Long distance television

Update:

Condingup/Howick
ABEW6
WAW9
WOW11
SBS58

Port Headland
ABPHW7
WOW9A
WAW11
SBS42

Channel 11 was pretty rare in any combo.

2 Likes

Not used on early bandplans, perhaps?

Going through the EPG on my relative’s TV at Maitland S.A and they’ve had stations come in with prefixes from Ballarat, Western Victoria and Mount Gambier

2 Likes

I’ve noticed my Panasonic TV must do a rescan automatically over night as it seems to always have distant channels automatically added to the channel list. By the time I’ve noticed they’ve been added the tropo has usually past and I’ve missed them and they appear as “no signal”. Caught them a couple of times working, usually heavily pixellated.

4 Likes

My Sony TV adds stations automatically if they come into range, have caught 7 Adelaide working (I’m just out of Renmark) but was pixelated

1 Like

My Panasonic DVR constantly gives me a message something like “New DTV channels available”, but I am thinking this is moreso because I can get a couple of different signals with the same LCN number and name

eg. NBN 28 from Warners Bay / Belmont North as well as NBN 36 Newcastle (high power site)

But both are on LCN 8 with the same channel name of “Nine Newcastle” but I can only scan one of them in.

Nothing much in terms of tropo lately here in Renmark, the odd “no service” on a couple stations but not strong enough for a picture. We have good/strong ducting forecast one day, pretty much all gone the next

2 Likes

There were analogue TV masts in Bairnsdale and Lakes Entrance for Melb TV. I recall being surprised first seeing this in 1996/7. I remember that it’s over 200km.

Correct and what @Shaun1997 needs is a high gain band III antenna only with very high front/back ratio to null the Mildura signal. And keep saving @Shaun1997, you’ll need a masthead amp and one of those three legged towers that are prolific in the Riverland.

I wonder what a modern day cost is for the three legged towers?

It’s 300 ohm ribbon, look between the elements. No good for DTV. @Shaun1997 @Radiohead

For VHF. Three channel spacing for UHF e.g 28, 31, 34.

Agree @TV.Cynic. It’s most like for 88 - 108 MHz @Shaun1997

Consider which direction the antenna is facing at Maitland, SA and you can see why these channel sets would drift in.

I’ve always thought that it’s entirely possible for VHF 9A DAB+ services from Melb to at least reduce fringe coverage of Adelaide DAB+ or swamp it entirely in some locations at times.

2 Likes

Got a new TV for my loungeroom, 49inch Panasonic. Have to wait for the warmer months to see how it goes with tropo here in Renmark, we’d have some good tropo on the charts but by morning it’s almost all gone. I hooked the old TV up with a booster in my spare room, brings the signal strength from Adelaide and Mildura stations up to around 4-5 (quality stays at 0), might bring up a picture of some kind if there’s ever enough tropo for TV

2 Likes

Quality is probably more important than signal strength for good digital TV reception.

3 Likes

Hooked up my Kingray amp to the TV in my spare room (former loungeroom TV), better than the shitty Crest amp that I had. Hooked it up to the the UHF/VHF combo port with some interesting results, if there was a combo antenna on the roof it’d be possible to get both Mildura and Adelaide on the VHF band including 44 Adelaide. Just have to wait for a day when there’s tropo

3 Likes

Does anyone recall @Jacob_Joseph’s posts from 2016 here? His DXing almost feels non-human!

1 Like

@Aaron_Evans_2005 give us a recap please.

1 Like

Here are the posts I mentioned.

The Southbank apartment building I’m staying in is 32 floors high, with the antenna pointed at Mt Dandenong (I say that this as I can access the “manual tuning” option on the TV which shows VHF 6, 7, 8, 11 and 12 tuned in plus UHF 32 for C31 being tuned in).

So I had a go at manually scanning for Mt Tassie (Traralgon / Gippsland) UHF 28-31 and 33, but nothing there.

I thought I might have had a chance as the antenna would have to be on the roof here to get Dandenong given all the high rises here and that I’ve seen houses in the south east out near Berwick that have UHF antennas aimed for Mt Tassie.

1 Like

You’ll find that they put filters in the MATV mix to block out any other signals. There is a modern hotel in Surfers Paradise that was set up for Mt Coot-tha only when built in 2017. No UHF signals could be found by manually scanning however, with a cheap set of rabbit ears, you could pick up all services from Mt Tamborine.

5 Likes

Few days ago just out of Renmark, just needed the bottom bar to go up 1 or more times for some kind of picture to lock on. Have to wait for the warmer months for some stronger tropo.

2 Likes

I wonder if Canberra Tv would be possible from the Southern ridgeline of the Gib??? last week I successfully received Canberra Dab+ 8d on a portable device from the Bowral lookout. Sydney Dab+ 9a/ 9b was also receivable but no Canberra or Sydney 9C due to co channel interference.
Obviously you would require a very high gain vertical band 3 antenna with a masthead amp and some shielding from the Sydney signal, but with each signal on a different polarity should help.

2 Likes

It’s possible but not guaranteed.

3 Likes

Little touch of tropo this morning in Renmark S.A.
NINE Mildura (212.500mHz) was coming up with ‘no service’ on my Panasonic TV (signal quality: 1, signal strength: 4-5, 5 was yellow not green). I’ve had a picture with the same strength in the past but couldn’t quite decode the signal this time

2 Likes