The Community Radio Network (CRN) in

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is a

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

program feed available to subscribing

community radio Community radio is a radio service offering a third model of radio broadcasting in addition to commercial broadcasting, commercial and public broadcasting. Community broadcasting, Community stations serve geographic communities and communities o ...

stations. It was created and is managed by the

Community Broadcasting Association of Australia The Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA) is the peak body and the national representative organisation for community radio and television stations in Australia. The CBAA provide leadership, advocacy and support for members to ac ...

(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 (from , , ) is a period of 10 years. Decades may describe any 10-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 ...

of exchanging programs between stations on tape via

mail The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letter (message), letters, and parcel (package), parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid ...

, 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 the broadcasting 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 rad ...

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 AIC ...

Radio Print Handicapped Network RPH Australia is the national peak representative organisation for a unique Australian network of radio reading services designed to meet the daily information needs of people who, for any reason, are unable to access printed material. It is es ...

and the

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is a British Public broadcasting, public service broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC. It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception area, language selection and audience reach. It broadcas ...

. Each organisation transmits their programs via

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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 ...

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

VAST VAST is an American alternative rock band based in Seattle, United States. The acronym VAST stands for Visual Audio Sensory Theater and is the main creation of singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jon Crosby. The band is signed to 2blo ...

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, commonly shortened to 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 configurat ...

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

mono Mono may refer to: Biology * Infectious mononucleosis, "the kissing disease" * Monocyte, a type of leukocyte (white blood cell) * Monodactylidae, members of which are referred to as monos Technology and computing * Mono (audio), single-c ...

) * 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 a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

s and

student A student is a person enrolled in a school or other educational institution, or more generally, a person who takes a special interest in a subject. In the United Kingdom and most The Commonwealth, commonwealth countries, a "student" attends ...

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, Australia, Victoria. Established in 1989, it was named in honour of Captain (British Army and Royal ...

. * 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, Queensland, Woodford, north of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, Queensland, Australia. It is one of the biggest annual cultural e ...

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, Tamworth, New South Wales. The f ...

WOMADelaide WOMADelaide is an annual four-day festival of music, arts and dance in Botanic Park, Adelaide, South Australia. One of many WOMAD festivals held around the world, it is an event that presents a diverse selection of music from artists around th ...

and the Wangaratta Festival of Jazz. * 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 The Community Broadcasting Foundation (CBF) is an independent non-profit funding organisation based in Melbourne, Australia, Melbourne. The CBF receives funds from the Australian Government to distribute through grant programs to support the mainte ...

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

online In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity, and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed as "on lin ...

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

website A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, educatio ...

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

* * Community radio organizations Radio stations established in 1993 1993 establishments in Australia Radio organisations in Australia {{radio-org-stub