Monday 20 January 1975 saw the birth of alternative Australian rock radio station, 2JJ – or “Doublejay” – using an old ABC radio standby transmitter.
Apart from a minor technical fault that put the station off-air briefly after transmission began at 11:00, the broadcast was heard in most parts of Sydney.
The history-making first announcer was Holger Brockman (real name Bill Drake), and the first record played was You Just Like Me ‘Cos I’m Good In Bed by Skyhooks (which had been banned by commercial radio stations).
Despite initial plans that the station would only operate during restricted hours because it shared a frequency with a New Zealand radio station, it actually broadcast 24 hours a day (there were no interference problems with the kiwi station).
Doublejay’s programming philosophy was to play the broad area of rock/pop/blues/jazz/folk music which was labelled ‘contemporary’, while at the same time remembering the roots of this music, and presenting news, comedy and features for the “young people” the ABC had asked the station to cater for.
The station began simultaneously transmitting on the FM band in July 1980.
In January 1981, the AM transmissions stopped and ‘Doublejay’ ceased to exist. The new FM version of the station was christened 2JJJ (“triple-jay”).
