2MCE

2MCE FM Bathurst is a local community radio station, located on the campus of Charles Sturt University in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. It broadcasts to the communities of Bathurst and Orange and their surrounds. [http://www.cbonline.org.au/index.cfm?pageId=12,37,3,915 CBOnline 30 Years of 2MCE]

2MCE FM is supported by CSU's School of Communication in conjunction with the local community, and operates two frequencies:

*92.3 MHz in the Bathurst area (including Oberon), broadcasting from a transmitter atop Mount Panorama, with a power output of 1 kilowatt (1,000 watts)
*94.7 MHz in the Orange area, broadcasting from a transmitter atop Mount Canobolas, with a power output of 500 watts.

History

The station is one of Australia's oldest non-metropolitan licensed community radio stations. The station began full-time broadcasting in May 1976. [http://www.cbonline.org.au/index.cfm?pageId=12,37,3,915 CBOnline 30 Years of 2MCE] Run by dedicated staff and members of the community, the early broadcasts came from a 170 watt transmitter and a bizarre aerial on top of the library.

A 1 kW transmitter was installed on Mount Panorama in 1977, and replaced in 1994. A translator service to Orange (with a separate transmitter on Mount Canobolas) came on-line in 1987.

In 1989 renovations increased the number of studios from one small studio to three somewhat larger work areas, located on the university's Bathurst campus. The studios are also used by students for their course work, and feature broadcast-standard tools and equipment.

The station includes two separate studios:
*A studio used by the Student Broadcasting Society (known by the name "Studio 4", the brand used by student programming since 1981)
*Separate studios that house a news studio run by the School of Communication. From here, a nationally networked news service for community stations, the National Radio News is produced [http://www.csu.edu.au/NRN/about.html National Radio News] .

2MCE-FM also owns a caravan equipped with facilities for outside broadcasting, purchased from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 1992.

Name

The "2" in the callsign is the New South Wales prefix for radio stations. The "MCE" in the callsign stands for the University's Bathurst antecedent, "Mitchell College of Advanced Education", now Charles Sturt University.

hows

The station's schedule is mostly made up of community programming, including Studio 4 programs (which are broadcast between the hours of 4 and 6pm weekdays, 8pm to 10pm Wednesdays, and 10pm and 2am Sundays through Fridays) and BBC World Service programs overnight.

2MCE also broadcasts a local news service with bulletins airing weekdays at 8:30am, 9:30am, 10:30am,12 noon and 3:30pm. The local news bulletins are put together by second-year Journalism students studying at Charles Sturt University's Bathurst campus. Rodney Bloomfield is the supervisor of the local news room. Student groups rotate throughout the year, taking turns for 1 week at a time sourcing, collating, producing and presenting news and sports items. Rodney Bloomfield has worked at several regional commercial radio stations in a career of more than 20 years, and uses the knowledge gained during this time to assist the students.

2MCE offers a wide variety of shows which cater for people of all ages and with many different tastes. "Talking Newspaper" is a prime example of a programme aimed at specific community groups, in this case, the vision impaired, or people who just want to hear what is in the paper today, while "Cowboys and Outlaws" has all the favourite country songs. 'The [Brokenegg Show'] With Indie and Unsigned music, hosted by Dom and Tom. 2MCE has a breakfast show each morning hosted by differing people, depending on the day and time of year. "Beat Cafe" is an afternoon show for everyone. It runs from 4pm to 6pm each weekday afternoon. It features the newest songs, the retro songs and spans all the different music genres. "That'll Learn Ya!" a Beat Cafe show running on Wednesday afternoon is hosted by the talented Will Dirickx-Jones and is most well known as the 'Home of Exclusives'. Late night Fridays is covered by "the lowdown with Parka" which is probly the best show on 2mce with the best audience.

Notable former broadcasters

*Hamish MacDonald - Aljazeera English
*Samantha Armytage - Seven Network 4.30 news presenter and Weekend Sunrise co-host
*Chris Bath - Seven News journalist and presenter
*Anna Coren - Seven Network journalist and presenter
*Andrew Denton - producer and host of Enough Rope
*Melissa Doyle - Seven Network Sunrise presenter
*Amanda Keller - 2WS FM radio announcer
*Deborah Knight - Network ten newsreader
*Allison Langdon - National Nine News reporter
*Jessica Rowe - Seven News presenter
*Monique Wright - Seven's Sunrise weather presenter
*Marguerite McKinnon - Seven Network journalist
* Scott Thomson - Stand up comedian

References

External links

* [http://www.csu.edu.au/2MCE/ 2MCE webpage]
* [http://www.csu.edu.au/2MCE/studio4/ Studio 4 webpage]
* [http://www.csu.edu.au/NRN/ National Radio News]
* [http://www.cbaa.org.au/ The Community Broadcasting Association of Australia]