TUNE! FM
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| Broadcast area | Armidale, New South Wales, Australia |
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| Slogan | Student Powered Radio |
| Frequency | 106.9 MHz FM |
| First air date | 27 April 1970 |
| Format | Contemporary/Independent/Youth |
| ERP | 10W |
| Callsign meaning | 2-NSW UNE-University of New England |
| Owner | University of New England |
| Website | [1] |
TUNE!FM (ACMA callsign: 2UNE) is the University of New England’s campus radio station, a high power open narrowcasting service operated by the UNE Student's Association. Founded in 1970, the station is Australia’s oldest university broadcaster, serving UNE’s students, staff, and the broader Armidale community.
TUNE!FM has a colourful history of broadcasting, both legally and illegally. Its inception dates back to 1968 when a group of five students called the UNE Radio Committee presented a prerecorded, half-hour radio show each week on Armidale's local commercial station, 2AD. With the support of this group, Professor Neville Fletcher of the UNE Physics Department approached the then Postmaster-General's Department and presented the idea of establishing a service similar to those emerging on university campuses in the United States. After considering this novel idea, the Postmaster-General wrote on 14 January 1969 to say a licence would be issued. The licence allowed the station to operate a 'closed-loop' system with micro-transmitters located in each of the eight residential colleges on campus.
After overcoming technical and operational hurdles, Radio UNE (RUNE) began test transmissions on 1630 kHz on the AM band in March 1970. The station was officially opened at 7pm on 27 April that year, with a pre-recorded message from the Vice Chancellor, Professor Zelman Cowen who oversaw the license application. Richard "Swinging Dick" Mutton, Station Manager, introduced the first music track, Harry Nilsson's Everybody's Talking. Operating on only a yearly budget of about $3000, the initial construction of the station was an impressive example of passionate student motivation and community spirit. The studio desk was built from scraps by one volunteer, another student did the electrical wiring and one especially committed staff member even built a studio in his own home for production work. Only a few months later on 4 August, RUNE put itself firmly on the map with a bold attempt at an Australian record. Nineteen-year-old student Nigel Wood extraordinarily broadcast non-stop for 87 hours going on-air every 15 minutes. Several years later in 1991, the station would take back its record with student Ian Ferguson smashing out a massive 192 hours of non-stop announcing.
TUNE!FM has operated on a 10 Watt HPON Narrowcast licence since it was awarded a frequency on the FM radio spectrum in 1986. Interference problems and frustration with the low powered transmission system led the station to experiment, sometimes illegally, with alternative transmission methods. At times the station could be heard as far away as Uralla and Guyra. This limitation was appealed during the late 1990s and again in 2009. Both of these appeals were rejected by the ABA and ACMA respectively, even though the location of TUNE!FM's transmitter at the Newling Building in town restricts the station from being heard reliably on the main UNE campus.
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