Spotlight on...Bald Hills

27 Aug 2010

After starting life in the 1930s as a sleepy transmission station at the far northern reaches of Brisbane’s city limits, Bald Hills has come a long way. It is now a key radio broadcast facility, and has been developed into a national ‘centre of excellence’ for repairs and technical/engineering support.

Broadcast Australia's Bald Hills facility is primarily a radio transmission site for ABC services. Originally commissioned in 1935, it has seen many changes in its 75-year history. Bald Hills is now one of seven high-powered AM sites around the country that form the backbone of the ABC national radio network, and which together reach 80 per cent of Australia's population.

The site boasts a 200m-high antenna, giving a broadcast range of up to 300km. The current transmission equipment was installed from 1992 to 1996, and today three radio services are broadcast to the south-east Queensland area—ABC Local Radio 612; ABC Radio National; and ABC NewsRadio.

Centre of excellence

Since 1996, Bald Hills has provided a district office location for Broadcast Australia's Brisbane Field Service Team, which looks after 40 of our sites—from Gympie in the north to Grafton in NSW. In 2006, the facility also became Queensland Region Field Services headquarters, with a responsibility for 180 company sites. Today, Bald Hills is additionally the office of the National Field Services Manager, whose remit extends across the entire country.

Over the last few years, Bald Hills has emerged as a 'centre of excellence', and has provided a national base for several additional teams and functions. Both the Service Delivery Unit Rigging Team (formerly The Bridge Networks) and the Antenna Support Team are now located here, and each has their own workshops and storage facilities.

Moreover, Bald Hills is also the national base for our Network Services Team, which provides nationwide technical and engineering support—wherever in the country it is needed—to all field teams. Equally, as host of the National Repair Centre, Bald Hills provides a centrally managed location for module repairs for our entire national network.

Strength to strength

Looking to the future, Bald Hills is set to grow further in importance, with a technical training centre—complete with a transmitter test bed—planned for completion in 2011. The facility's ever-growing role in recent years has resulted in challenges associated with limited storage availability on site. This too, is planned to be remedied in 2011.

From a sleepy radio transmission station, to a bustling broadcast facility and national centre of excellence employing 30 people, Bald Hills continues to go from strength to strength. Having a number of national, regional and district teams co-located here allows us to capitalise on the synergies between the different disciplines—enabling us to better serve our clients' networks.

Picture caption:  Inside the operations at Bald Hills

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