Probably some guy who connected a Satellite Box to an analog transmitter and retransmitted it for their own enjoyment or as a hobby. I seen a few people doing it on YouTube.
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Thereās the motel in town - thereās a photo in there, undated
ā3 channels is all you have, there is no digital tvā
So rather than wire up each room of the hotel with a CATV system and a VAST to DVB-T conversion setup, they just pipe a STB output over analogue - note the rabbit ears in the top corner.
Seems simple enough, and might be high powered enough to cover a bit outside town.
Iād imagine this would fall under the in-car FM transmitter tier of legality.
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Apologies for the delay in getting that video uploaded - the upload speed here over mobile is quite weak.
Analogue PAL broadcast TV received on Eyre Hwy, Western Australia - April 2025
I was able to pick up the transmission at Madura Lookout (about 1km away from the roadhouse) and had my viewing experience interrupted by a no reception message being generated by the satellite decoder.
I am able to receive the same analogue transmission 100km down the road in Cocklebiddy. 7 and 7mate are on the same broadcast frequency as before, but ABC has been replaced with Nine. Not sure if this is the same transmission as what I received in Madura. The fact that 7 and 7mate are carried on the same frequencies at both sites makes me think it is possible thereās some dodgy high powered transmitter here. The TV signal I received at Madura was watchable but had significant analogue signal artefacts (causing intermittent picture dropout) which spoiled the picture.
Audio is mono only but Teletext subtitles appear to be decoded from the satellite program and then encoded into the PAL RF signal.
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Hmm. Looks like youāre probably right! The frequencies the channels Iāve received are in the 529-694MHz range for āvideo sender devicesā under the low potential interference class licence, which exempts anyone from being required to apply for a broadcast licence if the transmitting power is 12 microwatts or less, and I presume any video modulation standard can be used, including analogue.
https://www.legislation.gov.au/F2015L01438/latest/text
But are these transmissions really all being done with a 12 microwatt transmitter? ChatGPT says you can expect 50-200m coverage at best, under the most ideal of conditions (line of sight, sensitive apparatus). I was able to pick up the transmission 5km away from the roadhouse.
Iām now at Caiguna Roadhouse. Same deal, three channels - Nine, 7mate and ABCTV. Excellent reception near the roadhouse.
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Judging by the fact that Teletext is working and made it into the analogue transmission, thereās a strong chance somebody got a hold of an old translator transmitter, since a lot of the MATV injectors often strip it out.
Still cool to see it again despite being officially shut down for 12 years.
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Could it be an old analogue transmitter site thats been left on all this time and forgotten about in the switch off? especially at the distance it is receivable?
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not sure that it is possible that anyone can accidentally leave a transmitter on for 12 years?
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Just had a look at some old ACMA Radio & TV Broadcast Stations books from 2008 & 2011 and there were no analogue transmitters listed for Caiguna, Cicklebiddy or Madura.
Why is it good that analogue signals are back in some form? Strange thing to say.
Itās the intrigue thatās the thing here.
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How can it be a strange thing to say?
While (if this is one of those unofficial relays) I donāt really support Pirate TV as Iād like to call it, itās a good reminder of what Australia used to have before the government switched us all to digital. Or if this is a legit transmission then I think we should be thankful we even have the analogue signals again, even if itās just in one area of Australia for now.
If you were in an area with weak reception, the picture would either get snowy or experience some dropout moments but it wouldnāt go away completely, and you could still watch it. Nowadays with Digital, if youāre in an area with weak DTV reception, the picture can pixelate or drop out completely.
Perhaps itās a chain of them, set at common āstaging posts.ā I wonder if you parked up a little way out of town if the signal is weaker?
It wonāt be legit.
A reminder of things past? Plug your old VCR into the antenna socket of your TV and you can get the same reminder.
Youād be surprised. Thereās a retransmission of SBS Radio somewhere in the north-west that has/had been playing the VAST Info Channel music for years according to a couple of forum posts from people living and working in the area.
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This is more common then people realize, the VAST Box power cycles and happens to land on Channel 800 and no one ever goes to fix it
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Iām looking forward to the day where we finally complete the transition and get analogue back across the country!
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Why not go one step further and go back to black and white, and forget colour? Just like the good old days 
Jokes aside, DTV is here to stay.
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I tremble to think what analogue will look like on a 65 inch OLED ā¦ it already looked bad enough on a 32 inch LCD from 2008.
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vinyl records have made a comeback, as have audio cassettesā¦ maybe analogue TV will find a niche market revival although good luck getting ACMA to licence it!
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I want my AM stereo back first !!!
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During the DTV Restack project in 2013/14 some phantom analogue TV services were found. Typically they were Self Helps that were not documented by the broadcasters because the local council installed and maintained them.
I turned up in one town to Restack the 3 commercials and ABC as there was no SBS listed there - sure enough I did a channel surf in the motel the night before and there was an analogue SBS self help channel running on a RF channel that was needed for the Restack. The records kept were a joke.
Another site had 2x all the gear that was needed sent to there - different broadcasters knew it by 2 different names so the Project thought there were two different sites.
Another gem from the Restack Project was the huge amount of POP tests required for commissioning. The outage windows allowed were a joke because where you often had a translator feeding another translator and it ment if you were at the end you had no input signals because the other site was being Restacked at the same time.
The mass of commissioning tests also looked suspiciously like BAI (the Project Managers) POP tests for their ABC and SBS contracts - no visit magically needed that year for the annual POP tests.
Other PM innovations were scheduling the Restack at Mt Barrow for a night in August - best of luck getting up there if it had been snowing.
I have never set foot in a TV station since.
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