110 replies to this topic

[GoForMoe]

Latest MySwitch update for Geelong/Ocean Grove is "Late April 2013".

[garyv5758]

Just checked MySwitch for Geelong /Ocean grove
Dare Street, Ocean Grove VIC 3226
NEW DIGITAL TV SITE STARTING LATE MAY 2013
Watch this space !

[GoForMoe]

Yeah, the space has shifting goals. It was Late April a month ago, now it's Late May. Soon it will be Early December.

[nbound]

Dont be too excited until you see technicians at the broadcast site. Or a tower going up if none suitable exists. Once the tower is up you might get a taste in the days preceding with test signals.

[beeblebrox]

same with 600 Burke St now late June... year is still debatable!!

[alanh]

With the new translator installation at Highton, the whole of Geelong and half the Bellarine peninsula will get a strong UHF signal which is perferable to a medium but variable signal strength from 100 km away at Mt Dandenong. Currently there are no plans to install a MGV51 transmitter.

So the viewer has a choice a small UHF antenna pointed at Heighton and no community TV or a larger Band 3/4 antenna and possibly an amplifier pointed at Mt Dandenong.

With channel 31 digital claiming 1.4 million viewers per month, this is so low that OZtam does not measure it. That's a long term average of 767 viewers /day or 5,400 a week. I accept that some shows will have much higher numbers of viewers and others have none.


I have been pushing to get community TV to have the same coverage as all other broadcasters in the major capital cities so I am not against CTV.

This is really the viewers' choice. The same choice exists in West CDB Melbourne, most of the Dandeongs, Safety Beach and south as well as Lorne.
The translator sites' coverage areas were measured by the ACMA and were deemed unreliable enough to require a translator and this was using band 3 transmissions not the UHF signal from MGV.

You choose.

This will finally put an end to poor reception which these blackspots have had for years.

Alanh

Edited by alanh, 21 March 2013 - 08:46 PM.

[CWulf]

alanh, on 21 March 2013 - 08:25 PM, said:

...
I have been pushing to get community TV to have the same coverage as all other broadcasters in the major capital cities so I am not against CTV.

...
The translator sites' coverage areas were measured by the ACMA and were deemed unreliable enough to require a translator and this was using band 3 transmissions not the UHF signal from MGV.
...

...

Alanh

Alan. You've almost killed the RF debate on this forum with your pig headed lack of knowledge.

As pointed out to you numerous times - the metro community services are designed to have equivalent coverage to the national and commercial services from the main sites. Although they have lower ERP they use more robust modulation which requires a lower C/N.

The ACMA didn't measure the coverage for the purpose of determining whether these gapfillers were required. It was the decision of the commercial broadcasters.

Ask your ACMA and broadcaster contacts for their advice.

I look forward to you admitting your mistake - apparently you do that quite often but I'm yet to see those posts.

BTW read the PM I sent you last year. You might learn a thing or two.

[GoForMoe]

alanh, on 21 March 2013 - 08:25 PM, said:

With the new translator installation at Highton, the whole of Geelong and half the Bellarine peninsula will get a strong UHF signal which is perferable to a medium but variable signal strength from 100 km away at Mt Dandenong. Currently there are no plans to install a MGV51 transmitter.

One that is still not on air mind you.

As I've noted previously, the translator site is likely to miss pockets of bad reception at the same time as duplicating coverage in areas with good reception. It will certainly help some, but it's way too long overdue to stop people from having needed stronger antennas and is insufficient to cover many of the growth areas that will have reception issues into the future.

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So the viewer has a choice a small UHF antenna pointed at Heighton and no community TV or a larger Band 3/4 antenna and possibly an amplifier pointed at Mt Dandenong.

Is that you finally admitting a Band 4 antenna might just be needed for Mt Dandenong reception? Nah, it couldn't be...

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With channel 31 digital claiming 1.4 million viewers per month, this is so low that OZtam does not measure it. That's a long term average of 767 viewers /day or 5,400 a week. I accept that some shows will have much higher numbers of viewers and others have none.

You really struggle with this ratings thing don't you. C31 is measured just the same as the other broadcasters, however it is not reported with the regular ratings.

A viewer in this case is the cumulative measure of the number of individuals watching 5 or more minutes of C31 in a month - some (or indeed many) would watch more than once, but the figure is for the overall total number of viewers.

Individual shows sometimes reach ~50k viewers, so while it's a niche of the market, it's no where near as tiny as you are making it out to be.

If that few people watched it, it certainly wouldn't be worth the investment for the main transmitter, let alone translator sites.

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I have been pushing to get community TV to have the same coverage as all other broadcasters in the major capital cities so I am not against CTV.

Wonderful. If you are referring to being carried by SBS as your push, that has been rejected, so you'll need to push elsewhere.

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This is really the viewers' choice. The same choice exists in West CDB Melbourne, most of the Dandeongs, Safety Beach and south as well as Lorne.

Indeed.

Quote

The translator sites' coverage areas were measured by the ACMA and were deemed unreliable enough to require a translator and this was using band 3 transmissions not the UHF signal from MGV.

Well why would they use MGV reception to plan translator sites when MGV won't be broadcasting from translator sites? Seems logical.

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You choose.

Well everything's already decided - not sure of your point?

Quote

This will finally put an end to poor reception which these blackspots have had for years.

It will go some way to assist, but the coverage isn't sufficient to be relied upon.

I certainly await the map to start differentiating between the Good/Variable coverage areas instead of the blue only map - there's an awful lot of areas with coverage deficiencies that are towards the edges of the current projection, so if they are orange then there's really not going to be as much gained as hoped.

Behind the hill of Leopold and towards Warun Ponds still look like problem areas to me.

[Malich]

Just for info...

alanh, on 21 March 2013 - 08:25 PM, said:

With channel 31 digital claiming 1.4 million viewers per month, this is so low that OZtam does not measure it. That's a long term average of 767 viewers /day or 5,400 a week. I accept that some shows will have much higher numbers of viewers and others have none.

C31 actually claim "a cumulative audience of around 1.4 million viewers each month", which is not quite the same thing (see definition/explanation here). It should be fairly obvious that attempting to divide that by ...something?*... as Alan has, and calling it a 'long term average', is wrong - you can't get a meaningful average, long-term or not, from a cumulative figure like that**.

* Yes, "something". I have no idea how Alan arrived at 767/day or 5400/week; I really can't make head nor tail of his numbers, and can find no sensible way to recreate them. Although it's still the wrong thing to do, a more sensible assumption would've been to divide 1400000 by (28 or 31) days, or 4 weeks - which gives an average of 45000~50000 per day, or 350000/week; much higher than Alan's apparently wild guesses.

** Well, I guess it's theoretically possible to get a meaningful estimate - but you'd have to have some idea about certain other parameters which are not given and, as far as I'm aware, not even measured for CTV.

alanh, on 21 March 2013 - 08:25 PM, said:

I have been pushing to get community TV to have the same coverage as all other broadcasters in the major capital cities so I am not against CTV.

Then you've wasted a lot of time pushing for something they already pretty much have. You've also spent a considerable amount of time and effort on these forums heavily recommending antennas which will actively prevent people from watching community TV both right now and in the known future. But we don't need to get into the argument over those things again...

[Moasaica]

According to MySwitch, the Geelong translator is set to start transmitting on 30th May. There is no final date given for the Ocean Grove translator, only "Late May".

Edited by Moasaica, 06 April 2013 - 12:31 PM.

[GoForMoe]

In not unexpected news, there is another delay in the Geelong site's startup date:

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mySwitch will be updated to reflect information as it comes to hand although it is currently expected that this new site will commence in mid-June. Technical issues relating to power supply to the site has meant the earlier expected date of 30 May 2013 has been delayed.

One positive is that now the site is showing a detailed coverage projection instead of just the blue.

Ocean Grove, while still blue is also delayed:

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mySwitch will be updated to reflect information as it comes to hand although it is currently expected that this new site will commence in late June 2013. Services were previously expected to commence in late May. However, planning is still underway to determine the best location for the new transmission site.

Perhaps this means they might be doing as I suggested previously - putting the Geelong transmitter on air and measuring its coverage in Ocean Grove before deciding on that location. I really think just a slight increase in transmitter power on the Geelong site would make it very easy to cover the remaining part of the Peninsula.