granted, the reception on shortwave isn't all that great, but it would be terrific on Satelite radio. Just an idea
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> Has anyone considered perhaps lobbying Radio Australia to add its stream on either
> of the two satelite radio providers? I thought their coverage was really good on
> Friday nights last year on Shortwave...

An excellent idea, Phil. I've got a contact or two at RA and I'll look into that. Anyone who has Sirius or is considering it, feel free to put the word in at Sirius that you would like RA full time. BTW, RA does appear for an hour or two a day in the WRN channel of Sirius (but no sports so far as I know). Since Sirius will be adding several channels of CBC from Canada soon they might consider RA.

We'll put this on our list of possible lobbying efforts in the near future should nothing positive happen on the TV front.

-Rob de Santos
AFANA Chairman

AFANA Blog

>RA does appear for an hour or two a
day in the WRN channel of Sirius (but no sports so far as I know).

Yup they have about an hour a day, usually of news or other happenings in Australia, no sports as you say!

>Since Sirius will be adding several channels of CBC from Canada soon they might consider RA.

As far as I know it's still debatable as to whether or not Sirius is going to be "officially" allowed into Canada and if the whole CBC deal will go through (believe me I've followed that situation closely). Having said that, you might have noticed "Hey wait a second, doesn't Phil live in Canada?". Yes, yet I have a Sirius satelite radio account setup and it works perfectly here (I got sick of waiting for the Canadian approval which seems it might be questionable given recent moves by other competitors ie. Chum media). When I called the Sirius rep, I even blatently told them I'm in Canada and want to use it... she tells me "that's fine, just give us a US address such as a hotel" In other words right now it's not a problem for Canadians to subscribe to either service so I think that it would probably be one of the best ways of having Radio Australia available to the widest number of people, with excellent reception quality to boot!

Hi All,

I have received the following via the shortwave "swprograms" listserv from John Figliozzi, who helps promote Radio Australia:

With the station's summer vacation schedule coming to an end, there are some changes afoot at Radio Australia.

1. The "Grandstand" weekend sports program will continue to air on all shortwave frequencies, instead of on just a few special frequencies as had been the case in the past.

2. When the Australian Football League and National Rugby League seasons commence this fall (spring in the Northern Hemisphere), RA's weekend audio streaming will initially have to go silent--as it did over the summer (winter) when the station was broadcasting a considerable amount of cricket. Telstra owns the streaming rights to AFL and NRL broadcasts. However, RA is working on the creation of an alternative program schedule for its audio streaming service that would run as a substitute for Grandstand on the weekends. The station hopes to have this alternative in place by sometime in March. At that time the streaming service will once again be 24/7. ...

So we can expect better coverage of footy via RA this season since a wider range of their active frequencies will carry the coverage however online coverage will continue to only be available via the AFL web site.

Everyone should remember though that as we are approaching solar minimum, shortwave propagation (listening conditions) will continue to be erratic and unreliable.

-Rob de Santos
AFANA Chairman

AFANA Blog