The ABC has a bare presence in the City which is a shame because given the regions population, its news is very much disregarded due to its close proximity to Melbourne (as opposed to Newcastle or Wollongong who get their own TV and Radio coverage).
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ABC TV in Newcastle is pretty much the same on air as Sydney.
Geelong also has it’s own relay at Highton, so in reality it’s no different to Newcastle for TV, other than the network name here is ABC NSW instead of ABC Sydney.
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Yes ABC TV is state based, but on radio Newcastle gets local programming, and 7,9 and 10 all have local programming on TV in Newcastle.
Back then, it was all that was needed. The ABN2 tower had an FM array at the very top back in the late 1950s for the experimental FM service.
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ABC Local Radio Newscastle is more a regional now as more content is networked in, sadly. But, yes, it has a hell of a lot more local content that ABC listeners in Geelong do not get.
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WIN does not have any local content on its Ten station bar the noodle updates and advertising. Prime is the same in the Newcastle sub-market.
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In Brisbane, I would think the first major addition to the ABQ tower would be the Classic FM arrays about half way up the tower. Next would have been a UHF addition at the top to accommodate the introduction of SBS 28. Later, extra FM antenna work was needed to add JJJ.
Then digital TV came along and ABQ needed a VHF array to accommodate its channel 12 transmission. When the analogue switch off happened, SBS started on channel 7 and UHF wasn’t needed and the Band I array also became redundant.
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On a similar note the UHF array on top of the old QTQ tower is also obsolete. BTQ’s tower is partially demolished so I would imagine there may just be some ENG and two-way antennas left there. Ten’s studio at Coot-tha just houses a handful of staff now who would be better off closer to the city, so that would be obsolete too. Nine and Seven just run a Newsroom and news presentation studio - Mt Coot-tha is not exactly a hive of activity.
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There is a proposal for all to move and consolidate. Perhaps the idea of a more attractive tower that was a tourist attraction with restaurant etc might be revived.
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Is my understanding that Seven Brisbane have no interest in moving off the mountain. Along with Seven News, the building also houses the Network Archive having being transported up from Melbourne in 2016. Seven have even done some building works to lengthen the life of the building. Seven obviously taking the opportunity of keeping their very low cost 99 year lease property in action for many more years to come. Why move off the mountain to a high rent inner city site? If anything, if Seven were to resume in-house playout and transmission, that building would be perfect to base all their network playout from after their archive digitization starts to be completed.
Can understand Nine wanting to move, and doing a try-on it seems to get the QLD State Govt to pay for their move being they, nor Ten nor Seven can sell those buildings. Their leases require the building bulldozing and returning the site to a natural state if they are to vacate, at their cost.
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Didn’t the ABC do experimental FM transmissions in Brisbane in the 1950s? Were they from ABQ2 tower or somewhere else being ABQ did not commence until late 1959?
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What the hell is an IP23 truck?
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I guess that confirms the ABC’s OB fleet is decomissioned? It was on the cards, hadn’t seen confirmation.
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Where is NBN’s new office in Tamworth?
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An OB truck that has cameras & audio equipment that send the data via IP (Internet Protocols) back to the OB Truck for processing and then send the finished product via IP back to NEP’s Hubs in Sydney or Melbourne.
Some IP trucks send all the individual audio and camera feeds via IP back to central control rooms (Hubs) built in Sydney & Melbourne where they do all the vision/audio switching before sending the finished product of to the TV networks play-out centers
See NEP centralised-production
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I thought going IP and doing all the integration back in Sydney or Melbourne would result in a smaller OB truck - IP23 looks as big as the old analogue trucks used to be
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ABC had a mono FM service running from what is now the Telstra Mirrumbul site which is on the summit of Mt Coot-tha next to the TVQ tower. It got turned off due to very few listeners prior to FM receivers appearing in the mid 70’s. AM was the technology of choice back then.
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