DTV Transmitter Identification

[VK2KRR]

Im wondering if people in Victoria, Western NSW, South Australia and Southern WA could have a look at your Digital TV Channels and let me know if in the channel/station listings it has detected also shows the Area Served Name ? If so, could you please advise what they are and if possible, the RF Channel number and or frequency. Obviously its a lot easier to look for and identify these stations in times of good conditions.

For example, I have -

Prime7 Albury 226.5, GO! Albury 212.5, ONE Albury 191.5, SC10 Albury 191.5, WIN Albury 212.5, 7TWO Albury 226.5, 7mate Albury 226.5, GEM Albury 212.5.

I know that Bendigo, Ballarat, Shepparton, Port Pirie and 44 Adelaide have the Area Served Name, but I am not exactly sure what freqs are what.

If anyone could provide info for other areas that would be great.

Im currently testing a single UHF TV yagi but only picking up VHF

[VK2KRR]

Identified these ones myself so far this evening -

Shepparton (VK3) - SC10, ONE and ELEVEN are on CH42 or 627.500 MHz

[VK3BJM]

Oh, alright Leigh - these are supposed to be top secret, but as long as you tell absolutely no-one...

The Mount Alexander transmitter freakwencies, for the Bendigo area, are as follows (with self-inserted fanfare):

529.5 MHz - SBS
550.5 MHz - Prime 7
669.5 MHz - ABC
690.5 MHz - Southern Cross 10
711.5 MHz - WIN

Perhaps as a plan B, if you get no replies from people in the areas of interest (and there may not be anyone actually living in some of these areas... ) you could try punching the transmitter site names into the ACMA database.

Or use the ABC Reception Advice page http://www.abc.net.au/reception/ to get the ABC DTV frequencies nationally.

I haven't looked but I'd be surprised if the other networks don't have an "Advice" page similar to the ABC.

What was that old Kolm cartoon? "I listen to the TV so I know when to watch the radio..."

Happy viewing!

73,
Barry
VK3BJM

[VK2KRR]

Thanks Barry,

I do have the ACMA listings etc. BUT what I am looking for is which transmitters/stations actually show up the name of the area served when u look at the information for that signal on your set top box.

For example, some might say 'SC10 SHEPPARTON' . Where as others I have seen only have SC10 or ELEVEN, but no service area to go with it. Most of the ABCs and SBS dont have it listed on the info bar.

Im pretty sure some of the Bendigo and Ballarat ones have the service area listed on the channel info when the STB gets the signal decoded. Some of the Wagga ones do. Some dont is the problem.

[VK3ZGC]

Tricky one there Leigh!

The Area Served name is not an individual data field in the MPEG transport stream.

What you are seeing is the Network Name Descriptor which is inserted into the transport stream by the broadcaster at the MPEG MUX.

Where you are seeing for example 'Prime7 Albury', it is most likely being inserted by the local MUX in Albury, whereas perhaps 'ELEVEN' is a national feed and the descriptor is being inserted at the national distribution point. If that all makes sense.

In the case of Prime, they claim to have 45 'local sites', which is where the MEPG MUX will be and hence the ability to customise the Network Name Descriptor for each individual area.

Gary.

[VK3BJM]

Ok Leigh, in which case I can confirm that WIN, Prime and Southern Cross all have "Bendigo" included in their labels. ABC and SBS do not, which is understandable considering the method used to deploy the transmitter feeds (satellite) and the fact that the ABC will have state-based content, and SBS will have something similar, but more based on a single national feed with distribution based around the time zones.

The commercial affiliates are far more area based, with customised feeds containing region-specific advertising - and this shows up in the station labels on each feed.

So forget I suggested the ABC and SBS... (Actually, iirc the only ABC feed in Victoria that gets a special label is that coming out of Mount Dandenong, which gets "Melbourne" added to it.)

Oh, and of course all "channels" for each network come stuffed down the one data feed on the one frequency - so in Bendigo, for example, Prime7 Bendigo is on Ch 6, 60 and 61, 7TWO Bendigo is on 62, 7MATE Bendigo is on 63 and Television 4* is on 64 - all on 550.5 MHz. (*No Bendigo label on this one.)

For Southern Cross, we have SC10 Bendigo on 5, ONE Bendigo on 50 and Eleven* on 55 - all on 690.5 MHz. (*No Bendigo label on this one.)

And for WIN, we have WIN Bendigo on 8, GEM Bendigo on 80 and GO! Bendigo on 88 - all on 711.5 MHz

73,
Barry
VK3BJM

[VK2KRR]

Wow, tnx for the great info Gary & Barry.

I wish that the transmitters for ABC, SBS had at least some sort of callsign attached to their services, like they do in America like WACP-4, WTSD, WBRA etc. As it should be possible to get DTV Ch 6-12 via strong E skip in summer, and it could be possible to get a number on the same freq, could make it tricky to work out whats coming from where. Although I have not really checked through the freq lists to check this issue yet.

[VK2KRR]

Problem this evening is I am getting stong signals on CH36 & 37.

36 is probably Shepparton SBS services (guessing).

37 though, could be either Shepparton or Ballarat. Im guessing its going to be Shepparton ABC, but it would be handy to have some positive identifier. The Ballarat transmitter is down as being 500 kW! Shep TX is 300kW. Pretty much wasted space as a propagation indicator if there is no way of knowing which is which.

[VK3BJM]

You obviously need a much bigger, pointier TV array, Leigh! That way you can get more precise azimuth readings on the signals...

Mt Major at 226 degrees and Mt Cole at 236 degrees - not a lot of separation there. (And Mt Alexander in the middle, at 231 degrees!)

Thinking logically, though, Mt Major is (allegedly) 173 km away, whereas Mt Cole is nearly 410 km. If conditions were good enough to support TV all the way to Mt Cole, you'd be seeing a lot of stuff coming in on the tuner.

In other words, you'd more than likely be getting stuff from Mt Alexander as well (which of course definitely has the "Bendigo" label on the affiliate transmissions). Something to double-check for the next time you're looking.

Remind me, what size/bandwidth/alleged gain is the TV antenna you're using?

73,
Barry
VK3BJM

[VK2KRR]

Hi Barry

I cant open the Hills antenna page this morning, but this is another link to the antenna Im using -
http://www.electrocraft.com.au/Products ... ockNo=1254

The biggest Hills UHF fringe antenna. Though is tiny in comparison to other 70cm yagis etc. I dont have data about it with me. I dont have it on a rotator at present either but am planning on it. Its only on a test stand 2m above ground at present.

I have picked up some of the Bendigo and Ballarat UHF DTV channels before, there is some photos in another TV thread, bt that was on the house STB and it doesn't display the RF channel numbers or RF frequency, so am waiting to get them again on this new Lenoxx box I have with shows both CH and Freq. These were received when there was good marine tracking signals from Port Phillip Bay Melb. I think the TV and the marine signals should give good info about tropo openings.

Im also looking into the big Hills DY14 VHF antenna to keep an eye on the channels 6-12.

[VK3ZGC]

Excellent choice of antenna Leigh!

I used one of these back in VK5 for ATV reception when they had a 579Mhz repeater. It was coupled with a Hills AUA masthead amp and RG-6 quad shield coax.
Reliable across a path of around 180Km.

Hills stated figures are:
Channels 21 - 69
Gain (dB) 13 - 18
F/B Ratio (dB) 19 - 22
Connector F Type
Balun PCB
Ultrasonically sealed balun No
Reflector Screen

Gary
VK3ZGC

[VK3BJM]

Leigh,

You're in luck, too, that Shepparton, Bendigo and Ballarat are all the same polarisation - Horizontal (they obviously want to encourage weak signal devotees...). No need to put up two of 'em. Unless you just can't help yourself, and have a track record of doing so...

And yes: Shepparton ABC is on Channel 37 (592.5 MHz).

Ballarat ABC is on Channel 41 (620.5 MHz).

73,
Barry
VK3BJM

[VK3BA]

Leigh,

You're in luck, too, that Shepparton, Bendigo and Ballarat are all the same polarisation - Horizontal (they obviously want to encourage weak signal devotees...). No need to put up two of 'em. Unless you just can't help yourself, and have a track record of doing so...

No chance - the second one is still in the box, Barry

Like when Noah put two of everything in the boat some time ago, Leigh buys two of everything and installs them at least 75ft off the ground...

Cheers,

[VK2KRR]

Comedians posing as amateurs?

What ya talking about 2 antennas I always (try) run 4 of everything

4 x TV combiner

[VK5PJ]

Leigh

Pretty much wasted space as a propagation indicator if there is no way of knowing which is which.

there are similar problems with the ABC FM stations, no ID is given as to a locality unlike the good old days on AM where every man and his dog was proud to give a detailed station ID that often gave you the colour of the announcers socks as well.

We regularly get Ballarat UHF services here during summer. How do you plan to search for them on a TV, as doing a rescan each few minutes would remove the channels you no longer hear / pointing away from?

Are you using a commercial TV or an off air tuner to a PC or some other devilish device?

Peter, vk5pj

[VK2KRR]

Peter,

I've set up the little 17" AWA LCD monitor I use for the 1296 Dish Cam as the TV. This is hooked to a Lenoxx HDS600 STB. Im also using a Kingray Low Noise amplifier http://www.kingray.net.au/products/matv ... ise/MDA20H All things can be obtained from local stored so it makes things easy.

Regarding the channel scanning, I just do a channel scan and once thats established, I just look through the channels manually to see if anything else is drifting in depending on other indicators. I just try see if the signal will decode then it gets saved in the memory list automatically.

Have you got anything much set up your end yet ?