Why can’t we get reception for ABC 98.1FM on Wyong Rd?

I am disappointed that the ABC has never bothered to look into the terrible radio reception of ABC News Radio 98.1 FM along the length of Wyong Road.

The problem is not restricted to a specific vehicle, as I have had a Ford and a Holden and the problem is identical.

The reception on 98.1 is mostly hash, interspersed by some other radio station cutting in and out over the ABC as you drive – it is so bad that the program is unintelligible, and not worth putting up with.

I have contacted the local office of ABC a few times over the last  few decades, but they duck-shove to some other Commonwealth organisation responsible for communications.

But it is surely up to the ABC to examine the situation on the Central Coast and either put in a repeater, or increase the power of the transmitter.

I suspect that the hash is the result of being at the outer limit of the  transmission’s reach – like the snow on the old analog black and white TVs.

But how can Wyong Road, almost the geographic middle of the Central Coast, have marginal reception?

Come on ABC, you do so many other things right – why not do the right thing by 98.1 FM?  If it needs some extra dollars, surely, in an election year, the local Federal members can chip in.

Email, Mar 25
Geoff Robertson, The Entrance