It’s another milestone week in radio, with Moree’s NOWFM – regional Australia’s oldest commercial FM station – celebrating its 35th birthday.
Going strong since 1989, not only was NOWFM the first commercial FM radio station outside a major city – to this day, it’s still one of the biggest in terms of its broadcast reach.
Part of the Super Radio Network, NOWFM enjoys a huge signal reach. The station can be heard as far north as Goondiwindi, west to Lightning Ridge, south of Gunnedah and east to Armidale – and sometimes Tamworth, Dubbo or even further afield.
Afternoon host Greg ‘The Hat’ Henry has clocked up eighteen years with the station.
“I grew up in Gunnedah and I can remember that, after years of listening to country AM radio, all of a sudden 98.3FM hit the airwaves and it was life changing for us in terms of being able to access our music,” Henry told the New England Times.
“One of my earliest memories was sitting in the waiting room at the Armidale Airport – my dad was going for his night pilot’s license at the time – and while I was waiting, they had a stereo on in the corner playing rock music on NOWFM.”
NOWFM officially turned 35 on Monday.
Not only is the station 100% live, 11 hours a day during the week, Henry says that in today’s era of streaming, radio is just as important and relevant now as it was back in the 90s.
“We live in a landscape where mobile data isn’t always a possibility, so not only do we have people listening in their homes and workplaces, but we’ve also got people listening in their tractors while they’re working a 10,000-acre paddock.”
On the BAI Communications tower at Mt Dowe, in the Kaputar National Park, 2NOW transmits at an effective radiated power of 100 kW into a vertically polarised antenna 90 m above the ground it is more powerful than many capital city commercial FM stations.
On the same tower there is also ABC North West, JJJ, Classics and FM are the same power in the vertically polarised plane. At the same height is 2GGG Gunnedah at a lower power.
In addition there are 2MAX at Narrabri and ABC Newsradio, and a high power narrowcaster all at a lower power than above.