Hello,

I'm looking to hear from people who were actually there when television came to Tasmania. North and South. Please share your experiences. If you're an inhabitant of the insignificant continent to the north of Tasmania (apparently they call it "Australia" - who ever heard of such a thing!?), please share your experiences too. It's really important that those who were there share they're stories. Technical and otherwise. Radio informed and entertained but television shaped the modern mass-information world.

There's a book in all this!

I don't get time to check in with this site very often but my email is available in my profile.

P.S Can anyone confirm that "The Serviceman" was, at one point, working in Tasmania?

G'Day Andy,
My email address has been unlocked, for a day or so.
Cheers, JJ

Tv In Tasmania?

Tassie TV? Rest assured.

Way back early 70's I was watching GMV 6 one evening in country VIC when the picture started to flagwave. The audio then changed content followed by new vision. I was watching Ch 6 from Hobart. (I was into my first year TV apprenticeship---very exciting)

I raced outside to check the antenna, all good, hadn't moved, then I noticed the thickest fog ever. My second deduction for the evening ;

Heavy fog attenuated GMV 6 Shepparton allowing Hobart CH 6 (Tassie guys may help with the correct designation) to scream in from over Bass Strait.

Distance GMV 6 to my antenna approx 30Km Distance Hobart to my antenna approx. 890 Km (line of sight)

This is a true story folks, which leads me to believe that almost nothing is impossible with radio propagation.

I saw a bit of that sort of Sporadic-E reception in the early 70s, later in the mid 70s. Was it summer when you saw it?

Early 70's was NZBC on Ch 0 - well before SBS.

Mid 70s was NZBC again. Was surprised to see an unfamiliar evening newsreader at 3pm! Then she said "The Prime Minister, Mr. Muldoon...."
Not much doubt about it!

Back in the 90s I saw quite a bit of long-range TV reception - Qld a few times, various places up the NSW coast, and S.A. one night. The best one was NZ Ch 1 using a coily set-top antenna sitting on top a small Philips TV.

Even UHF travelled well, getting stations up the NSW coast at the time they were rolling out the city stations to the country. UHF 69 Wyong (814-819 MHz) was perfectly watchable one night.

But of course all of that ended with the introduction of digital TV.

When I was young there were broadcasting blackouts on the cricket unless the SCG was at capacity. Dad used to swing the antenna from north to south and pick up WIN-4 to watch the cricket.

Even with digital television, the Wollongong channels are quite easy to pick up in some parts of Sydney. The transmitters on Knights Hill just aren't far enough away to stop the markets overlapping.

Hi Andy et al,

Yep, we get 'Lawn'ceston on a regular basis from the Surfcoast ... can't remember getting Hobart.

Here is the same sort of thing, received in 1938!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kk0ytK_nqA

Thanks for the replies Gents.

For your interest, a family member got me into this. He was a radio tech, then a B&W TV tech (among other things) He eventually set up his own business as a TV (and later, VCR - what a shock, going from valves to transistors to rack and pinions and rubber wheelie bits) He ended up with all the sets that took 7 days to fix (and, obviously, didn't help pay the mortgage) because they'd been taken everywhere else and no one was interested. I asked him why he took these jobs on and he said (I paraphrase) "it made me feel guilty, not earning money doing it, but it was a challenge that I enjoyed over coming"

His first television was a home made set, using a 3inch (I think) radar tube (not B&W but GREEN&W) that he used to pull in Melbourne's first TV broadcasts ( ABC?) on. I don't think he had sound though!

This is the kind of thing I'm interested in. I really do think there is a worthwhile book in this. It won't sell or make any money but it needs to be recorded. If anyone who was involved in this kind of thing is interested in recording their stories please email me. jydnahotmail.com

P.S TALLAR CARL : We invented the wheel in Tasmania (not so good at fire though) before the ACT was invented.

I remember it well getting Ballarat TV, Gippsland TV, Bendigo TV and yes Tasmanian TV channels many yers ago in Melton west of Melbourne.
Not now with this pixelating digital rubbish lol.