That’s because the Central Coast sites have to receive the signals from Artarmon (off air), then run them through the transmitter & add the transmit delay for the SFN timing.
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Could be Nine from Waikerie (LRS48).
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Or even Karte (out past Loxton towards Pinnaroo), also has NINE on the same bandwidth. Transmitter only has limited stations
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The translator at Waikerie on Ch 48 has the callsign of LRS, which I am assuming is for Nine, as it used to be for WIN Ten. I’m guessing RTS is the main WIN channels and RDS is Seven.
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In Sydney, Prime Wollongong is generally ahead of Seven Sydney.
My guess is they would have done that to preserve the resolution, but it’s literally small as, i have a picture of our tv with a worse situation than that, it cursor off 25% of what I’m supposed to see, even when watching the news I’m bothered, the ticker and the time is literally cut off.
Guys, not Aussie or Kiwi tv sure, but I figured this was hilarious.
Back then, we received our “state owned” tv network, now, meh, it doesn’t show up even on manual frequency search, which is on this frequency, 641.143 MHz , and has 5 other multiplex channels, which all of them broadcast on 1080i HD but there is a lower quality feed, and sometimes it can be upscaled 4:3, but anyways, does this happen in Australia or in remote areas where they can’t receive a channel, the reason for this is because of very poor signal transmission
Anybody experience this with Oz channels?
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What’s your analogue TV to now transition story? Mine is
2005 - Topfield SD set top box - cost $220
http://www.australiandigitaltv.com/topfield/topfieldtf4000technicalspecs.htm
I remember being quite impressed with the picture quality SD TV on a (59cm) CRT TV!
2008 - Panasonic 720p 32 inch LCD TV - cost $1,350
This still has the best built in sound of any TV I’ve owned.
2011 - Samsung Full HD 1080p 40 inch LED LCD TV - cost $860
It had picture in picture, a feature I miss not having on my current Sony.
2017 - Sony 4K LED LCD TV 55 inch - cost $2,499
This model only just came out when I bought it, if I had waited a few months, it would have been considerably cheaper! I had my heart set on the Sony because it had the best picture processing.
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My story is a little different.
When the “Foxtel gold card” era came to an end around 2003/4, I was left with a Humax IR-5410z satellite set-top box. I wanted to do something with it, so I bought an Optus Aurora smart card and used it for local free-to-air TV. This was technically my first digital TV set-top box despite digital terrestrial TV not launching yet.
Fast forward a couple of years and I end up subscribing to SelecTV. They provided a set-top box that had a free-to-air tuner built in. By then, ABC and SBS were the only networks broadcasting digital in regional WA. But, technically this was the first time I’d received digital terrestrial free-to-air. I forget the make and model of the box.
I really wanted to record good quality FTA, so I bought a Coship 9200A around 2008. A twin-tuner, twin CI satellite PVR box with 500GB storage. I got another Optus Aurora card to pick up Remote Central & Eastern channels and I got a 2nd dish so I could pick up ABC and SBS digital channels, as well as various feeds, from Optus D1. I wanted a “one box for all” solution which is why I ditched terrestrial FTA and went solely with a satellite setup.
Finally digital launched, so I went and got a Sanyo 55" digital TV from Dick Smith for about $700 in 2010. My first flat panel TV!
I upgraded to a Sony KDL-EX720 in 2012 and this is still my current main TV.
Now I’ve moved almost entirely to Android TV IPTV streaming these days. My lounge room’s TV point has nothing plugged in it anymore. The only exception is my desktop computer which is still tuned in to digital TV for capping purposes.
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I bought the Topfield TF5000PVRt in around 2003 or 2004 and it was my first big purchase at $1k from memory and far out, what an impressive box it was at the time. I got many good years of use out of it, unfortunately being SD only it lost a lot of use once HD breakaway and the alternative HD only channels started.
The best thing about this version though was the TAP’s (Topfield Application Programs) where additional programs could be written and programmed onto the machine. They were fantastic and gave so many extra features including skins (including being able to load custom channel logos), ad skipping (press the red button at the start of the ad break and it would automatically skip 3 minutes which just happened to be the length of each ad break) and the best thing, a full 7 day EPG. Back when the networks only provided Now and Next information (and often not even that) you could run a program on the PC to scrape the TV guide from ninemsn and load it onto the STB to be able to easily set recordings. Such a great box with the added features which set it so far ahead of other boxes but things we simply take for granted these days.
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I too had the Topfield 5000. And still do. Don’t have the heart to chuck it.
I started with a Strong 5200B in 2004 then the Topfield in 2007. These were connected via SCART RGB to a Teac 2816STF widescreen tube TV. Both were retired in 2011 when I bought a Panasonic Plasma and DVD recorder. The Plasma died in 2014 and the DVD recorder was replaced with a Bluray recorder in 2016.
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I had a Loewe TV (can’t remember which model) which my father bought at Encel Stereo at Bridge Road, Richmond in mid 1993 (Encel was the sole distributor of the German brand in Victoria until a decade ago). It died in 2009 so my family bought a Panasonic Plasma and Blu-ray theatre system at the same time. We also got a Fetch set top box/recorder as part of an Optus broadband deal in 2016, but had to return it in February this year after we switched to Aussie Broadband, so I bought a Panasonic Blu-ray recorder with a triple tuner and have been using it ever since.
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Analogue TV (portable size) approx 12 years old died in 2002.
Replaced it with a widescreen CRT which was a size of a small house thanks to the picture tube. Grey casing. I can’t remember the brand. Maybe it was a TEAC? Attached a Zinwell digital SD STB to it. The STB alone was about $600 and that was just for an SD model. I think if I wanted to get HD I was looking at close to $1000 and on a CRT screen the picture would have been SD anyway.
That set packed it up about 2009 or so. Was beyond repair. Replaced the TV and STB with a Hi-Sense LCD flat screen. That was a dud purchase. It wasn’t long before it needed a repair and then another one shortly after. Thankfully JB Hifi agreed to take it back and replace it with a Panasonic LCD which is still going strong almost a decade later.
Also around 2009 I purchased a cheap DVD recorder with Digital TV tuner from Aldi. I think it was about $300, and expected it might last a few months. It literally just died last week. I think 11 years was probably not bad for $300. So now looking for replacement options for that. Still interested in a DVD recorder or something I can digitise some of these VHS tapes I’ve still got. Open to suggestions!
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My first SD set top box in 2007 was a cheap and nasty AWA-branded thing from Big W.
The first HD (SD-only now, with all HD channels in Sydney in MPEG4) set top box in 2008 was a Digitel branded box from JB Hi-Fi.
Fast forward to now and the set top box I’m using now is a Topfield TBF-200HD with USB PVR functionality - purchased this one in 2016 because my TV of the time (since relegated to a spare room) couldn’t decode the MPEG4 channels and neither can my Sony DVD recorder from 2011. The Topfield box remains in-use today because while my current TV has a tuner which can decode MPEG4 channels, it doesn’t have any USB PVR functions. That and because it’s nice having at least one device other than the USB tuner for my computer to record MPEG4 & current HD channels with! 
For the moment I’m reasonably happy with my current TV/recording set-up. Although if/when fulltime DVB-T2 and/or H265 transmissions ever becomes a thing on Australian television, I hope to be in a position which will allow me to become a reasonably early adopter. Felt slightly out of date for a few months in 2018, not having anything to watch the DVB-T2 transmissions running in Sydney at the time while @tvcl and possibly one or two others on Media Spy did!
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Mine has gone
Teac SD (DVB 300?)
Topfield TF5000PVRt
TiVo
Foxtel iQ3
HDHomeRun Quadro
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I’ve upgraded to Digital TV in 2009, although I was still using analogue TV from time-to-time until 2010 as I was still able to receive Sydney TV through that.
Here’s the list of Digital TV Devices:
2009-2010: MTV MSTB767 2009 (SD Only)
2010-2015: LG LST-6100P (SD and MPEG-2 HD only)
2010 - Now: Elgato EyeTV DTT (MPEG4 compatible)
2011 - 2015: Vivid 40" Full HD LCD TV (SD and MPEG-2 HD Only)
2015 - 2020: Changhong 40" Full HD LCD TV (MPEG4 Compatible)
2020 - Now: Hisense 43" UHD Smart TV
I also own a Panasonic DMR-BWT955 for all recordings I do (VHS and Digital TV recordings).
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Here’s mine in my household over the years.
2003-2012: TEAC DVB-300 (SD)
2007-2016: Tevion SD PVR
2007-2015: DTV Card on my PC (HD)
2008-2014: Samsung 32" HD TV for the main bedroom
2011-Present: TEAC HDR3500T (HD & MPEG4 compatible)
2012-Present: GVA 21.5" TV for the smaller bedroom (non-MPEG4 compatible)
2013-Present: Samsung 55" TV for the living room (MPEG4 compatible)
2014-Present: Samsung 32" TV for the main bedroom after the last one died (MPEG4 compatible)
2014-Present: Kaiser Baas TV Stick for the computer (MPEG4 compatible)
2016-Present: Topfield TBF-200HD to use with my GVA TV to access MPEG4 channels
My household kept using the 80cm Panasonic CRT TV in the living room that had been present since December 2002 until it died in February 2013, only under 10 months before analogue TV was switched off in Sydney.
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I got a set-top box and bulky large screen old style 4:3 television in 2004 from an Aldi run-out sale. I also got an analogue Panasonic DVD hard drive recorder that allowed me to pause and rewind live television including what was on the line-in from the STB. It was on special at Grace Bros. It was an ok setup despite the 16:9 picture on a 4:3 screen.
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Here’s mine.
2009-2011/2016-2017: Strong 5405E (HD, MPEG-2. Regular family loungeroom setup prior to purchase of LG MPEG-4 compatible TV)
2014-present: LG BR625T PVR (MPEG-4 compatible, 500GB)
2017(?)-2018: Altech UEC DT2900 (HD, MPEG-2. Used in the parent’s bedroom, which still didn’t have MPEG-4. Replaced Strong STB for a while
2017-present: Laser STB-6000 (in my bedroom, MPEG-4 compatible)
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