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Proeye Communications & Security Systems Digital TV

Digital Television (DTV) provides greater spectrum efficiencies and enables more radio spectrum to be re-used for other services. The Australian Government can re-licence the available spectrum for services such as Mobile & Fixed Wireless Broadband, and Emergency & Government Communications. DTV benefits the community because its transmission properties in most situations are resilient to interfering signals, and in turn increasingly improves the viewers experience by receiving a clearer interference free picture. Efficiencies in DTV technology allows multiple programs to be transmitted by utilising the same spectrum that one TV program would occupy as an analogue broadcast. Hence TV broadcasters now have more channels and can provide a greater range of content to viewers. Receiving a good interference free and reliable DTV signal may not always be as simple as changing your television, or antenna to suit. There may be a affecting factors including cabling installation problems, connectors, signal reception quality, and underlying interference that may be natural or man made interference. Poor TV antenna installations, damaged cabling, and receiving DTV from the wrong transmission stations will cause annoying TV picture pixelation. Beware of dodgy TV antenna installers, who are prepared to undercut and provide cheap inferior antenna installations to customers, which are not fit for purpose. We have been called out to diagnose poor quality DTV reception caused by TV antenna installers which have installed inadequate TV antennas systems in Metro Areas of Melbourne. Some TV antennas were facing directly into brick walls because the direction to the transmission site is in that direction. To keep the cost down, some installers use cheap inferior antennas that don’t last or receive inadequate adequate TV signals. Some TV antenna installers, do not use appropriate equipment to measure, analyse and conduct a site analysis to ascertain a suitable antenna system for installation. Some antenna installers don’t have suitable knowledge to select the appropriate antenna equipment required for the area. So they end up using an inappropriate antenna which may receive enough signal to receive DTV but the client is left with ongoing pixelation issues, as the received signal quality is poor. Skills Requirements: Unfortunately there is no minimum skill level required for a person in Australia to get in the business and begin to install TV antennas, other than the general requirements required in some states where an installer is required to undertake an occupational health and safety course or business related course. It is best to seek an endorsed antenna installer or someone who has the necessary skills and knowledge to provide a suitable TV Antenna installation. A degree of skill, knowledge and experience is required to identify and resolve the many forms of TV interference. A good TV antenna technician will be able to identify and work towards resolving TV reception issues including high tension interference from power lines, interference caused by earth loops in a TV antenna System, interference from local appliances, and interference from various types of communications equipment including CB and amateur radio, paging systems, emergency warning systems and other forms of communications. A good TV antenna technician should have an appreciation and understanding of the natural types of interference, that are caused by nearby structures, the weather (local and space). One type of terrestrial weather related interference is caused by a phenomena known as heat inversion, which causes warmer air at lower layers in the stratosphere to be trapped by a higher cooler layer which creates a duct that can reach a couple of thousand kilometres. The phenomena usually occurs around December to January period in Australia. I have received complaints from people in the Ocean Grove Geelong area watching Tasmanian channel nine broadcasts. This type of interference may last a few hours and may not re-occur until the following year. I personally experienced this phenomena in Dromana in 2009, where I watched Bendigo DTV for a few hours. It was great! Other forms of Natural interference occur by signals reflecting from buildings, towers or mountains and arriving at your antenna interfering with the direct received signal. In parts of Northcote and South Morang VIC, viewers require highly directional antennas to receive better quality TV because there are multiple TV signal reflections bouncing off the city buildings. The interference can be viewed on an analogue TV, which causes a number of superimposed pictures that create an aura like pattern around people or objects as per the ghosting picture below. This type of interference can be refered to as ghosting when viewing analogue TV broadcast. DTV solves the ghosting problem because the content is digitally re-created like sound is digitally recreated in a CD. The reflected signals from the man made structures is received as interference, and the decoder uses error correction methods to resolve resolve the issue. Attention is needed in these areas because an appropriate antenna is required to receive a good signal with enough margin above the interfering TV signal reflections. The multiple TV signal reflections corrupt the main DTV signal and can result result in poorer signal quality reception. The poorer quality reception in combination with other sources of interference may be enough to cause the DTV picture to pixelate, hence the reason to allow enough margin to tolerate other sources of sporadic interference that may pop up from time to time. Viewers residing in TV Blackspots and areas outside the TV broadcast service areas where reception is unreliable or poor will be able to receive TV via satellite. Satellite TV reception Free-to-air digital television services, including services such as ABC2, ABC3, SBS TWO, GO!, 7TWO and ONE HD, will be available to all Australians, no matter where they live. The VAST service will provide regional viewers with access to the local news currently broadcast in their TV license area through a dedicated local news channel. It will also provide viewers with access to the ABC’s new 24-hour news high definition multi-channel, which will be launched later this year. For more information go to the Satellite TV section of the Governments digital ready web site provides more information. At Proeye, we work towards providing antenna systems that allow you to receive DTV signals that will be resilient to interference resulting in a better TV viewer experience and reduce risk of pixelation. We can conduct signal analysis of current TV antenna systems and measure signal strength and bit error rates so that you have a better understanding of the type and quality of your TV reception. We can identify external and internal types of interference and provide solutions to overcome most of the issues.