Yeah true, how can I forget the footy, and that AMV was licenced as a Victorian station. Access to sport back in the day certainly incentivised people to invest in deep fringe antenna installations.
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That was also the case in the 1990s with many pubs (and some houses) in Melbourne installing deep fringe UHF antennas to receive Prime TV from Bendigo or Gippsland to get live AFL matches which were not broadcast in the metro market.
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In some years in the past the only way to watch the Sydney league GF was from RTN8.
That was also the time to get your cricket from the regionals for 'Gabba tests.
Later, Victorians who had moved to Queensland could try to pick up Prime Gold Coast for AFL coverage as it has a special Gold Coast feed that differed from the rest of NSW.
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That does sound correct for 1987 as that was the year the ABC had the rights to VFL in Victoria.
Looks like the ABC guide in the Daily Advertiser was for ABMN-0 only, as ABAV-1 would definitely have had VFL on Saturday evenings in line with the rest of Victoria.
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Ah thanks, for some reason I thought Channel 7 always had them through the 80s.
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In 1986 I visited a club in Corowa one Saturday afternoon and it had the AFL Match of the day.
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It would be interesting to see an MTN9 guide from 1989 before the switch to the WIN feed in December that year.
They would have had a large Band I antenna pointed northwards towards Mt Ulandra to receive RVN. Spotted quite a few pubs in the border region with that set up.
It’s about 190 km as the crow flies from Corowa to Mt Ulandra.. probably too far?
If not Albury, would the feed have been coming from Shepparton? (only 75 km away).
Funnily enough it would probably be much easier to get Mt Ulandra in Corowa despite it being 30km further, given that the terrain between the two is relatively flat.
Albury/Wodonga has the double whammy of being in the shadow of both Table Top Mountain and One Tree Hill in the direction of Mt Ulandra, which really attentuates any signals from that direction.
GMV would have been taking Seven’s Big League from HSV later that evening, they would have been bound by the same rules of not carrying live VFL as Melbourne and the rest of regional Vctoria.
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Thanks, did that apply in 1986 as well as 1987?
(I note we are talking about 2 different years here, Ron said he was there in 1986, the Guide I posted was 1987).
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It would have applied in 1986 as well. The main difference for 1987 was that none of the regional commercial stations in Victoria had VFL (as HSV had lost the rights in Melbourne) and the ABC in effect picked up the rights packages traditionally held by HSV and the regional commercial stations.
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and still today with all networks (except SBS which has one bulletin for all of Australia).
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In 1985 ATN-7 extended its Seven National News to a one hour bulletin at 6pm. Some NSW regionals had to change to TCN-9’s National Nine News as it was the only half-hour national news bulletin. Did RVN-2 change its news relay to Nine, or did they take HSV-7’s Seven National News as it was still half-hour and AMV-4 already carries it? I vaguely recall RVN and its translators on the list of regional stations taking HSV Seven National News at the start of the bulletin. Any old school Wagga-ites remember?
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I’m pretty sure RVN and AMV changed to the respective Nine stations for news relays by then.
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Corowa was on the outer edge of possible reception of RVN-2. Worth noting quite a number of houses in Parkes had big single channel Band 1 antennas for RVN-2 as well - 190km as the crow flys.
I can remember that reception was going in and out all the time on the club’s TV, so tuning into Wagga Wagga would explain this. However, I also remember assuming it was channel 4, so I got out my portable radio to see if the problem was with the TV or the reception. I picked it up where channel 4 audio would be and reception was fine on my radio.
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Getting Gippsland tv in Melbourne tonight. FM was so strong that I thought I should check TV. This is with the wrong type of antenna pointing at Mt Dandenong as well.
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Leongatha, the home of the Mushroom Murders.
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