Digital TV Technical Discussion

They are also quite weak, 961 is the strongest signal into the valley.

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I think similar thing happened at Hartley too, my brother in law has to have VSAT, but he can get a little bit of Sydney DTV but it is very weak and unreliable.

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This is unsurprising - I know of a number of Councils who were left with a significant bill after any switchover subsidies, some decided to ditch the transmitter and subsidise residents to go VAST, while some continued on with the retransmission.

I know of one site at least where the Council ended up owning it because they were the “last man standing”, everyone else walked away resulting in the community having to directly fund its upkeep - when switchover came, their decision not to convert was simple.

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As I recall the figure the ACMA used for the analogue switch off was 500 residences: less than 500 and they subsidised VAST and more than 500 and the analogue self help was upgraded to DVB.

Recently the DVB self helps became an issue again when the regional commercial broadcasters refused to service ABC and SBS translators without payment. On the surface that seems fair enough except the taxpayer paid for their gear in the first place as well as the ABC and SBS. These sites were never covered by the BA contract for ABC and SBS. Be interesting to see who does the faults now that BTS is no more?

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I can remember about 20 years ago there were plans to commission a TV translator for Wisemans Ferry. I do recall seeing it listed in an old edition of the ABA radio and TV stations book but it never eventuated.

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Was watching Tv this morning, and all channels dropped out except Channel 7 channels

This only happened for 5 mins and then all came back… was this just me or did others have issues too?

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Whereabouts are you?

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Sydney

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Watching a live rescue via helicopter near Lismore. The TV antenna looked very precarious on its very tall mast. It eventually got caught up in the rescue and came down.






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Being the nerd that I am, I was trying to figure out what that large mast would be for. Not local TV (Mt Nardi around there)? Admittedly I have no idea what TV reception in Bungawalbin is like

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It looks to be about 65km from Mt Nardi (main Lismore DTV site), higher mast may have been required due to local terrain possibly? Though MySwitch shows a solid green (strong coverage) for that area in general.

Unlikely to be Mt Moombil (Grafton/Kempsey) since it has the same programming and is 130 km away or Brisbane (too far).

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I was wondering the same.

There was also a small antenna on the roof suitable for local reception.

So it may be a 2-way UHF antenna .

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Mt Nardi covers Southport to Grafton but most people who have antennas to Mt Nardi live between Tweed and Yamba. Mt Moombil reception doesn’t start until about Yamba I don’t think?

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Agree, and goes all the way down to Port Macquarie … it has great coastal coverage thanks to an elevation of over 1,000 m ASL.

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I was always confused why in the guides it’s referred to as the transmitter for ‘Grafton/Kempsey’ when those two are nowhere near each other. I guess it’s reference to the general northern and southern extents of the coverage area?

Probably not a lot of point aiming for Moombil anywhere north of Yamba as you get (and have always got) the same service from Nardi which is closer and likely better.

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Yes, Grafton/Kempsey because of the large coverage area.

It would be a difficult one to label as it’s a lot more than just Coffs Harbour and covers parts of the Mid North Coast and Northern Rivers.

Mt Nardi has different ads on all channels and different local news content on Nine/NBN.

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Mt Nardi’s local ads usually cover from Tweed to Grafton with the occasional Gold Coast ad that slips through. Prime7 News is the same on both transmitters where as NBN have separate bulletins for both transmitters as one in the Mid North Coast sub market and the other for the Far North Coast sub market. WIN News as we know air 2 min noodle updates again one being for Northern Rivers and GC for Mt Nardi and Mid North Coast for Mt Moombil.

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OT but sometimes that’s deliberate. Like a Gold Coast car yard is trying to get people interested in Tweed and Byron to buy a vehicle etc (but a bit pointless if you’re watching in Casino or Evans Head). Like they’ll advertise for the Gold Coast sub market and pay a few extra dollars for a secondary sub market.

Sometimes Western Sydney based clients would buy airtime on NSW Central West tv channels for the same reason and I’m sure there’s plenty more examples across Australia.

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Well this is a weird glitch… And I’m in Metro Melbourne!

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Imagine if it had been on the Nine Network channels. I could then hear the laughing all the way from Bermuda.

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