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Perth switches to digital TV

Perth is the latest capital city to flick the analog switch off, shifting permanently to digital TV today.

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2013-04-16_1238Perth is the latest capital city to flick the analog switch off, shifting permanently to digital TV.

It follows Adelaide and Tasmania making the switch earlier this month.

“At 9am today, over 722,000 households across Perth switched to digital-only free-to-air TV, as analog signals were switched off,” Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy said.

“I would like to thank the local broadcasters for their support and assistance and congratulate Perth on a very smooth transition to digital-only free-to-air TV.

“Perth is the ninth Australian region to make the switch and the first region on the west coast. It brings the total number of households across Australia that have officially made the switch to over 3.7 million.

“Brisbane is next in line to make the switch in May; followed by Remote and Regional WA in June; Darwin in July; and Sydney, Melbourne and Remote and Central Eastern Australia at the end of this year.”

tvtonight.com.au/2013/02/where-do-i-recycle-my-old-tv.html
www.digitalready.gov.au

15 Responses

  1. @johnjet – Sounds like a problem with either the antenna or the TV/STB. If TV/STB is relatively new then I’d get the antenna checked by a professional, might just need an adjustment to pick up TEN. Digital uses different frequencies to analog.

    If you live in a unit block/townhouse then ask your neighbours if they are having issues with TEN digital too, shared antenna systems in units usually require signal boosters for each of the analog and digital channels, maybe your booster for TEN digital is faulty/missing/set to wrong frequency.

  2. @Armchair Analyst – Why? Don’t get it. The analogue signal is far more robust and gets where digital can’t.
    @johnjet – Exactly my point as above.

  3. For some reason I thought this was happening this Saturday. I found out tonight when I could only get snow. We kept our CRTs because the picture quality’s still good (better than most LCDs) and just bought HD STBs. Saved thousands.

    @JamesJ – I think that is the case, something like 2 million people.

    @Pertinax – you might wish to consider changing your Username to Pedantix 🙂 (altho’, you are of course, correct).

  5. @johnjet
    Have you tried turning it off at the power point and turning it on again. If it doesn’t work it has to be your TV.
    @Bella
    Have they tried turning off the TV by the power point and turning it on again as it always works fine for me or in this case they might not be doing it properly. Thats good to hear that you can get all the channels. No not ABC24 or even ONE if they are into news or sport

  11. Perth switched to “digital-only”. They didn’t just switch to digital. They switched to “digital-only free-to-air TV” as the analogue signals are no longer on. The staggered switch-off is to allow the networks to spread the work and cost over regions and time. Regional networks especially, with hundreds of transmitters and antennae, couldn’t just snap their fingers and, hey presto, now we’re “digital-only”. New transmission sites had to be built as digital didn’t cover areas that analogue did. What’s the great drama anyway that analogue txs weren’t switched off in 2006?

  12. “switched to digital-only free-to-air TV”. How exactly do you switch by watching the same digital TV signal you were yesterday and that has been there for 12 years?

    They just switched off the analogue signals, which was intended for 2006 but they made such a hash of it it is happening 7 years late. The main effect of which will be a few old TVs in spare rooms that people can’t be bothered buying an STB for became useless. Hardly anything to crow about.

  13. Time to update your Perth picture there David! Skyline’s changed a bit since then.

    Am I right in thinking this is the largest (population) area to switch off so far?

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