Back then, I didn’t know that it was even possible… I always thought for some reason the CWN-6 (Mt Cenn Cruaich) site was much closer to Dubbo than where it really was and that Coonabarabran was part of NEN/Northern NSW (purely because geographically it is more ‘Northern NSW’ than ‘Southern NSW’).
So I got a big shock when I walked into the bar of the Imperial Hotel in Coonabarabran in 1994 and saw Capital on their telly!
With the Canberra Times listing RVN-2 Wagga Wagga programmes before 1989, in the 1988 NRL season they telecast the Friday night match (on a 2 hour delay) and the Sunday afternoon match live at 3pm. AMV-4 would have aired the VFL/AFL matches simultaneous with Seven Melbourne in the same timeslots. The end of 1988 saw RVN and AMV (along with Midstate and NEN-ECN) taking a Seven-based schedule almost full time as they changed from “The Prime Network” to “Prime Television”. I don’t know what happened in the 1989-91 NRL seasons because after aggregation started in Canberra in 1989 they no longer had RVN-2 listings in the Canberra Times TV guide.
In 1986 I went to the Albury area and AMV4 was showing the VFL match of the day that was on Saturday afternoons interstate but not in Melbourne.
Yes, VFL matches played in Victoria were not telecast live in Victoria, except for AMV4 being on the NSW border.
Yes they did. As a kid on holidays back in 1991 we spent a night in Tamworth and we watched a Winfield Cup game in the hotel room. To tie in with them also being a Seven affiliate earlier that day qe watched an episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. So it would have been a Friday.
Do you recall if Prime showed VFL/AFL on a Friday night instead of the NSWRL?
No i can’t say i do
What time period are you talking about?’
In the 90’s at some point - yes in Victoria. I also remember reading that in NSW, they showed AFL matches in some parts of NSW and SE Queensland (e.g. the Gold Coast), but not in others (e.g. the rest of northern NSW), but I can’t remember if this was for Friday evenings, Saturday evenings, or both.
Pre aggregation around 1989-91 in Tamworth/northern NSW
Not in Northern NSW, possibly in Wagga maybe?
What was shown on Friday nights rather than the NSWRL Winfield Cup - a movie?
I imagine it would have been whatever ATN-7 Sydney was showing, most likely a movie, since Prime was heavily tied in with 7 back then.
The above was post aggregation later in the 90’s.
Wagga as always, Gold Coast jumped on board around 1993 when a new link was set up between Dubbo and Tamworth to on-pass HSV clean to Gold Coast via Orange from Canberra from Wagga through Albury, from Ballarat and HSV. And Canberra and NSW South Coast jumped on board with live Friday night AFL in 1994.
Orange, Tamworth, Wollongong, Taree, Newcastle, Lismore/Coffs Harbour just continued to relay ATN which was sitcoms from 7.30pm and movies from 8.30pm.
Worth noting that quite a few pubs around Melbourne had large fringe antennas set up to receive regional TV (usually Prime TV on UHF, post-Aggregation) from either Bendigo or Gippsland so they could show the AFL footy live if a game was played in Melbourne. It wasn’t really possible before aggregation since BCV-8 or GLV-8 was wiped out by adjacent HSV-7 and GTV-9.
However, before 1980 some locations around Melbourne could get GLV-10 OK (mainly South-Eastern suburbs) due to the 6 MHz gap between channels 9 and 10 at the time.
if a game was played in Melbourne, wouldn’t the Victorian stations had the same restriction on live coverage? i.e. it used to be a statewide ban on live coverage not just in Melbourne.
No. It wasn’t uncommon at all for the game to be broadcast in Regional Vic and not in Melbourne. Happened all the time.
Old post, but yes - is the answer.
1978:-
At a house along Ogoa Street, (Ela Dorina Hill that looks over Ela Beach, high up - great views), we had set up TWO stacked 28 element Channel Master VHF antennae, a remote rotator for it, and a 20db max gain Kingray MH amplifier. Heavy duty mast with guy wire.
300ohm ‘foam filled’ ribbon ran between each aerial, in the middle of this run, was a 75ohm balan - to which we then ran the then best 75ohm coaxial cable available back then, foam air dialectic with single foil n braid.
Today, I’d have used Quad Shield RG6.
TV was a Sony colour Trinitron 68cm, the ants pants back then!
Every single year, from about mid April, we’d receive at increasing signal strengths from pure analogue ‘snow’ - day by day for about two-three weeks, at which you’d then have stable pictures, both day and night. Utterly fade free for about two weeks mid season, minimal fades a few weeks either side of the season:- FNQ 10 Cairns, TNQ 7 Townsville, MVQ 6 Mackay AND. the ABC TV channel from each town.
The signals would fade out, in the same manner mid October to Mid November (we’d watch a fady Melbourne Cup, with full sound, and had parties with guests). Those Tropo signals would go and not return till next April.
Interim, was rapid fade in and out Sporadic E, - low band VHF Channels; old Bris channel 0, Melbourne, I expect Wagga Wagga, through to reception of Ch5A either from Newcastle or elsewhere, NBN TV Newcastle.
Sometimes you get a fully stabilised picture, on say Ch 2, yet the received sound, clear as day, was from another channel!
Never had VHF 06-11 reception during off Tropo season from anywhere!
Pretty certain we had a few seconds of periodic low band reception owing meteor scatter, you get full quality and sound before the signal just faded as quick as it arrived, always a single moment of time, nothing the rest of the day.
I was certain that Moresby would receive future FM services from AUS, and TV, so strong were those Tropo signals, that they’d have certainly disrupted future POM VHF TV services, for some parts of Pt Moresby!
Moresby today, I am certain is on UHF. I’d bet I’d get NQ UHF TV signals:-)
IF I were to try say a 12dbi UHF CB base aerial, or better, a few elements beam, and aimed south, we’d get UHF CB reception as far as say Mackay, Cairns etc north, certainly.
FM radio ditto.
Excellent post RabidCat!
Welcome to the forums.
Correct, the VFL/AFL imposed a statewide ban on live VFL/AFL telecasts. The only exception was Albury.
However it was not unknown for some pubs in Victoria to illegally switch their Sky Channel satellite decoders over to the clean Seven network feed transponder on the same satellite for many years. To try and stop this, ATN on the odd occasion used to switch a graphic on the satellite feed telling Victorian pub viewers to watch the match at 6.30pm on HSV7.