Imagine the job for an antenna technician in the analogue days trying to get a good picture for a residence at The Gap. Do you go with a high gain antenna pointed at Nine and put up with ghosting on ABC and 10?
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Thatās kinda surprising @gordo92. I would have thought the Ornata Road TXA site would have better coverage than the Eyre Rd BA site just given the height of the array on the old ATV tower.
Guessing thereās more to it than that!
From Street View at Cheltenham in Sydney. This antenna was often used in hilly areas of Sydney, which i think was used to help reduce ghosting in the analogue era.
I donāt think a higher gain is going to help
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I was also thinking of the problem of where to point the antenna as ANC and 10 are in one direction with 7 and 9 at 25 degrees different.
Perhaps if they are high enough up the hill they could try for the Sunny Coast Brisbane relays 
Plenty of those in Penrith and the Hawkesbury back in the day.
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I lived in The Gap in different houses from 1976 until 2000. With an outdoor antenna, good results, especially for Nine. In one place, Nine was picture perfect and the others, slight ghosting on the other channels with bunny ears. However, it depends on where in The Gap you live. The last place I lived in was in 2000 just next to The Gap Tavern where the signal is always blocked. The complex had a communal antenna set-up (2 antennas) located at the front entrance to the right of the driveway. 1 antenna is still visable today - Google 1 Glenquarie Place, The Gap. All I could pick up is snow so Foxtel cable was my only option. A few units now have their own band 3 antennas so I presume digital works better.
Where my sister has lived for many years at The Gap is located at the bottom of the mountain from Channel 10. They have a VHF/UHF combo antenna installed in 2003 and band 1 & 3. To this day, Channel 7 is not receivable via the antenna and only just comes in on rabbit ears and glitches for the most of it. The other channels are 10/10 through rabbit ears. Iāve never worked it out yet and havenāt got around the replacing the antenna with a band 3!
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dumb question from a dumb viewer, here. Do viewers see the signal drop out when there is a change to back up transmitter? Or is it somehow seamless to people watching?
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Not a dumb question.
For the main metro sites, if the transmitter change is because of a fault or a mains power outage, then yes the viewers will notice a short break in transmission, a fault will cause a roughly 15 - 30 second break, a mains power outage will cause a roughly 20 second break before the generator starts & takes on the load.
Some transmitters are set to change site quickly on fault or power fail, others will try alternate exciters or wait until the generator power the site again first with a site change being last resort.
Of course the viewers might see a longer break, as different TVās/Receivers take different amounts of time to re-lock onto the signal, decode & buffer it before displaying the picture again.
A manual site change for testing or whatever, most viewers wonāt notice anything, as for a short period of time (up to 20 seconds), both transmitters will be on at the same time. A small amount of viewers may notice a slight glitch, as the transmitters arenāt in SFN right across their coverage area, so theyāll be in a mush zone between the 2 signals at different phases in time, most wonāt be in that position though, so the 2 signals will just complement each other.
Translator sites will be different, if fed off air from the main sites, they will see a break on main site change, some translators will see a roughly 10 second break changing transmitters (at the same site) while others will see no break changing between transmitters, just depends how fast the transmitter change completes.
FM radio is similar, but on mains power fail many will have a break while waiting for the generator to take over, as they have a backup transmitter at the same site, rather than at an alternate site.
Regional main sites are somewhat different, whereby they donāt have alternate transmission sites in most cases, they just have alternate transmitters at the same site, so again for a mains power fail, there will be a noticeable break in transmission while waiting for the generator to start & take load. Manual transmitter changes will also see a break, but it may not be noticeable as both transmitters will be off for milliseconds while the RF line (Coax Switch) changes position from one transmitter output to the other.
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Worth adding for the folks at home that many sites will pre-emotively run off generator power when thereās a storm coming. That way thereās no break if the site looses mains power.
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One of the most consistent issues that would impact reception at least in Brisbane was to do with SBS. Whenever there was heavy rain at the transmitter site on Mt Coot-tha it impacted the signal. It would get increasing amounts of static so that the image would degrade and depending on how much rain would just be a screen of snow with a NO SIGNAL message on the top. Perhaps they needed a bigger satellite dish.
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On the other side of the mountain (Chapel Hill area) where the opposite issue occurs (QTQ visible but ABQ/TVQ over the other side and obstructed) there are a few UHF antennas going for the Gold Coast instead. I guess it was that or go a high mast?
Just switched to 10 Comedy in Melbourne and itās in HD. Well it certainly looks like it.
Am I imagining things?
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Yep, just checked. 10 Comedy HD in Melbourne 
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Looks the same here in Sydney too.
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Looks like all the metro areas have 10 Comedy in HD now. 
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Great news. Well done Ten!
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Took them long enough. Now we need Nickelodeon to go HD. The transmission looks awful.
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Bit rates in Brisbane over about 30 minutes.
| 1, 15 | 10 HD | 5.1 |
| 10 | 10 SD | 4.5 |
| 11 | 10 Comedy HD | 6.1 |
| 12 | 10 Drama HD | 4.2 |
| 13 | Nick | 1.5 |
| 16 | YouTV | 1.1 |
| 17 | Gecko | 1.6 |
Update - 2 hours
| 1, 15 | 10 HD | 5.4 |
| 10 | 10 SD | 4.6 |
| 11 | 10 Comedy HD | 4.9 |
| 12 | 10 Drama HD | 4.7 |
| 13 | Nick | 1.5 |
| 16 | YouTV | 1.1 |
| 17 | Gecko | 1.7 |
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Took you guys long enough to notice, I wanted to tell but couldnāt due to confidentiality being an insider, changed early hours of this morning when they moved to new play out head end at NPC. Links to metro transmission sites are now mpeg 4.
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Be good if Ten dropped the SD version of the main channel.
Might help Nickelodeon to move to HD. Or at least better SD.
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