I posted this about 2 years ago in the general history thread. I was a bit puzzled about this, but I think I’ve found what this “CTV-1” channel is.
Apparently it consisted of a VCR and an RF modulator + a BBC Micro computer (to generate Teletext in vision) which was hooked up to the community TV antenna on the roof of public housing units in Waterloo and Redfern. 2000 people would have been able to view it. See this vid below:
There was a book written about CTV-1 some years ago but I’ve never read it.
“Promo video” for Channelvision, Canberra’s community TV station, which was only avaibile through TransTV, TransACT’s cable TV service. It became defunct due to the TransACT-iiNet merge.
Wikipedia says it shut down at some point in 2014.
Yep that was when the merge happened. But someone actually backed up the TransACT site back-in-the-day:
http://122-99-91-19.static.transact.net.au/
Community TV channel ACE TV began transmission in May 1994 and closed December 2002. Its licence was cancelled in 2002 due to a breach of licence conditions. It would be superseded by C31 Adelaide.
I have noticed with new antenna installations around Melbourne and Geelong they are VHF-only (they don’t have any UHF elements) which means they cannot receive C31 on UHF 32. Perhaps in part due to uncertainty with the Federal Government trying to force them off the air. A couple of years ago when I got a new antenna in my flat I specifically asked my antenna installer to install a VHF/UHF antenna so I can watch C31. I was offered cheaper antennas that were VHF only but told them no, I wanted C31.
Hey everyone,
I run a YouTube channel called “IBIS Channel 32”. This year I produced a mini-doco series about Brisbane community TV channel “Briz 31” (yes, have a guess where I got my YouTube channel name from…)
Thought this’d be a good excuse to start a discussion thread on the defunct channel, also.
PART 1:
PART 2:
Enjoy.
C31 Melbourne has worked to restore an old VHS recording of its first night of programming – 6 October 1994 – starting with the media conference that took place earlier that day, including comedian/actor Jane Turner on the panel.
YouTube: Channel 31 Melbourne
Found a tape with some ACE Television.
Almost 4 hours of ACE Television from Saturday 30th September 2000 is now up.
A test transmission from Metro TV Sydney circa 1988.
YouTube: InvisiblTV
Nice find. I had no idea C31 Sydney went that far back. They must have been running flea power in those days. Even at 10 kW I struggled to get them in Oatley; admittedly my location was very poor for reception from Artarmon (lots of multipath/ghosting).
Community TV was a pretty rare thing in regional Australia.
Lismore was one such area that had one.. LINC TV, according to this ‘Northern Star’ article, began 18 December 1991, just two weeks before aggregation began … they didn’t print a TV guide in their paper for it however…
This differs to other info I’ve seen on the internet, indicating that they were on UHF 68 (not 31 as per article below) and didn’t start until 1993.
Can’t imagine they would have been transmitting from the main Mt Nardi high power site, most likely a lower power site closer to Lismore?
Be interested to know what kind of programs they aired… Did any other regional areas have community TV?
Mount Gambier had Bushvision for a couple years… was supposed to go nationwide (well, regionally nationwide) but that never happened.
Bendigo was supposed to have one but they didn’t get their programs on in time.
I remember reading in old ABA annual reports that the Central Coast, Mandurah and Hobart were all due to have theirs start but they never got past giving a licence out (maybe more but I can’t remember them right now)
I believe in those same reports they allocated channel numbers for them in all places? Haven’t really checked that one
Bendigo had CTV which opened with a test pattern on 19 June 1999 operating on UHF-41. It had it license cancelled at the end of the month for failing to broadcast regular programming.
