Mystery station Ozyradio broadcasting on 5050kHz

Stephen, VK2BLQ, mentioned a station he'd noticed on shortwave at 5050 kHz.

When I started listening, the station was simply playing a short list of music with time calls. There was no station identification. Now I'm noticing some short spoken word segments some of which sound like they might be of a religious nature - sort of self help style. Others including "moneymaking moments, from the money maker", whatever that is.

DXing.info has a mention of the station, as does Shortwave Central.

People involved seem to be Ian Baxter, who responded to a QSL request from the US; Craig Morris, who seems responsible for the transmission and wrote "Been on from 5pm 3/4/11 - 300 watts NVIS Dipole, Station Playlist, Breakaway Broadcast & it sounds really good."; and Craig Allen, who holds the VKD963 license according to the ACMA register of Radiocommunications License.



They are transmitting from the west of Sydney:

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Today I notice they are saying "if you like what you hear" you can email them. I've done this and asked what they intend for the station.

Update from Craig Allen:

Hi Peter.

At this stage we are still testing and were building a new antenna for 5050khz and 2355khz in the long term the station will be middle of the road music, news & radio programs but we will be fully automated.
Thanks

Craig Allen

Station Manager

Update from Craig Morris:

so is this a new commercial station? No

What audience are you chasing? Anyone that can hear it !

I wrote back asking if it's a religious station. Craig replied:

"Hi Peter,

Were a new shortwave station in Sydney.Our frequency's are 2355khz,
3210khz and 5050khz.

At this stage we are still testing and setting up our TX site. At this
stage we are playing music etc and selling air time.

Thanks

Craig Allen

Owner"

So Craig Allen is now the owner and this kind of suggests it is commercial.

I see that Craig has a registered business name "Ozy Radio" and he's registered OZYRADIO.COM although it's still parked at this point.

There's a Facebook group.

Update: It's religious.

Well, the cat's out of the bag. The programming has now switched to religious content.

I'm currently in Canberra and can hear 5050kHz peaking at 42dBuV quite clearly on a portable radio (Tecsun PL-310) with its whip antenna.