167 replies to this topic

[alanh]

Sportsaddict,
What has been told to you is not true.
Read Get the Best Reception, Gold Coast and the transmitter list.
All three sites, Currumbin, Mt Tambourine and Springbrook use the same channel for the same programs. This is called a Single Frequency Network.
So you can see for example QTQ channel 9 is repeated on the 3 sites on repeated on UHF Channel 59. The receiver will show channels 9 and 90 (9HD).
NBN is owned by the Nine Network and is transmitted on UHF channel 68. The receiver will show it at channels 8 and 80 (NBN HD).
The system is repeated for the other channels except ABC and SBS which is all the Qld signal.

Southern Cross, the receivers show as 5, 50.
Prime, the receivers show as 6 and 60.

AlanH

[Sportsaddict]

Alanh,
On the current HD STB Southern Cross does come up as 5,50 but Prime and NBN do not come up at all, even via a manual scan. The company I went to see about this problem had a customer with the same problem and they said the problem was rectified with a software "tweak". That customer can receive all channels.

[alanh]

Sports Addict,
SBS36 585.625
NRN43 634.625 Southern Cross
BTQ53 704.625
TVQ56 725.625
QTQ59 746.625
ABQ62 767.625
NEN65 788.625 Prime
NBN68 809.625

AlanH

[AnonymouslyBad]

Sportsaddict, I think it's probably most likely that you just aren't getting enough signal. The Mt Tamborine transmitter doesn't send a lot of juice your way.
If you're only getting borderline reception (which is presumably the case) it wouldn't be unusual to receive some channels but not others - especially since the channels you're having trouble with are the higher frequency ones.

Because STBs are all different, you might yield better results with a different brand. But at the end of the day it still sounds like you'll have weak reception, so you probably need a better antenna, if it's possible at all.

If you desperately want Prime and NBN for some reason, but don't have any luck improving your current setup, one possible (but also unlikely) alternative is Mt Nardi on the other side of the border - much further away, but also much more powerful. I think a few people around Browns Plains area receive this, but it's pretty much by luck. So I wouldn't count on that either!

Edited by AnonymouslyBad, 14 July 2009 - 12:09 AM.

[Sportsaddict]

Alanh,
Thank you, I now can get Prime but still can't get NBN but will keep trying.

AnonymouslyBad,
Thank you for your advice. I like to watch Prime for the Friday night AFL and NBN for when they're showing a different NRL game to Nine Brisbane as well Test Matches from the Gabba. In 2000 when I first set up my aerial I had no trouble receiving a reasonable signal without an amplifier, but for a couple of years now I have been using a indoor amplifier to help my signal strength as a masthead amplifier seems to make the signal drop out. On analogue the NBN reception changes quite often from pretty good to non existent.

If yourself or Alanh can provide me with the frequencies for Mt Nardi that would be greatly appreciated.

[alanh]

Sportsaddict,
What are you using as an antenna?
Is it outside, high up?
Are you using an amplifier?

AlanH

[Sportsaddict]

Alanh,
I have two antennas one for the house and one for the patio. The one for the house is long in length with mesh at the back end of it running through an indoor amplifier. I tried a masthead amplifier but the signals dropped out. The antenna for the patio is a square one running through another indoor amplifier. I'm sorry but I don't know the correct terminology for the antennas. Both antennas are about 1 metre above roof height on separate mastheads.

[Sportsaddict]

Alanh,
The antenna on the patio is probably H5 phased Array according to your transmitter spreadsheet. I'll try the frequencies you gave me on this antenna this afternoon.

[Sportsaddict]

Problem solved by installing a Kingray MHU34F masthead amplifier. Perfect reception on all channels.

[ocular]

Am wanting to set up for digital reception from dwelling at Currigee on South Stradbroke Island.  Current analog reception is adequate and antenna is pointed in the direction of the Mt Tamborine transmitter. (Hills OMX300WB). The existing antenna is mounted in an awkward position on the edge of 15 degree 8 M high sloping roof, 3/4 of the way up the slope and only about 2 ft off the roof surface (less on the elevated side). Behind the antenna is the remainder of the sloping roof and extensive array of solar panels and a stainless chimney. Have hooked up a STB and can get the three ABC channels from Tamborine, Mt Nardi and Mt Cootha but all just affected by pixellation ( approx 40/70 quality/strength on STB). The wiring is RG59 with a screw on F connector at the antenna. Also there is a run of about 6 metres where the RG59 runs straight silactic to the valley of the colourbond roof sheeting. Direct line of site to the Mt Tamborine transmitter is obstructed by the top of a tree 30-50 metres away.

Have looked at the coverage maps and am just outside the main area and into the adequate areas for both the Mt Tamborine (H5) and Mt Cootha (H34). Plan to changed to RG6 (25-30M) and change the antenna mount to a pole that will be supported off the solar panel frame work and will put the antenna above the roof line, chimney and solar panels.

In this location should I aim for the Mt Tamborine H5 Transmitter with something llike a Clipsal Yagi 2ANUY 18/5 or would I better off using a phased array 2ANUX43?

Or should I be concentrating on the Mt Cootha Signal with a H34 antenna. It is not straight forard to get an installer with a meter over to this location.

Thanks for advice.

[alanh]

Ocular,
You are much closer to Mt Tambourine, infact 22 km away true bearing 245 degrees.
I would use a band 5 Yagi in the new installation point you suggested. Replace the cabling with Quad shielded RG6 cable. See how it goes for a week. If it is not reliable enough let me know.

AlanH

[ocular]

alanh, on Dec 7 2009, 01:24 AM, said:

Ocular,
You are much closer to Mt Tambourine, infact 22 km away true bearing 245 degrees.
I would use a band 5 Yagi in the new installation point you suggested. Replace the cabling with Quad shielded RG6 cable. See how it goes for a week. If it is not reliable enough let me know.

AlanH

Thanks Alan,

Have hooked up the newly purchased series 6 samsung LCD and the integrated HD tuner seems to work better than the el cheapo Set top box I tested with. Can get stable pictures from the Mt tamborine transmitter with the current OMX300 antenna  in its current poor position with the old RG59 cable. Will see what happens under varying weather conditions. have got the ANUY 18/5 and the new Quad shielded RG6 ready to go, but can probably put the job as low priority over the holidays.

[agrobm]

edit: remove quoting


Hi all,

I'm hoping to get asoem preliminary advice on reception issues in Highland Park. We live about halfway up the hill in Highland Park on the Northern side of the valley. Our antenna is relatively old (ie pre-digital) and points down to Currumbin. Generally our reception is poor and inconsistent. Some days we get perfect broadcast but most often we cant get clear reception.

Which station should we be pointing towards and what type of antenna would we be best suited to our use (digital tv)? I get the feeling we are on the fringe of Currumbin reception but I'm not sure we can point it anywhere else due to our position on the hill.

In the long run if we are repointing then I will get a specialist out but want to make sure I understand options, pros, cons etc. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Glenn

Edited by agrobm, 04 June 2010 - 10:06 AM.

[James T Kirk]

Hi Glenn

What's your nearest road intersection?

James

[James T Kirk]

Hi Glenn

I received your message.

You have a choice of three transmitter sites, the one as you say you are on Currumbin, and there's also Mt Tamborine and Mt Springbrook.

(1) Currumbin to the south east has some obstructions, it transmits from a low 80 metres above sea level.
(2) Tamborine to the west/north west is just shy of line of sight and is the highest power service of the three and transmits from around 650 metres above sea level. It is the closest to you.
(3) Springbrook is a low power site to the south/south west may well be line of sight and has the advantage of having highest transmission site of the three at 1000 metres. It is the furtherest from you.

When your installer arrives I expect he will know about all three sites and will check them all for you.
Despite you presently being pointed to Currumbin, my best guess is that Tamborine and the newest site Springbrook will be the better choices.

Cheers
James

[agrobm]

James T Kirk, on Jun 5 2010, 08:32 PM, said:

Hi Glenn

I received your message.

You have a choice of three transmitter sites, the one as you say you are on Currumbin, and there's also Mt Tamborine and Mt Springbrook.

(1) Currumbin to the south east has some obstructions, it transmits from a low 80 metres above sea level.
(2) Tamborine to the west/north west is just shy of line of sight and is the highest power service of the three and transmits from around 650 metres above sea level. It is the closest to you.
(3) Springbrook is a low power site to the south/south west may well be line of sight and has the advantage of having highest transmission site of the three at 1000 metres. It is the furtherest from you.

When your installer arrives I expect he will know about all three sites and will check them all for you.
Despite you presently being pointed to Currumbin, my best guess is that Tamborine and the newest site Springbrook will be the better choices.

Cheers
James

Hi James,

Many thanks for the information. Its kinda confusing around me as there are antennas point to Currumbin and some to Mt Tamborine all at differing heights.

Time to get the specialists in.

Cheers

Glenn

[slo20]

I am hoping someone can help. I live at Ormeau. I have had a Samsung digital TV (LA40N81BDX) for years with no issues to reception. On the weekend i bought a new 3D Samsung TV (UA40C7000WF) and since then i have been getting my audio and picture cutting out every 10 - 15 seconds on my digital channels (analogue channels fine). I ran the self diagnosis on the TV and had a look at the signal information. My reception strength is between 92 - 95 for each channel but i get a bit error level jump from 0 to 20 whenever the audio / picture distorts.

I'm not sure what type of antenna is on the roof or what sort of cabling is in the walls but the house is only 5 years old so i wouldn't think anything too outdated. Today i bought a 1.5M RG6 flylead cable to run from the wall to the TV as i read the issues could be due to interference but the new cables didn't help. I was looking at buying RG6 Quad shielded Gold plated flylead cables but i thought i would ask for advise before i spent more money if it would not help.

Any help or advise would be greatly appreciated. Let me know if you need more info.... I am a novice when it comes to this sort of technology.

[James T Kirk]

Hi Slo20

When you plug in your old Samsung digital TV (LA40N81BDX) instead of the new one, is it still fine?

James

[Switch Onto Digital TV]

Do all the channels play up, you may have so channels tuned in from the side of the antenna. If you are off Mt Coutha you may be picking signal from Mt Tamborine.
You may have too much signal coming in, the old tv could handle it but the new can't.
A gold plate flylead looks nice but if you have an RG6 flylead already, gold plated won't make any difference.

[slo20]

Thanks for your responses.

James - Yes, if i plug in the old TV it is fine. I currently have the old TV plugged into a different room and when i have both TV's on at the same time the old one has no problems when the new one does.

Switch onto Digital - Some channels get it worse then others like SBS but it is all channels that are the issue. Strangely it is raining here today and the channels have improved with some being perfect now (7HD receiving 97% reception strength with no bit errors), but i think that will be short lived.  If there is too much signal coming in is that something i can fine tune myself. I am hoping not to have to pay for an antenna specialist to come out due to the amount of money already spent on the TV. Would a TV signal amplifier make any difference or would that just boost the interfering signals?

[Switch Onto Digital TV]

rain lowers the signal so maybe the level is a bit high.
You could try an attenuator which lowers the signal.
Dick Smith may have then.
All this advise is only guesswork without checking you signal.

[slo20]

Switch Onto Digital TV, on Aug 20 2010, 09:00 PM, said:

rain lowers the signal so maybe the level is a bit high.
You could try an attenuator which lowers the signal.
Dick Smith may have then.
All this advise is only guesswork without checking you signal.

Thank you very much for your advice. I appreciate your time in responding. At least now i have a better understanding of what could be causing the issues and how to resolve. I will visit Dick Smith when my reception issues reoccur to see if an attenuator does the trick.

[and11]

I'm just up from Sydney on holidays and staying at one of the higher high rises between Broadbeach and Northcliffe:  nice Panasonic HD tv and Foxtel SD.  I've bought a DVR (Strong SRT 5492) to record FTA HD and watch at my leisure.  However when I tune through the apartment aerial, plenty of Signal Strength but nil Signal Quality.  The TV when tuned only picks up some Analogue signals (and works better when the aerial is routed through the foxtel box) and no HD/SD signals.  Management here may not be particularly responsive to requests; is there anything I can do to get a HD signal?  PS I am pretty sure the Strong box can't take the Foxtel box as an input so I can't do that.

Thanks for any help.   Andrew

[DX Fan]

and11, on Oct 20 2010, 09:27 PM, said:

I'm just up from Sydney on holidays and staying at one of the higher high rises between Broadbeach and Northcliffe:  nice Panasonic HD tv and Foxtel SD.  I've bought a DVR (Strong SRT 5492) to record FTA HD and watch at my leisure.  However when I tune through the apartment aerial, plenty of Signal Strength but nil Signal Quality.  The TV when tuned only picks up some Analogue signals (and works better when the aerial is routed through the foxtel box) and no HD/SD signals.  Management here may not be particularly responsive to requests; is there anything I can do to get a HD signal?  PS I am pretty sure the Strong box can't take the Foxtel box as an input so I can't do that.

Thanks for any help.   Andrew

Hi Andrew.

First of all just check that you are tuning the correct stations - remember the Gold Coast TV stations are all UHF (not channels 7, 9, 10) so the usual "default" channel settings that might be on a DVR out of the box won't work (you might be trying to get stations direct from Brisbane)- so you need do a complete scan - here is a list of the local stations channel number and frequencies:

SBS36 585.625
NRN43 634.625 (Southern Cross)
BTQ53 704.625
TVQ56 725.625
QTQ59 746.625
ABQ62 767.625
NEN65 788.625 (Prime)
NBN68 809.625 (NBN)

I suspect that this is not the problem and wonder if there may not be any antenna system in use at the apartments and residents are relying on Foxtel - you are probably picking up a signal from the cabling (just a guess).

Anyway if that is not the problem - you can try buying a cheap indoor UHF antenna at Dick Smith (ask in store) and a long antenna extension cable. Put the antenna near a window or balcony.

I am assuming that you are up a few floors. The transmitters are to your west north west (roughly).

Good luck

Edited by DX Fan, 21 October 2010 - 09:18 AM.

[BW~Merlin]

First up I am sorry if this is the wrong place/thread to post this question I am not entirely sure where it belongs so forgive me if this is not that place.

Currently we have three digital TV's and two analogue TV's and all three of our digital TV's have varying reception issues.  I think some of your issues are weather dependant such as windy and rainy days but for other issues I am not sure what is the cause.

First I shall start with my TV.  I have a Palsonic TFTV551FHD which has been having a lot of trouble getting ABC digital.  It is only in the last couple of weeks that ABC has returned to me after doing another manual auto tune (I can select a channel to tune but not actually input what frequency to use it finds that part its self) problem is the signal often breaks up (and of course this only ever happens when you actually want to watch something otherwise the signal is fine for the most part).  Another oddity with my TV is that if I close my glass sliding door (my TV sits on top of a tower speaker in front of the non sliding glass pane) the signal starts to break up (little box/squares of distortion/tearing start appearing and the sound starts breaking up as well).  What I have done to try and fix this problem is retune my TV and brought a newer coax antenna cable to connect the TV to the wall plate, I feel I did get a slightly better signal after doing both this but still have issues as mentioned above.

Secondly my sister has a Soniq digital TV and all was well until she changed her room around and moved the TV from one side of the room to the other and then she lost most of the digital TV stations.  She is still using the same coax cable and wall plate and said she didn't unplugged it just picked it up and moved it but now only has a dozen or so digital stations.  What we have tried is retuning the TV using the auto tune function and checking that the coax cable is plugged at both ends correctly.

Third TV is a Sony Bravia KDL-3xS3100 (not sure if its the 32 or 37 inch) and it seems to have problems with intermittent reception issues (same as mine, picture and sound breaking up) and possibly weather related issues.  I have tried using the auto tune function and checked cables.

I believe we have a Yagi-Uda antenna (that is what it looks like judging by the diagrams that can be found on this forum) on our roof (free standing house in Parkwood on the Gold Coast) which feeds into a Kingray SA212 split amplifier (there is a power point in the roof for this) which then feeds into two (one from each of the outs on the split) Hills BC3622 4 way splitters which then feed through the house.

What can we buy to try and fix these problems we are having?  I was thinking a distribution amplifier which would then feed into one or two splitter amplifiers to power the eight wall plates located throughout the house.  Is this the best way?  What models, power, ratings, other numbers and figures so I be looking for?  What device/s should we look at getting to try and get some more reliable signal for our TV's.

Thanks

Edited by BW~Merlin, 21 May 2011 - 09:37 PM.