When my home use to get Sydney TV…it can be hit or miss sometimes.
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The right is what Sydney TV used to look like at my parents house in the 1980s in Newcastle! Even with a 45 ft mast and amp!
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With Gold Coast TV off air, I can receive the Nambour 5kw multiplex without any problems. The signals are always there but hard to decode when there are 2 stations on the same frequency.
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I can’t recall the Gold Coast stations being off this long since the early days of the 80’s when there was little or no back up generator. Are some off the the other GC translators fed from Mt Tamborine and if so, would they be affected?
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From what I understand, the other GC sites (Currumbin and GC Southern Hinterland) are all fed by microwave links. If GC TV is currently off, does that mean commercial and community FM is off too?
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Yes - ABC radio unaffected. DAB is also obviously off.
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I would kill for a Gold Coast style outage at Mt Sugarloaf here in Newcastle, with all DTV channels co-channelled with Illawarra.
Same with FM to a lesser extent.
Only problem is I hate big storms! Perhaps something like localised blackout up there might do the trick - and to add of a bit tropospheric ducting into the mix! 
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I’m not sure which one it is because I didn’t record it, but I did see a mention of a Tuncurry cinema. Not sure if the Great Lakes got a separate feed to Taree or not.
I doubt that it was recorded in the broadcast area because the rest of the tape has Prime with Newcastle/Hunter based ads.
I’ll upload the whole thing and link it here so you guys can figure it out. 
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As promised:
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It definitely doesn’t look like low band VHF sporadic E reception. Can’t really tell where it has come from.
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I would have said the opposite based on the fades, was any of the Primes in Australia on channel 1 back in the old analog days before UHF conversions?
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Tamworth City had Prime on Channel 0 right up until analogue switch off. I received that via Es in Melbourne once. But not sure about Channel 1
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Checked an old listing.
Prime was on Channel 1 at Walcha.
Only ran at 200 watts so would have covered the township only.
May have been possible on an E into QLD or SA maybe.
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To me it looks like a fairly constant signal possibly something that could be often received with some enhancement. SpE reception when recorded to tape at this signal strength would tend to have larger changes in signal strength so that the video would constantly lose synch. I would be thinking it was ECN 8 received out of area.
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Reminiscing about Es - in order of occurence from Bendigo I would get:
- DDQ-0 Darling Downs quite regularly in summer. Possibly some NEN-0 Tamworth would co-channel.
- ABSQ-1 Sthn Downs often at the same time interfering with local ABEV-1.
- A rare appearance of ABQ-2 Brisvegas now and then.
I once received a weak channel 3 ABC signal from either Rockhampton or Townsville, along with a few high-powered Qld FM stations.
As for NZ, TVNZ-1 Hedgehope would sometimes make an appearance.
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And vice versa from Brisbane from where channel 1 was regularly received along with a number of other co-channels from Bendigo. If you were lucky it was on a weekend when the ABC was showing a test pattern as each of the states had a slightly different PM5544 test card. So you could tell which state it was. Even NZ was received on channel 1.
We had Channel 0 here until 1988, the best I got there was co-channel from SBS 0 in Melbourne. Ch 3 was often full of signals including Launceston and Townville over the top of Darling Downs.
GTS-4 was also a regular. Occasionally ABDN-3 Grafton/Kempsey would cause minor interference on ABQ.
6 and 8 were from Lismore but would be bad interference from Wide Bay while 10 Darling Downs would get interference from 10 Nambour.
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WIN-4 was a frequent visitor in Newcastle, NRN-11 made an occasional apperance.
Once i got TVNZ on VHF-0 but not sure where in New Zealand that was from.
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What antennae were people using for the e-skip? Did you rotate the antenna?
For me, it seemed like everything from an indoor antenna to normal outdoor VHF antenna to a non-optimal outdoor VHF/UHF antenna worked about as well as each other. Outdoor antennas were pointed in the general direction of NZ, but this was their normal position.
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Yeah ours were the old combo Band I-IV antennas aimed at Melbourne from Geelong, so roughly pointing NE. Made getting signals from Queensland quite achievable, as it was roughly a similar direction.
Mind you, I received both RTQ-0 and NEN-0 on a UHF aerial vertically pointed at the Como Centre in Melbourne. So totally wrong band aerial, wrong polarisation and wrong direction (it was aiming SW from where I lived), yet the signals still came in.
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