🚀 go-pugleaf

Nobody Here <news.reader@invalid.invalid> wrote
> Rod Speed <rod_speed@yahoo.com> wrote
>> Dave Farrance <DaveFarrance@OMiTTHiSyahooANDTHiS.co.uk> wrote
>>> Nobody Here <news.reader@invalid.invalid> wrote
>>>> Dave Farrance <DaveFarrance@OMiTTHiSyahooANDTHiS.co.uk> wrote
>>>>> Michael <someone@somewhere.com> wrote

>>>>>> Apologies if this was posted earlier but it was on
>>>>>> the news when I was recently in Oz and probably
>>>>>> has some relevance to UK switchover plans. see
>>>>>> http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/article/ds24794.html

>>>>> It has. Australia has legislation to prevent DTT broadcasts
>>>>> of channels that are not also available on analogue to prevent
>>>>> fragmentation of the advertising revenue. They've been trying to
>>>>> sell DTT to the Australian public on the basis of picture quality
>>>>> so it's been a bit of a flop, not surprisingly.

>>>> What are they transmitting digital on?

>> VHF and UHF, more VHF than UHF.

>>>> When I lived there 20 years ago most TV was on VHF,
>>>> although one Sydney station was on UHF as well I believe.

>> Yep, SBS.

> Yes, that's right.  Never used to watch it, well rarely
> anyway. It was a bit European for our tastes at the time.

Yeah, it was intended to be the wog channel.

> After 20 years in Europe (well, England) though ...

Yeah, its changed quite a bit, quite a few decent docos
in english now, tho its still got a lot of wog stuff with
subtitles. Hardly any movies in english for example.

>>>> VHF used to suffer quite badly from reflections,
>>>> maybe because of the long distances involved.

>> Nope, no long distances involved.

>> UHF has its own problems, particularly surprisingly deep holes.

> I think they're longer distances than we use on UHF here in the UK,
> it's rare to get a TV signal from more than 40 miles away.

Not really, Sydney isnt that much bigger than say London.

> Of course, you have a different perspective on the word "long" ;-)

Sure.

> We're also stuck in one of those deep holes.

The UHF holes are much smaller than that, you can get one
hell of a difference moving the antenna a foot or two.

Its essentially a wavelength problem, and
the wavelength at UHF is only a quite small.

The hole is due to multipath signals forming nulls.

>>>> When we moved here we were (UK) we were
>>>> astonished by the better picture quality, but it
>>>> was also a new  TV which might have helped :-).
>>>> Anyway, chances are that digital pictures
>>>> will be better than VHF analogue ones,

>> Corse they are.

>>>> especially in the bush.

>> Yep, some with basically unusable analog signals do fine with digital.
>
> Well my Outlaws line in Inverell NSW and I think their TV comes from
> Glen Innes, although I might be wrong, but the picture quality is very
> poor (on analogue).  That might be for a number of reasons - it's
> always been bad in the 25 years I've been going there, but certainly
> it would be much *much* better were it digital.

Yeah, thats the case quite a bit in rural areas that arent
really in the official coverage with the analog signal.

> Every time a plane lands at the local airport there is a wobble in the pcture.

Yeah, that effect is gone completely with digital.

The other advantage with digital is that an STB is often
quite a bit cheaper than a decent external antenna.