This one is the high power 150,0000 watt TX at Mt Moombil, west of Coffs which is over 1,000 metres ASL that covers Grafton down to Kempsey, so it is a fairly easy catch in Port.
My main interest as per pics was to see how closely in sync they were, and there wasn’t much in it, maybe 0.1 or 0.2 sec either way.
I couldn’t get Lismore yesterday though, that’s what I was also trying get. Will try again today.
Re Gold Coast, I’ve never heard of TV reception any further south than Pottsville, but Byron Bay would be possible. They are only modestly powered at 25,000 watts, so don’t have the same coverage as others.
Actually that may be Byron I was thinking of. I get the two confused a lot. (FM might be a different story how ever.) And I thought you were talking about the small repeater In Coffs that only covers Coffs, but yeah, Grafton /Kempsey TX by all means will get to port.
In the early 80’s I was tech at BTQ7 in Brisbane (TV was analog only of course). We had a UHF translator at Mt Tamborine to cover the Gold Coast that’s input was just off-air from Mt Cootha. Out of nowhere we started getting reception complaints from the Gold Coast at night and our off air monitoring receiver showed very unstable sync on the translators output - it was unwatchable.
One night the unstable sync suddenly stopped at 1230AM and the penny finally dropped - I rang RTQ7 at Mt Hopeful(Rockhampton) and sure enough they had just shutdown for the night. Given the distance it was likely ducting.
I heard a similar story later from the Telecom techs that looked after the ABC TV at Mt Canobolas(Orange) which was on a band 1 channel such as CH1. Their issue was not just the translators being unstable but viewers in the area looking at Mt Canobolas directly also complained. Eventually they got permission to shutdown for a short period and sure enough watchable TV from Asia appeared.
Wasn’t there a similar issue with an NEN repeater that got its off air signal from NEN on Channel 0 in Tamworth and it would frequently retransmit TVQ 0 to the area?
I think the problem with NEN-0 was that it was fed off by NEN-9 from Mt Dowe and that sometimes QTQ-9 would interfere with the feed. Which is interesting given that QTQ would be coming in ‘from the side’ to NEN-9 at the NEN-0 site at Bald Hill.
It would be interesting to see if the DX TV on translator inputs problem is still around in the DVB-T world - the DTV translators are really just a pro DVB-T receiver with ASI out connected to the input of a low power UHF DVB-T transmitter, so it should be possible for a co-channel DX station to interfere and theoretically even override the intended input to the translator if it was strong enough.
I did once strike a translator at Peregian Reservoir(on the northern Sunshine Coast) that had its inputs from Bald Knob but copped interference from co-channel stations at Mt Tamborine. the DTV Restack would have eventually fixed that problem though.
It has been in recent years, in 2018/19, all NSW Central Coast relays of Sydney channels were affected by extreme ducting (presumably from Middle Brother on the Mid North Coast which uses the same VHF channels as Sydney).
And only recently, the Tenterfield relays were switched from an off air feed of Lismore channels to a microwave feed of the Tamworth stations due to ducting from the Darling Downs (which uses the same channels as Lismore).
Interesting but that doesn’t really surprise me as Mt Mackenzie(Tenterfield) is a site I know well from analog days: On a clear day from up there you can just make out Mt Nardi(Lismore) on the far eastern horizon through a notch in the Great Divide and the Fresnel zone on the path is not really clear. In the meantime some people on high spots as far south as Warwick can also get TV from Mt Mowbullan(Darling Downs).
Given that Band 1 is not used for DVB-T, that should have reduced F1/F2 interference on translator inputs as the MUF would rarely get up Band3. Ducting is always going to be around on Band3 or higher though.
Seeing how well the AFL did in the ratings in Brisbane yesterday reminded me of when fans had to wait until midnight to watch a night time game. Last century, I helped some friends from Victoria install an long distance UHF (stacked array) antenna on a very high pole so they could watch AFL (VFL?) that was broadcast on the Gold Coast. At the time Prime would break away from the NSW feed to show AFL as a point of difference from BTQ’s programming on Friday and Saturdays. We got a perfect picture that was better than they had from their Brisbane antenna, and of course they could receive Brisbane as well ans Northern Rivers channels.
I had wondered about doing that in more recent years with DTV, in the hope that Prime7 Mate Gold Coast would show the NSW AFL games (giving preference to games involving the Swans and Giants) as opposed to QLD AFL games (involving the Lions and Suns) we get locally on 7Mate Brisbane. Unfortuantely it appeared that the Gold Coast transmissions still showed the QLD games even on Prime, so I would have had to try for Mt Nardi reception which is just not possible in Brisbane.
I Lived in Pakenham, I used to have family from Melbourne come and Watch the Cricket on Win as Cricket was blacked out on Nine in Capital City at a time(Mainly One Dayers)
I know someone who was a diehard Melbourne Storm Supporter in Melbourne and was sick and tired on Friday night games being played at Midnight in Melbourne on Nine that he got a Satellite Dish and aimed it to one of the Optus Satellite to get FTA Central Australia channel to get imparja. He said the bonus thing, He could watch the NRL footy show before Midnight too.
Is it possible from anywhere in or around Newcastle to receive Sydney’s DTV Frequencies? I live just outside Newcastle and on top of a hill with Mt. Sugarloaf in front of me, just wondering for any possibilities?
If you’re south of Newcastle towards around Lake Macquarie & have a good LOS towards the south, then you could get the Sydney channels, either directly from Sydney or from Forresters Beach (Wyong).
Looking to get a long distance UHF antenna to recieve Central Coast/Illawarra TV. I’m located on Sydney’s Northern Beaches my nan lives across the road and is able to pick up Prime7 Wollongong from time to time. Only thing which is putting me off is the hillish area i’am in and more down low then up high.
When i used to live on the Gold Coast i could pick up Far Northern NSW channels easily via the Lismore transmitter but considering it’s much more of a flat area up there to where i’am at the moment it makes sense.