The Gold Coast UHF relays at Mt Tamborine were first switched on back on Saturday 2 July 1983.
Initially for the 4 commercial channels only, ABC came on about 12 months later
From the “Gold Coast Bulletin”
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I remember on a holiday at Currumbin in 1985 the unit we stayed in still had a VHF only TV that got reception of Brisbane. All I remember is it was quite watchable, but suffered from electrical interference (especially TVQ-0).
Stayed again in 1989 and by that time we were in a different unit (also in Currumbin) but with UHF from the Currumbin translator of all 6 channels.
I had a similar experience in 1985 whilst in Surfers Paradise, 7 and 9 were excellent, but 0 had a lot of interference.
0 and to a lesser extent 2 also suffered with E skip in summer. 7 and 9 got comparatively worse the further south you went with 6 and 8 from Lismore potentially interfering. O was the strongest at greater distances.
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Yes, the “Northern Star” Lismore newpaper would list programs for TVQ-0 in their TV guides but not for BTQ or QTQ.
According to the Department of Communications 1984-85 annual report, the ABC didn’t switch on its Gold Coast UHF relay service until May 1985, not long before SBS expanded into Brisbane & the Gold Coast.
It’s a similar story for when the Gosford translator on the NSW Central Coast was first switched on in April 1986, in which only the commercial stations were broadcasting from the site, with ABC & SBS not commencing until July 1987 (Source: Department of Transport & Communications 1987-88 annual report).
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same for the Northern NSW edition of TV Week
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Analogue TV reception was so much more interesting back then than today’s crammed digital septum!
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I feel like Mr Elliot’s caution was not heeded - you look now and most households ditched the larger high-gain VHF antennae in favour of the smaller UHF one pointed at Mt Tamborine (or now Currumbin). I’d argue, a few blackspots aside, Mt Tamborine does an excellent job of providing very good signal to a very significant chunk of the Gold Coast.
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Agree, I’ve seen the very occasional legacy Mt Coot-tha antenna on Gold Coast rooftops whilst here, but they are few and far between.
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Mt Tamborine also offered a one antenna solution to viewers who had previously added a 2nd antenna for RTN 8 (and later adding in 2 more NSW services on UHF).
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Same in Gympie. There are still a few giant TV aerials in existence there. Back in the day most houses had them, and they were the tallest aerials I’ve seen anywhere.
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That’s so weird because O was the weakest in Brisbane itself. Everyone used to say the same thing thing about O being a bit dodgy at times.
My understanding is that low vhf channels like 0 were susceptible to electrical interference and being blocked by tall buildings, hills, etc. in local areas, Which probably made it problematic in city areas where there would be lots of those (like in Melbourne) but they travelled well so maybe had less issues in areas where it reached further? Not sure if that makes sense, just a theory…
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The rationale could be as simple as The Northern Star newspaper was owned by then NRN11 owners, Northern Star Holdings before being sold so it could focus on the newly acquired Channel 10 assets. NRN11 was then sold to David Haynes, then owner of DDQ10 and Channel 0 Brisbane. Given that 9 and 7 were direct competitors to Channel 0, the exclusion was probably strategic.
Northern Star Holdings then focused on its Channel 10 stations.
Frank Lowy sold his interests in Northern Star Holdings was later sold in 1989 to Broadccom.
I know its a bit off topic as to the original Northern Star newspaper reference, but it was most likely strategic.
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Channel 0 has great propagation over hills and over the horizon, hence why so many places like Lismore, Ballina, Gympie (TVQ-0) and Bendigo, Seymour (ATV-0) got it with a simple unamplified 5 element Yagi.
Indoor rabbit ears weren’t great for Channel 0, because they are too short for the long wavelength of Channel 0 and it gets hammered by interference from electrical appliances.
It was similar with ABMN-0 and RVN-2 (Riverina) - went for huge distances to places like Parkes, Canberra and Griffith, but Wagga itself needed a VHF-Hi translator for those in town.
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Band I especially 0 with the lowest frequency was susceptible to man made interference like power lines, pool motors, blenders etc plus natural interference from lightning. Even a great signal would be impacted by power lines. Just as a matter of physics the lower frequency travelled the furthest and followed the curvature of the Earth. O’s frequency wasn’t that far above SW radio. At the other end of the spectrum was UHF was really relied on a line of sight to the transmitter but was very resistant to interference.
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Aside from the interference issues, the wavelength of 45MHz being 6.6m would have ran into issues with buildings and multipath reflections from the signal, which would have been ghosting in suburbia. A lot of the old Channel O (and the rest of band I / VHF-Lo) videos I can find online show a fair bit of it too. And yes it’s partly the reason why shortwave is hard to get in the city.
Out in a rural area it would have been a great way to extend coverage with only a single high powered transmitter.
SBS would’ve had some interference with its 0 frequency in its early years.
Band I was a funny old beast. It could be a real pain for broadcasters when it came to antenna tower design and construction. Case-in-point - Mt Burr near Mount Gambier for ABGS-1. The antenna array extended for most of the length of the tower to get 100 kW of radiated power with a less powerful transmitter. Problem - anyone within 15 km of the tower got a blurry picture…
They eventually halved the array, doubled the transmitter output, and that largely fixed the problem!
(Worth noting they had all sorts of dramas before all that when the tower collapsed in 1965 during guy-wire tensioning.)