Digital television in the Upper Hunter (23rd June 2009)

Here's what digital television signals are available to Upper Hunter residents as of last week, the 23rd of June 2009.

The Upper Hunter region is made up of the towns of Muswellbrook, Singleton, Scone, Aberdeen, Murrurundi, Merriwa and surrounding areas, and is 2 hours west of Newcastle and 4 hours north-west of Sydney in New South Wales. The area's main transmitter is located at Rossgole Lookout, near Aberdeen (where I get my signals from), and is part of the Northern New South Wales license area, and the Newcastle/Hunter region (i.e. all the news and ads are for Newcastle). Murrurundi and Merriwa are served by translators and I'm not too sure of their status re: digital TV at this stage.

All five networks are available in digital. The stations are as follows:
2 - ABC1 NSW
3 - SBS ONE
5 - Southern Cross Ten Newcastle
6 - Prime Television Newcastle
8 - NBN Television Newcastle
20 - ABC1 HD
22 - ABC2
30 - SBS ONE HD
32 - SBS TWO
50 - One HD Newcastle
60 - Prime HD/7HD
80 - NBN HD

I have not included duplicate channels, nor have I included the ABC DiG and SBS Radio channels. NBN HD does not air the breakaway Nine HD channel, which is weird, considering NBN and Nine have common ownership (PBL Media).

Since I recorded this (and uploaded it, which was July 3 2009), One HD officially went to air via Southern Cross Ten, so that loop now only appears during One's commercial breaks. At least another two channels have been confirmed to launch sometime this year - ABC3, a non-commercial children's channel, and GO!99, a general entertainment/youth channel from the Nine Network.

A few quirks exist with my hi-def digital recorder (DGTEC DG-HD160PVR) is that I had to rearrange the channels manually, and it swaps around SBS ONE HD and SBS TWO for some odd reason.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Digital
• television
• Upper
• Hunter
• New
• South
• Wales
• Australia
• Newcastle
• ABC-TV
• ABC1
• ABC2
• SBS
• ONE
• TWO
• Southern
• Cross
• Ten
• Prime
• NBN
• HD
• OneHD
• 7HD
• Seven
• Nine
• Network
• Scone
• Muswellbrook
• Singleton
• Aberdeen

[bigdanisstillalive]

OK folks, I'll have to do an update for this video, since 7TWO on Prime and ABC News 24 have since gone to air.

[markusmon1978]

still only ABC and SBS in Digital, no others in Merriwa

[bigdanisstillalive]

@markusmon1978 I'd reckon Merriwa (and Murrurundi) will get an influx of digital stations once a date for Northern NSW digital transition is announced.

[markusmon1978]

@bigdanisstillalive yer tru, but hopefully we get it, cause i hate having crappy reception

[bigdanisstillalive]

@markusmon1978 You should get it. There is no point in having only ABC and SBS in digital and not having the commercial stations at all past 2012.

If you can't get digital TV over the air using an antenna by 2012, you would qualify to access VAST digital satellite TV, which would give you all FTA channels, and a regional news channel as well.

[joseqg24]

the channels all broadcast in standard 16:9 ? and some of them in hd?

[bigdanisstillalive]

Yes, all channels transmit in 16:9 (4:3 programming is pillarboxed), and each network has a HD station, which can be used as a straight out HD channel, or a multi-channel airing unique programming at certain times.

[markusmon1978]

@bigdanisstillalive Yes i orded Austar today and should be comming next week :)

[markusmon1978]

@bigdanisstillalive yes so tru, or i have to get Austar :) its so stupid tho u drive to scone about 55km away and u have them all :(