Reading the right signals: Has it become any clearer?

Is your TV aerial pointing at Gan Gan? Last Friday (20th November) was the first of two planned upgrades to the transmitter on Gan Gan Hill near Nelson Bay. These upgrades are part of a $450,000 project announced in August to improve TV reception around Port Stephens.

You may recollect that Bob Baldwin was our guest at the April meeting of the Residents Association and that the poor TV reception in some parts of the Cove was a major discussion point. It is great to see that our local lobbying has borne fruit and that the needs of North Arm Cove are being specifically addressed as part of that Port Stephens project.

This first upgrade at Gan Gan saw the pattern of signal transmission from the tower change.  In theory, this should have seen close to a doubling of the strength of signal received in the Cove.  Stage two awaits the delivery of new equipment and, when this is commissioned, we should see a further doubling in the strength of the signal.

This work is a good news story and we need to thank Bob Baldwin and the contributors to the Residents Association communciations survey and meetings on this topic.

The first upgrade took place between 9.15am and 3.20pm last Friday and TV transmission from Gan Gan was not available during that time.

My own observations from testing the signal strength on each channel before and after the first upgrade showed:

• A general strenghtening of signals on ABC-30, SBS-31, Prime7-32 and TEN-33.
• For NBN-28, although on average it appears the signal strength has increased, the signal varies significantly - even from second to second. Sometimes the signal drops out entirely and at other times it can be very high. If there is a pattern to this problem, it is difficult to decipher. The hope at this stage is, that whatever the cause, the second upgrade, currently scheduled for the week from 7th December, will overcome these issues.

Our communications survey earlier this year showed that there were significant differences in the quality of TV reception in different parts of the Cove. Do let me know what changes (if any) in reception you have observed following the upgrade.