The Community Radio Network (CRN) in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

is a

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioiso ...

program feed available to subscribing

community radio Community radio is a radio service offering a third model of radio broadcasting in addition to commercial and public broadcasting. Community stations serve geographic communities and communities of interest. They broadcast content that is popu ...

stations. It was created and is managed by the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA). The CRN does not produce the programs that are broadcast on the feed, but acts as a distributor of material supplied by member stations.

History

After more than a

decade A decade () is a period of ten years. Decades may describe any ten-year period, such as those of a person's life, or refer to specific groupings of calendar years. Usage Any period of ten years is a "decade". For example, the statement that "du ...

of exchanging programs between stations on tape via

mail The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal sys ...

, the CBAA established the Community Radio Satellite, known as ComRadSat in 1993. Four media organisations have co-operated to make the satellite service available to community

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

s all over Australia. These are the CBAA, the

Australian Indigenous Communications Association The Australian Indigenous Communications Association (AICA) is the peak body for Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander broadcasters. It is the successor to the National Indigenous Media Association of Australia (NIMAA). History AICA ...

, Radio Print Handicapped Network and the

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is an international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the British Government through the Foreign Secretary's office. It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception a ...

. Each organisation transmits their programs via

Optus Singtel Optus Pty Limited (commonly referred to as Optus) is an Australian telecommunications company headquartered in Macquarie Park, New South Wales, Australia. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Singaporean telecommunications company Singte ...

onto the C1 Satellite via the

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site at

Belrose Belrose is a suburb of Sydney in the state of New South Wales, Australia 19 kilometres north-east of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of Northern Beaches Council. Belrose is also considered to be part of th ...

. On December 2013, CRN, RPH, NIRS and BBC World Service shifted to

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satellite platform.

Channels

The satellite feed is four distinct channels: * Channel 601 – ''

National Indigenous Radio Service The National Indigenous Radio Service (NIRS) is a satellite program feed available in Australia to Indigenous and non-Indigenous community radio stations. NIRS provides targeted and specialist programming for and by Australia's Aboriginal and ...

'' provided by the AICA (

stereo Stereophonic sound, or more commonly stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configuration ...

) * Channel 632 – ''Radio for the Print Handicapped Australia'' ( Vision Australia Radio Melbourne) provided by RPH Australia (

mono Mono may refer to: Common meanings * Infectious mononucleosis, "the kissing disease" * Monaural, monophonic sound reproduction, often shortened to mono * Mono-, a numerical prefix representing anything single Music Performers * Mono (Japanes ...

) * Channel 629 – ''BBC World Service'' (

) * Channel 630 – ''Community Radio Network'' provided by the CBAA (

)

Channel 630

The Community Radio Network channel has a number of elements to the program feed. * Core Programs – 30 or 60 minute programs produced by member stations. These are usually talk, music based or issue driven. One of the most popular programs is Allegro Non Troppo. * Sustaining Service – CRN is broadcast 24 hours a day so subscriber stations can use the feed at any time, even to fill air time during an emergency or breakdown. CRN plays music when scheduled programs are not broadcast. * News and Current Affairs – ''National Radio News'' is available on a separately charged basis. The hourly bulletins are produced by

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

s and

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s at

Charles Sturt University Charles Sturt University is an Australian multi-campus public university located in New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory and Victoria. Established in 1989, it was named in honour of Captain Charles Napier Sturt, a British explore ...

. * Festivals – Live coverage of a range of music festivals each year including the

Woodford Folk Festival The Woodford Folk Festival is an annual music and cultural festival held near the semi-rural town of Woodford, north of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is one of the biggest annual cultural events of its type in Australia. Every year ap ...

Tamworth Country Music Festival The Tamworth Country Music Festival is an annual Australian music festival held for 10 days from Friday to Sunday in mid to late January each year, sometimes including Australia Day, in Tamworth, New South Wales. The festival is the second bigg ...

, WOMADelaide and the

Wangaratta Festival of Jazz The Wangaratta Festival of Jazz is an annual Australian festival of jazz and blues, founded in 1990 by the City of Wangaratta with Adrian Jackson as its first director. It is held at various venues in the town of Wangaratta, north east of the ...

. * Paid Programming – Appropriate organisations may buy airtime for special event programs or series.

Funding

The CBAA maintains the satellite service through a combination of station subscription fees, an operating grant from the Community Broadcasting Foundation and fundraising such as paid program time. The radio stations can apply for a specific grant from the Community Broadcasting Foundation to purchase and install the satellite receiving equipment.

Digital Delivery Network

Another aspect to the CRN is the DDN. The Digital Delivery Network works alongside the CRN satellite feed through

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applications. A radio station can select its preferred programs on the DDN

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and W ...

and the stations’ DDN-enabled computer will automatically record the selected programs. Three months worth of current music content in a variety of genres is also made available for stations to use.

References

External links

*{{official website, http://www.cbaa.org.au * Community radio organizations Radio stations established in 1993 1993 establishments in Australia