ABC Adelaide goes off-air

During their regular breakfast show yesterday, presenters Matthew Abraham and Paul Bevan discovered that the 891AM transmitter was not working and tweeted listeners and ABC boss Mark Scott.

 

 

ABC sources have told radioinfo that a new combiner was being installed during the night and standard transmission was supposed to resume around 5am however, when the analog AM transmitter was switched back on it failed and needed time to be restored. When transmission did resume, it was only at half power for some time. Even at half power the ABC 891AM transmitter is still about 5 times more powerful than commercial stations in the market.

The DAB+ ABC 891 signal was unaffected and the station was still available via online streaming and smart phone applications.

A statement on the ABC website said:

As a unexpected result of overnight maintenance work on our AM transmitter, critical infrastructure was damaged and we were unable to go to air on our main transmitter – but when all else fails, there are other ways you can listen to 891…”

“We are currently broadcasting on a low-powered, back-up transmitter and technicians are working on returning services to our main AM, with hopes to have regular broadcasting methods returned soon.”

 

Mark Scott tweeted back, soon after the difficulties were discovered saying:

 

An update at 10:30am yesterday said:

“We have returned to our main transmitter, but are operating on reduced power.”