The following entry is written by Peter Finch, who is self employed and operates narrowcast radio stations in Queensland.

We know that radio is a passionate medium, you have a passion for it and everything you do with it is done passionately. 

Diana Abdel-Rahman is passionate about many things, her Islamic faith, her family and her cat. And radio.

This year marks Ms Abdel-Rahman’s 20^th year of broadcasting to Canberra’s Islamic community during the holy month of Ramadan.

In 1993 Canberra’s ethnic and multicultural community radio station 1CMS first went to air, thanks to years of tireless work by key members of the A.C.T.’s culturally diverse community.

Ms Abdel-Rahman was among those pioneers and she presented the first program on 1CMS for Canberra’s muslims which was the call to prayer each day during Ramadan that year.

Each year Ms Abdel-Rahman gained more airtime for Radio Ramadan and the name Australian Muslim Voice was registered as an organisation dedicated to Islamic arts and culture.

“Radio Ramadan’s popularity grew not because it serves Canberra’s muslim community but because the majority of the programming, apart from traditional prayers, is in English” Ms Abdel-Rahman said.

Listeners have widespread interest in the programs Ms Abdel-Rahman added. “Embassy and consular staff, tertiary students and academics and everyday people who just want to know more about Islam are regular listeners especially through our streaming.”

AMV outgrew the 1CMS facilities and in 2008 leased a studio from another of Canberra’s community broadcasters which allowed them to broadcast continuously during the entire period of Ramadan.

This was done using a Telstra landline to feed the program to Black Mountain Tower where a temporary transmitter and antenna was installed.

The studio location was not convenient for presenters to get to and after-hours access was difficult so after Ramadan 2010 Ms Abdel-Rahman met with Peter Finch, a broadcast consultant working through Coast and Country Media to look at a new direction for AMV.

AMV has gained strong support throughout the Canberra community and funds were raised through sponsorship, donations and gifts to purchase a Nautel VS1 transmitter, an Elan Merlin console and all the essentials to set up an independent broadcast operation. 

Working with Andrew Smith from Cool Chilli Data and Ian Clifford from IAC Communications, Peter Finch drew up plans to build a “radio station in a box” which would be quick and easy to set up and operate for Radio Ramadan and also be an asset to AMV which could be hired to other groups needing temporary broadcast facilities.

Radio Ramadan began broadcasting with this new configuration from the sunroom of an AMV member’s house on Canberra’s southside for Ramadan in 2011.

Technically it’s an easy product to configure according to Peter. “The ACMA licence Radio Ramadan as a Special Event broadcast, and two locations and frequencies are allocated. Broadcast Australia lease site facilities at Black Mountain Tower for the primary service which operates at 500 watts and Tuggeranong Hill for the infill, transmitting at an erp of 200 watts.”

Canberra’s terrain makes radio listening in southern suburbs quite difficult and all major local radio stations have translators in Tuggeranong Valley to serve this growth area, which is home to more than 25% of the ACT’s population.

Programs are fed from the temporary studio (sunroom) through a Barix Instreamer to a Ubiquiti Nanobridge wi-fi and backup ADSL to Cool Chilli at Fyshwick.

Should the wi-fi program fail, an automatic changeover to the broadband feed maintains program continuity.

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