To be honest, they don’t work well unless you have a good line of sight out (so up on a hill or upstairs),… or live right near the transmitter.
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I’m currently staying in Port Macquarie, and I’ve noticed that I get the 7/7HD Coffs Harbour and 10/10HD Coffs Harbour channels, instead of 7 Taree and 10 Taree-Port Macquarie. 9 is still under ‘Nine Mid North Coast and 9HD Mid North Coast’.
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Yes, some areas of Port (in the CBD, near the breakwall and Settlement City) seem to get better Coffs reception.
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Makes sense. I presume they get the Mt Moombil transmission in those areas.
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With a simulcast on 7 HD and 7Mate HD the bit rates were almost identical in metro areas.
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Comparing WIN’s new bitrates to Nine’s tonight with sport on 5 channels - 9, 9HD, 9Gem, 9GemHD and 9Go!
| 9 | SD | 2.6 | Mpeg 2 |
| 90 | HD | 4.3 | Mpeg 4 |
| 91 | SD | 2.6 | Mpeg 2 |
| 92 | 9Gem SD | 2.5 | Mpeg 2 |
| 93 | 9Go | 2.5 | Mpeg 2 |
| 94 | 9Life | 2.0 | Mpeg 2 |
| 95 | 9Gem HD | 4.1 | Mpeg 4 |
| 96 | Rush | 2.0 | Mpeg 2 |
| 97 | Extra | 1.4 | Mpeg 2 |
The WIN HD picture quality is noticeably better than Nines two HD channels. Nine really need to consider dumping 9Gem SD and switching some channels to MPEG4.
This is 9Go! picture quality
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I ended up watching it on 9 now lol.
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That’s an old aerial - chimney mount with the ribbon 300 ohm cable still attached and waving in the breeze (newer installation in the background). Amazing that the design could probably get decent reception. (House in on Location cubed and in Frankston).
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Haven’t seen an antenna quite like that one before, looks optimised for Channels 0 and 2, rather than 7 and 9?
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Have an old VHF antenna that would have been used for Bunya Mountains reception mounted to the chimley (It has fallen apart and mostly resting on the roof) on the current place I rent which used the old 300ohm ribbon, even have the old termination point on the side of the house (been painted over)
Luckily I have a more modern UHF antenna for local reception.
I am sure there is still quite a few old antennas floating around on older houses
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Tasmanian TV Services Upgrades
Over the last Free TV has been upgrading your free to air TV services in Tasmania to improve picture quality and deliver more High-Definition channels.
From 5 October 2023, the channel numbers of some of your favourite TV services are changing.
The change affects all five primary TV channels in Tasmania.Most people won’t even notice the difference, although their picture might suddenly look better. But a minority of viewers, with very old TV sets (All TVs sold since 2012, and many sold since 2008, should be MPEG-4 compatible), will find the channels no longer display.
If this affects you, you will need to use your TV remote either to enter a new, two-digit channel number to view the channels in future, or scroll up and down till you find the channels again.
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This is confusing. Are these new channel numbers just for SD versions of the main channel?
ie: Are the HD channels taking the primary slots on 2, 3, 5, 6, 8?
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Yep, these “new” channel numbers are the MPEG-2 SD versions of the channels. There will no longer be any other channels like this. The rest will be HD.
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What confuses me though is that WIN SD is apparently MPEG4? So what’s the point?
Or is that changeover happening later in the year? (An SD MPEG4 stream would be stupid)
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Yeah but older TVs can’t see MPEG4.
They’ll probably keep this thing going for a year.
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If WIN SD is MPEG4 and older TVs cant see MPEG4, then what is the point of advertising WIN SD on 88?
Every TV should be capable of receiving WIN HD on 8 in this case.
Just get rid of the SD simulcast altogether.
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These channels will be the older version no? This is for the old people who cannot upgrade for whatever reason.
I agree they should drop all SD channels everywhere.
This is what I am getting at. Apparently WIN SD is already MPEG4 and any TV which receives MPEG4 can get HD (I’ve never seen an SD-only MPEG4 TV).
So what is the point of this for WIN?
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Older TVs are not MPEG4 compatible, thus until now couldn’t get WIN SD yes. This change is seemingly changing these 5 channels to MPEG2 SD to allow them to receive it after October.