TELEVISION SWITCHES TO DIGITAL
The analogue transmission, that has been broadcasting NBN Television for 50 years, has been switched off.
At 9am the VHF Channel 3, which started broadcasting in 1962, has been turned off in northern New South Wales as the country moves to digital transmission.
“While today marks the end of an era it is also a significant day as it highlights the opportunities that digital broadcasting technologies has brought and will continue to bring to the television industry, our organisation and importantly to our viewers throughout the region.” NBN Television’s CEO Deborah Wright said
Long serving technicians are also reflecting on today’s switch at Mount Sugarloaf.
NBN’s Paul Lobb caught up with broadcast engineer George Hird earlier in the year and asked how he’ll feel when it comes time to switch off.
“We fought a long time to keep NBN 3 operational. There were some times when they wanted to move the channel to UHF. Around the time of aggregation they wanted to move us to UHF but we persevered to stay on channel three because of the coverage and that’s the channel we were allocated back in 1962, so it’ll be very difficult to turn it off and say that’s the end of it.”
For more of George Hird’s interview and a look back at how the signal made it to our living rooms click here.
The areas affected will be most of NBN’s broadcast area, including Newcastle-Hunter, New England (Tamworth, Armidale, Moree, Gunnedah), Mid North Coast (Coffs Harbour, Port Macquarie and Taree) and the Far North Coast (Lismore and Byron Bay).
Gold Coast and the Central Coast will turn off in 2013.
TO CONTINUE WATCHING NBN
To watch NBN viewers will need a digital television or a set top box connected to their old television.
In some cases viewers might need to have their antennas looked at by a professional installer to determine if it will need to be re-pointed.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
The Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy has an information line setup for the switchover, 1800 20 10 13 (8am-10pm, 7days).
www.digitalready.gov.au
The government has setup a Household Assistance Scheme (HAS) that provides free assistance for digital conversion to some households. The viewer can check if they are eligible by visiting www.digitalready.gov.au
Just wanting to know what FM frequency I tune to on my car radio now so I can listen to NBN-TV while I’m driving…
Scott, the simple answer is there is none.
The NBN FM audio feed was a byproduct of NBN’s VHF channel allocation, putting it inside the lower FM band, and the fact that analog TV broadcast its audio as FM, thus allowing it to be received by radio.
Funfact: Back in the early 90s when every other station moved to UHF (and ABC began simulcasting as both UHF and VHF) NBN fought to keep its VHF allocation simply because the majority of their viewers either didn’t have UHF capable TVs or UHF coverage was (and IMO still is) not as good as VHF.
VHF3 blocked a large portion of the 90MHz FM range that could have otherwise (and can now be) used for more radio stations.
Good Work George, the epitome of an illustrious career. All the best for the future.
Since the analogue has been switched off I haven’t been able to get a picture on NBN at all in the afternoons. I have digital tv, special cables proper antennae and booster all in vain it would seem. Can only be the signal. Would have been good if they had digital all sorted before pulling the plug on analogue. At least I used to be able to switch back to analogue when picture was crap! Rather watch snowy analogue picture than a pixelating digital picture any day!!
Now that the VHF has finally gone, i am assuming that there is now extra bandwidth to finally put the main NBN Channel on to the HD format on a new channel or swap the HD with GEM. When switching over to GEM at 6pm to continue watching the cricket it is like chalk and cheese . GEM runs a lot of SD or worse program’s so it should get the SD. With the cost of HD set top boxes down to around $30 there should not be an audience loss.
@Dave, thanks for that, I pretty much thought that’d be the case. Might be hope in getting NBN to set up a simulcast to go on the FM band, but I’d say that’ll be difficult. Never mind, I’ll just have to miss out on listening to Karl and Lisa on the Today Show whilst driving to work, and Eddie followed by the News when running around at that time of the day. Also, streaming the WWOS coverage of the cricket was a good thing to have, but alas, the future is upon us…
@Bert, we crave NBN’s standard programming in HD, but unfortunately the beancounters can’t see that the majority of the viewing public have already embraced the new technology in order to get the best picture/sound. Here’s one for you – Channel Nine have no plans to show rugby league in HD until 2015, just after they paid over a billion dollars for the rights. What gets me about that decision is I would have thought the NRL would’ve included in the rights contract provision to show their product in the best possible way…
I have had no NBN TV on my digital tv since the switch off., I get it through my set top box but not the TV. Any thoughts
Hi, I am wondering how can I keep watching Gold Coast News at 17:30. Since switched off no way to watch my favorite news, I am local so, Can I please have any answer???? Thank you all!!!!!
We live at Suffolk Park near Byron Bay NSW and we have been having interference on the television every day especially at night on Monday it was particularly bad and we had to switch stations as NBN was the only station effected could you please tell me if this is going to be an ongoing problem?