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.
Sorry to our 891 AM band listeners. We’re off air. Planned outage overnight went wrong.Help! @abcmarkscott
— Matthew Abraham (@KevCorduroy) June 11, 2013
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:
We are back on air with @891adelaide on a standby transmitter. We will see if @kevcorduroy and @davidbevan891 can talk and pedal.
— Mark Scott (@abcmarkscott) June 12, 2013
An update at 10:30am yesterday said:
“We have returned to our main transmitter, but are operating on reduced power.”