Advice about TV reception in Canberra - digital repairman

Skid – I think just once sometimes people do get caught out, especially when the salespeople are generally gunning for a sale and seem to have little ‘real’ idea about the product being sold. He stared at the box as long as us and determined I had no reason to be skeptical.

Apparently we won’t be affected here in ACT or Sydney, only Melbourne need to get set top box soon, we have a couple of years to go before we need to worry about that.

ABC24 is HD due to every network needing at least one High Def channel transmitting at all times to satisfy their digital broadcast licence, and the ABC not being able to sort out a way of achieving a High Def extra while still transmitting ABC1, ABC2, and ABC3 in SD before the ABC24 channel launched. So it is the High Def one.

You people with an interest in current affairs who can’t afford a HD set top box lose out in favour of people wanting to give infants, toddlers, primary age kids 14 straight daily hours of cartoons and animals.

The good news:
It will probably go Standard Def again when spectrum allocations next get assessed and they can sort something out.

But people get caught out with High Def tuners vs HD-DVD vs tv with a Hard Disk vs tv with HDMI?
Seriously? o_O

Took me ages there cranky to work out you weren’t talking to Johnboy (JB), I get it now..

We had a similiar problem at Harvey Norman early this year, but we confused by HDMI and the salesman said “yeh of course it’ll get digital channels”, I was skeptical all along and turned out it was just a DVD player. I bought two of them, but they happily let me swap for one STB, of course more than double the price 🙂

I also googled ‘digital tv scam’ a few days ago and there were some good sites on the first page (I think), especially from America where they feel completely ripped off. Was a good read (like this thread) and I could relate.

But don’t get me wrong, I love the new channels it provides and I really hope we get it as reliable as analogue before we turn that off.. pipe dream!

I have now realised that a mid priced DVD recorder, with hard drive included, purchased about 4 months ago, is unable to record high definition chanels.

Being relatively un-savvy, I feel a bit off-pissed that this was not mentioned by staff at the store.

I suspect a fair bit of confusion can be caused by the term HD on the specs. Can refer to high definition or hard disc, and I’m sure in this case the salesman was not going to point out the absence of one, in case the sale was lost.

You could do better JB.

Astrojax said:

Too right, I was so excited to have ABC news 24 … (yep, I’m a nerd) until I realised I needed to get a new fangled topset box (or something)? to see it … not likely to happen any time soon with my mortgage.

astrojax said :

try reiki on the antenna – or get pastor danny to bless it while he’s here… 😉

on related teev matters, i was right peeved to discover that abc24 is only available in HD – quick straw poll, anyone know what percentage of teev consumers in oz (and/or more specifically in act) have HD, either through a set or a box? i was mostly peeved that none of the ads bothered to elucidate this salient fact… ;(

I can’t recall, though I did get email from IceTV advising me of this so I wasn’t paying much attention to the ads. No idea why they thought it would be a good idea to put news on exclusively in HD, the extra pixels don’t add much to the experience.

switch said :

Provided Mt Rogers is not between you and Black Mountain, your antenna should be mounted so the long vertical elements are at the rear, the short horizontal elements are at the front and the central support boom for these elements is also horizontal and on a line pointing towards Black Mountain.

If Mt Rogers is in the way, it will be a lot more difficult. Do you neighbours have problems? Which way are their antennas pointed?

If mount Rogers is in the way, I beleive there is still a translator located on a small hill in the CSIRO paddock. So yes check where the neighborus are pointing and what kind of antenna they have.

aidan said :

What the others said. Depends very much on where you are. Old analogue antennas have very large elements which the digital channels don’t need (in fact they can cause interference).

No such thing as a digital/analogue antenna, though yes in Canberra generally 2 different types are needed, being VHF (to get the channels below 12) and UHF for the channels above 21. VHF antenna’s tend to be bigger, and in Canberra, like most regional area’s the antenna is aligned vertically. UHF has smaller elements and are always horizontally aligned.

As for the difference between digital and analogue, well in simple terms the difference is in how the picture is encoded. The actual signal that comes from the antenna is still very much analogue, simply because it is radio.

try reiki on the antenna – or get pastor danny to bless it while he’s here… 😉

on related teev matters, i was right peeved to discover that abc24 is only available in HD – quick straw poll, anyone know what percentage of teev consumers in oz (and/or more specifically in act) have HD, either through a set or a box? i was mostly peeved that none of the ads bothered to elucidate this salient fact… ;(

tortfeaser said :

You might have an aerial more suited for UHF than VHF. UHF was exclusively used for analogue, you wnt a combined UHF/VHF aerial.

Certainly needs a new antenna, but your statement that UHF was exclusively used for analogue is bull crap. Both Capital and ABC, off black mountain are VHF, channels 7 and 9 respectively.

Provided Mt Rogers is not between you and Black Mountain, your antenna should be mounted so the long vertical elements are at the rear, the short horizontal elements are at the front and the central support boom for these elements is also horizontal and on a line pointing towards Black Mountain.

If Mt Rogers is in the way, it will be a lot more difficult. Do you neighbours have problems? Which way are their antennas pointed?

Oops, sorry, I mixed up VHF and UHF (just assumed previuos poster was correct and didn’t check). Here is a revised version with the terminology correct:

If you do decide to get a new aerial and you are getting your signal from Black mountain then you need a cross-polarised job, where the long (VHF) elements are vertical and the UHF elements (little short jobs) are horizontal. The one that fits the bill is the Digitmatch DG27.

The cheapest place (I didn’t find in time …) to get it is battery shack

If you’re in Tuggeranong then all you need is a UHF aerial, which is smaller and cheaper and widely available.

Having said all that, I have line of sight to Telstra tower and I could get all the channels with rabbit ears, and even with a tiny $4 cheapy from dealextreme.

Fraser is tricky, as line of sight to Black Mountain is obscured by Mt Rogers. If your aerial was pointed out the low power translator on the back side of Mt Rogers that might be your problem. You could try making sure it is directed at Black Mountain, otherwise I’d be calling Kaz.

switch said :

pps The repeater at Broadcast/CMTS Site off Wallaroo Rd BELCONNEN only transmits ABC and SBS analogue TV. Is that where your antenna is pointed?

Up is not the right answer is it????
Seriously Switch – no idea. It seems to have bitties going everywhere. It has fat horizontal bars and skinnier vertical bars. The whole antenna is in a T(ish) shape facing east/west. So it faces toward belconnen mall and Hall. Mt Rogers is just behind. Does that make sense?

Here I yellow-pages’d it for you

http://www.yellowpages.com.au/search/listings?clue=antenna&locationClue=canberra&x=0&y=0

pps The repeater at Broadcast/CMTS Site off Wallaroo Rd BELCONNEN only transmits ABC and SBS analogue TV. Is that where your antenna is pointed?

Please get your facts right. Two posters have made this mistake, so far.

VHF = Very High Frequency, 30 MHz to 300 MHz. Wavelengths 10 metres to one metre (which means the longest antenna elements are between 5 and 0.5 metres, approximately). In Canberra VHF TV signals are vertically polarised.

UHF = Ultra High Frequency, 300 MHz to 3000 MHz. Wavelengths 1 metre to 0.1 metre (which means antenna elements are between 0.5 metre and 50 millimetres). In Canberra UHF TV signals are horizontally polarised.

Both VHF and UHF frequencies are used in Canberra (from Black Mountain) for both analogue and digital TV transmissions. In fact, only SBS is really UHF. The various low power repeaters around the suburbs (Mt Taylor, Tuggeranong Hill etc.) are all UHF.

There is no such thing as a “digital” antenna. Digital transmissions just use different channels (frequencies) for their broadcast.

ps Why are all my correct spellings being flagged (metres, polarised…)? Something in Firefox, or just bloody American interference?

noconnection said :

We had this problem at a house we recently moved into.Old house-old analogue aerial, all we could see what Capital (10). We live in Goulburn and had a fellow from there just install a brand new digital area. The aerial itself only cost us about $100 or so and now we have perfect picture! It was less hassle get to the new aerial than go through trying to ‘patch up the old one’.
I can give you his number is you would like it?

Yes would love it pls.

sorry. Live in Fraser – lower half.

What the others said. Depends very much on where you are. Old analogue antennas have very large elements which the digital channels don’t need (in fact they can cause interference).

If you do decide to get a new aerial and you are getting your signal from Black mountain then you need a cross-polarised job, where the long (UHF) elements are vertical and the VHF elements (little short jobs) are horizontal. The one that fits the bill is the Digitmatch DG27.

The cheapest place (I didn’t find in time …) to get it is battery shack

If you’re in Tuggeranong then all you need is a VHF aerial, which is smaller and cheaper and widely available.

Having said all that, I have line of sight to Telstra tower and I could get all the channels with rabbit ears, and even with a tiny $4 cheapy from dealextreme.

Most of the stuff said above is worth checking (though odds are if your analogue signal was crappy, you’ll have difficulties with your digital one – digital is brilliant, but it’s not magic – you still need enough signal for the STB to actually decode). If you decide to get a professional in, I recommend the good folk at Kaz Electronics. You’re up for somewhere in the range of $200-$300 (if my memory serves) for a brand new, properly setup antenna.

We had this problem at a house we recently moved into.Old house-old analogue aerial, all we could see what Capital (10). We live in Goulburn and had a fellow from there just install a brand new digital area. The aerial itself only cost us about $100 or so and now we have perfect picture! It was less hassle get to the new aerial than go through trying to ‘patch up the old one’.
I can give you his number is you would like it?

I would be checking out the Set Top box first. There are some dodgy ones being sold at the moment. If you have a friend with one , see if you can borrow it and try it. If you still get the same problem then its not your set top box. Next the coax . Check for kinks. If all is ok then the Antenna. Make sure its for UHF not VHF TV transmission.

Without telling us where you live it’s pretty unlikely you can get meaningful advice from this forum. The cures to TV reception problems are mostly dependant on where you are in relation to the signal.

Digital is unlikely to be the source of your high pitched sqeaking sounds, as there’s nothing in the stream of digital data that can suddenly decide it wants to do something unintended like produce a different noise. So the squeaking sounds are more likely to be related to something going haywire in the TV or connections.

The ideal antenna for inner Canberra is a combine VHF UHF one tuned for the Black Mountain signals, most other areas just require a UHF aerial that is generally a long set of up to 15-20 horizontal metal bars about 20cm long, the closest analogy I can think of is a swordfish’s weapon.

Anyway, more info about what you’ve got is required.

Well worth checking out DTV Forums:

http://www.dtvforum.info/index.php?showforum=28

A couple of things to check:

– Is your antenna horozontal or vertical (it should be vertical in Canberra)
– Is it pointed at the tower?

Also, there are definitely people you can pay to come and fix this up, but I’m not sure of who or how much.

You might have an aerial more suited for UHF than VHF. UHF was exclusively used for analogue, you wnt a combined UHF/VHF aerial.