that wikipedia article is a mess. The whole sections “Prior to going on air” and “Early Broadcasting” are about RVN, not AMV.
It also doesn’t support your claim that
what “transmission problems” were there?
Ok, maybe I got that wrong. But from what I’ve read on aus.tv.history, technical problems saw the launch date for aggregation in the Orange area being pushed back.
yes there was a delay in the expansion of WIN and Capital into Orange/Dubbo/Wagga due to (IIRC) a required upgrade in Telecom infrastructure, so WIN/Capital didn’t expand into those Orange etc markets until December 1989, but the infrastructure didn’t delay Prime going into Canberra/Wollongong
I recall Wollongong and Canberra in fact aggregated 9 months earlier than the Prime CBN/RVN home markets.
Federal funding was made available to bring that forward to 31 March 1989 to enable WIN, CTC and CBN/RVN to all broadcast in both regions.
yes, Wollongong and Canberra had all three of Prime, WIN, Capital from 31 March 1989. I haven’t read too much into it but I vaguely recall there was some resistance from WIN and/or Capital around that March date as they thought it would put WIN/Capital at a disadvantage while Prime had access to the complete expanded market but they would not. My memory of this is very patchy so I am not too clear on what happened. I don’t recall any federal funding but I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened and enough to persuade them to come to the party early?
It was a full 12 months for the Central West to get WIN and Capital, transmission from Mount Canobolas started in March 1990. I recall that my mother, who is a huge sports fan, was annoyed that she couldn’t watch the Auckland Commonwealth Games (which were on 24 January to 3 February) as they were on 9/WIN.
Apparently, Capital went to the Federal Court in February 1989 in an ill-fated attempt to delay the start of aggregation in Canberra & Wollongong until the end of that year.
Via film and videotape exchange replayed locally in both Rockhampton and Townsville.
A similar set-up existed in Alice Springs, but with no local ABC TV studio for in-vision continuity or live local news presentation. Programming for ABC Alice Springs was compiled by ABC Adelaide, flown up to Alice Springs and replayed from ABC Alice Springs beamed to the local ABC TV transmitter. This local replay system was in use for a few years prior to a full time link to receive simultaneous live ABC transmission from either Brisbane, Adelaide or Darwin, of which I am unsure. I suspect ABC Brisbane being there was a single satellite service that carried ABC TV to remote areas of QLD, NT and WA out of reach of Telecom bearers from the late 70s prior to the launch of AUSSAT in the mid 80s. Darwin will have been the fulltime transmitter source for Alice Springs since the mid 80’s with the launch of AUSSAT. ABC TV News has a bureau in Alice Springs that has been there since the mid to late 80s?
A TV bearer was a PMG/Telecom line circuit either via coaxial cable or microwave that beamed programming between ABC TV Studios and out to most ABC TV regional transmitters. Long since replaced with fibre optic and satellite links.
When ABC TV finally reached Darwin in 1971, it was essentially a fultime relay of ABC Brisbane with ABC Darwin inserting local news headlines across the 6.55 regional news window at 6.25pm local time. Being ABC Darwin viewers saw all ABC Brisbane programming 30 minutes earlier than advertised for several years until ABC Darwin started doing time zone delay of incoming programming from the southern states. For a while, ABC TV Darwin originated from ABC Sydney with time zone delay being performed in Sydney. So in effect, ABC Darwin was initially set up like ABC TV Rockhampton and Townsville with limited TV production capacity, but did not go on air until the PMG TV bearer from Brisbane via Mt Isa reached there.
In addition, a little known fact, ABC TV reached Port Moresby before Darwin, which was a sore point in Darwin at the time. This was in the days when PNG was still under Australian control. I suspect it was a similar setup to ABC Alice Springs, with tape/film compiles flown in and replayed locally. I would have to hunt down old Australian Broadcasting Commission yearly reports to Govt from that era to confirm this.
I know that many people in coastal areas of PNG were able to receive TV from Cairns due to the water path aided by tropo.
Did the terrestrial ABC transmissions cease immediately after PNG’s independence?
I have no idea. Need to hunt down old Commission reports to Parliament. As I have never found info on the internet about this.
I’ve seen old radios that used to have the radio stations printed on them, and some of them had a few stations beginning with 9. I assumed they were Papua New Guinea stations pre independence. But that’s radio.
Anyone near the National Library of Australia might find some info in this book: ABC history : 50 years in Papua New Guinea.
9PA was the callsign for former ABC Radio in Port Moresby before independence.
I spoke to a few people who lived in Port Moresby in the 70s (before and during independence) and they said TV wasn’t a thing but radio was.
Be very interested to know what you find. It is entirely possible though and someone like Sean Dornay was filming stories to be beamed back just for Australia.
Other call signs included 9MD Madang, 9GR Goroka, 9LA Lae and 9RB Rabaul and later 9WK Wewak.
Shame the 1 prefix for the ACT came too late to have any meaningful influence on on air branding of Canberra radio stations, other than 1WAY FM.
If there had been other states or territories, I wonder if 10 and 11 prefixes would have been used. Guess we’ll probably never know!
Quick question: above, people have referred to 7QLD/Sunshine TV as STN and STW. Surely the channel has never used those callsigns (STW is Nine Perth!). Just typos, or something else?
WBQ, SEQ and STQ would be appropriate call signs if you’re talking about the history of what is now Seven Sunshine Coast or Seven Wide Bay (which Sunshine Coast evolved from).