In 1983, one of radio station 2KO’s twin antenna masts at Hexham was brought down by the NBN chopper that, whilst taking off, passed a little too close, allowing its rotor to slice a guying cable.
The collapse was caught on video by NBN's camera crew on the ground who happened to be filming the highway at the Ironbark Creek bridge, a popular accident venue. The cameraman was with another who heard the loud 'twang' as the rotor struck, grabbed his filming companion, swung him around to point at the mast, and captured it folding downwards neatly, section by section. An “unscheduled disassembly” as they say nowadays.
Back in the studio, Chief Engineer Harold Whyte, alerted by alarms, found the off-air receiver was emitting... nothing much. Switching from the Collins to the standby transmitter, an AWA 2KW, failed to resolve matters. Then the phone rang. It was Mrs Foster, tenant and caretaker living in the old transmitter building, who exclaimed "The tower fell down!!" Harold told her to settle down and that he was rather busy right now. Upon hanging up, he remarked with a big grin, "She said the aerial fell over !" We all laughed, then resumed trying to switch to the standby transmitter.
Twenty-two years later, Dungog, a small township in the Barrington foothills, would have a similar story to tell, this time due to weather.
The Place
To residents of the Hunter region, Dungog punches, as they say, above its weight. The township of around 2,000 has achieved a familiarity within the Valley as though it were the town next door, or the next suburb over.
Dungog from Coorei Hill. Photo: Rob Stubbs 2010
Like any village whose near total dependency on agriculture or timber-getting has caused its prosperity to slide in these strange economic times, it hangs on by attracting hobby farmers, retired Novocastrians, and tireless promotional events. You know them as the James Theatre, Film Festival, Pedalfest, Thunderbolt Rally, and those rural favourites, the Agricultural show and Rodeo. And, of course, by the toil and tenacity of 'hard core' farmers and businesses at the heart of the township and community.
One day in 1962, after lifetime of reading the Dungog Chronicle, The Newcastle Morning Herald (but not so much the Miners’ Advocate part) and listening to city and ABC radio stations, the isolation retreated a little further when Channel 3 fired up. More affluent homesteads already had TV masts, I’m safely guessing, having hoisted some years earlier their thirty or forty foot guyed masts, loaded with massive stacked Yagi antennae aimed at Sydney, to catch Graham Kennedy, Route 66, and Hawaiian Eye through the drifting ‘snow’ or fluttering reflections from a passing DC3.
But Mt Sugarloaf was not only a mere 40 miles away, a much easier target for more humble household arrays, it was in theoretical 'line of sight' from the local Coorei Hill. And that hill is the topic of this report.
On 7th June, 1983, Minister of Communications, John Duffy, sought applicants to provide a translator service to the township. The translator would receive a signal from Channel 3 on Mt Sugarloaf and retransmit it on UHF channel 69.
NBN bought a plot (Lot 2, DP545302) atop Coorei Hill for $2,972. In all probability it was sold by a local farmer who couldn’t believe his luck. The zoning for the small patch, already a local trig point, was 5A, designated by the local council for “specific services.” Being the first broadcaster, NBN also paid for the tower and transmitter, the latter housed in a small brick hut. It is not known when Telstra arrived and erected a communications tower, which is close by on NBN's northern side.
Pictured: The original tower photographed in 2004. What is remarkable is how lightly loaded it is, with only the cyclindrically-radomed transmit aerial at the 27 metre peak and two radome panels lower down. Photo: George Hird.
NBN's transmission (RF) broadcast team had always been a small tight-knit unit. After a founding chief, Harry McPhee, moved on, Rod Prout became chief and Max Lewis his assistant chief engineer. They tended both studio and transmitter, while George Hird was Mt Sugarloaf's permanent transmitter tech, the trio sharing call-outs to the small network of hilltop sites. When Rod retired, Max assumed the lead and George, briefly his assistant, circa year 2000 landed the daunting DTV transition portfolio. Greg Williams, John Hills, and Andy Galbraith assumed field responsibilities for the huge network spawned under aggregation, assisted by newcomers (and deeply experienced) Allan Legge and Phil Lindsay, a former ABHN transmitter tech. George and Greg became the principal names in the story that follows.
At this time the Dungog site was largely static. Its only future plans were for additional digital transmitters some decade hence, an eventual analogue switch off in 2012, and a subsequent restack of channel numbers by 2014.
Aggregation
When Bob “No Australian Child Will Live In Poverty” Hawke chose to move decisively on television equalisation - whereby every regional viewer would get three commercial channels - Dungog was soon to get Prime (NEN) and TEN (NRN) transmitting from the hill, along with, in March 1995 when the government called tenders to supply ABC programming to Dungog, ABHN channel 60. All of these services except SBS shared NBN’s transmit antenna perched atop its 27 metre tower. SBS's channel was out of band and so had its own antenna, one of the panels lower down.
While traditional broadcasters were easily dealt with through standard shared expense arrangements that applied to the dozens of shared sites across NSW’s northern reaches, it was messier when applied to the numerous and constantly added third parties who sought access, crowding the limited equipment space and loading up the tower with assorted receive or transmit aerials and heavy coaxial cabling.
For example, a note mentions “In 1999 a satellite antenna was added for NTL's SBS service housed in NBN's hut.” Which is curious, as no evidence is found of a 'satellite dish.' But this is at least a clue that SBS likely arrived at the site that year. Eventually a large ground-mounted satellite receive dish would be installed for both SBS and ABC to replace their off-air translator inputs that suffered from interference.
Then in June 2000 Vodaphone approached NBN to build a separate hut on the site, but NBN preferred they use NBN old brick building which was largely empty. A caveat in this additional service was that if Vodaphone's antenna created an electro-magnetic radiation (EMR) 'no-go' zone, their service would need to be switched off when access to NBN's transmit antenna was needed.
The place was getting busy. A report from George Hird (we shall call him "George" hereinafter) in November 2000:
Re Dungog, the NBN lock is now back on the gate to the translator site. I have met with the land owner (new) and I am talking to him about a maintenance fee for the road upkeep. There are several users: NBN and its agents, NDC, Telstra, Optus, and Rail Access Corp.
Pictured, suggested by a property manager when the gate along Stroud Hill Road needed repairs, was this innovative device. The padlocks prevent the drop bolt from being raised.
Gates and padlocks for multiple organisations needing access, along with landowners, was a huge matter for the individuals responsible. Keys were continually lost, multiple staff needed copies, they were expensive to cut - not just your average key, but a hierarchy of security up to master key. It involved dozens of sites some with possibly a dozen padlocks.
As growth of services continued, a memo dated April 2002 discussed a new ABC FM service. It mentioned that the "National TV services, ABC and SBS, were being charged site fees, and that the FM service (100W transmitter) will be using additional rack space (in the hut) and tower space for the transmit antenna." But in July, 2003, NBN was told that "due to financial constraints, Dungog's ABC FM service was on indefinite hold.
A pertinent mention is made that LeBlanc were to advise on the strengthening of the tower in preparation for the ABC's FM antenna. In April 2002, NTLA had advised:
LeBlanc will be undertaking the tower strengthening, as per their report. I will fax a copy of the quote we obtained from them (prices extracted) so that you can see that they have quoted on doing the work in accordance with the structural assessment report (forwarded previously) However, NDC will install the Yagi antenna (not LeBlanc).
As no further mention is made of this post-2002, it's a fair assumption that work never happened after cancellation of the FM project. It also suggests that the Coorei Hill tower might have been considered rather, shall we say, frail. A copy of that report (not found!) would be of great interest, considering what was to follow.
About Those Channels
As we move into the digital television (DTV) era, it’s timely to remind the reader that three phases of channel swapping occurred. First, the UHF analogue services (establishing three commercial regional channels) began during aggregation (equalisation) in the early 1990s. Second, DTV channels were slotted in the spare unused channels post-2001-ish, where they stayed until 2012 when the analogue services were switched off. Third, with the analogue channels gone, all the UHF digital channels were moved down into the low band (to channels 51 and below) under what was termed a restack, aka the “digital dividend.” Therefore, note that the channel numbers discussed below were not at those stages the final channels in use today.
This is painfully detailed in the article “NBN ~ Policy and Regulation.”
Before digital television was deployed in the early 2000s, Dungog had the original analogue channels SBS 42, ABHN 60, NEN 63, NRN 66, and NBN 69. New digital channels would occupy 59, 62, 62, 65, and 68. Those, however, were temporary, but would be in place until 2013 when analogue was switched off and all the UHF digital channels would be 'restacked.'.
George Hird, now NBN’s assistant chief engineer, spent a great deal of time and effort arguing with the government (the ABA, thereafter ACMA) about channel allocations. Their directives and planning regularly conflicted with NBN’s view of the real world.
On 2nd February, 2004, George asked the ABA (re draft DCPs for inland NSW & north coast) to allocate any of several other channels available, rather than 68, which is the highest available frequency. ABA replied:
With respect to the request for a lower channel assignment at Dungog, in general, the ABA considers all the UHF Band V channels to be of equal value, particularly for lower power services. Given that channel 69 is NBN's analog assignment at Dungog, and the digital services only require an ERP of 50W, the ABA would expect a digital service on channel 68 to be able to achieve the same coverage as the existing analog service. If you believe channel 68 will not allow NBN to achieve the same coverage objective then could you please provide some evidence in support of that belief.
George argued back:
Re Dungog, I have no doubt that digital ch 68 will achieve the same level coverage as analogue ch 69 but this is only one aspect of my request. NBN was initially the only service at Dungog and operated with a 10W translator into a single panel array, at the time of aggregation the site was upgraded to include other services, NBN 69 when compared with other lower Band V services in the fringe of the area had the worst reception. It is a request based on viewer reports and fringe reception that a lower Band V channel be allocated to NBN for digital.
In August 2004, NBN was approached by Broadcast Australia (BA) seeking approval to use NBN's infrastructure with their new ABC digital TV channel 59. They required a DTV rack, UHF receive antenna (16 metres up the tower) to gather Sugarloaf DTV to feed their two 40W UHF air-cooled transmitters. BA’s target date was to be on-air on 1st May, 2005. Their new rack would place alongside the existing ABC/SBS analogue rack.
How, you should be wondering by now, do all these transmitters use the same antenna?
A combiner is a device that takes the output of two or more transmitters, mixes them about, and feeds the resultant RF power to a shared antenna that has a sufficiently broad bandwidth to deliver all channels’ RF at similar powers. This greatly simplifies cost, complexity on the tower, and ensures no channel is sent at a disadvantage to any other, as would be the case with multiple antennae at different positions on a tower.
Managing a company-owned site from which all five broadcasters operated required careful planning and quite some equipment gymnastics. In a request to RFSWorld, in September 2004 George enquired:
Could you advise a method/s for combining analogue and digital services at the NBN site at Dungog. Analogue services currently combined into a RFS CBS7 (the antenna): ABC60, Prime63, NRN66 and NBN69 (SBS42 is on a separate antenna). The analogue services are 50w peak sync. Currently channels 60, 63 and 66 are combined in a Kathrein starpoint combiner, this combiner output is then fed to the WB input of a commutating line combiner where 69 is added. The digital channels for this site are NBN68, NRN65, Prime62, ABC59, and SBS61. The digital power will be 12.5w per service. I need to combine all these 9 channels into the CBS7.
The answer was “yes but.” Analogue transmitters would lose 1db and the digitals would need to be wound up and excess dumped into a load. George couldn’t live with the analogue losses, they being low-powered transmitters with a big rural coverage. So a new combiner was ordered for both, costing around $70,000 (in 2004 dollars). As described by the manufacturer:
A new combiner to allow you to combine the new digital services with the existing analog services into the existing antenna, the combiner offered is configured in frequency ascending order toward the antenna, and does not have an input into the wide-band port. This is because the lowest channel is a DTV service and requires the 7 pole module for mask filtering. This leaves the WB port available for the SBS service should they move into the combined system.
Just thought you’d like to know that.
Come November 2004, as requirements firmed up, RFSWorld got a more specific combiner quote request:
Please quote for the channel combiner as follows: Analogue Tx powers 50w peak, digital Tx powers 12.5w RMS. Digital channels 59, 61, 62, 65, 68. Analogue channels 60, 63, 66, 69. The fifth analogue channel 42, is operating into another antenna. All nine channels need to be combined into the one existing antenna, the RFS CBS7.
Which suggests that action was underway in 2004 to install NBNTV’s digital UHF service. It would, however, drag on for a further two years. Still, on 17th November, NBN asked BSA Transmission Solutions to quote for a Harris UHF 40W digital (7MHz) “retransmitter” for Dungog. Input would be NBN 36 from Mt Sugarloaf. The output would be NBN 68. The quote lapsed when Dungog's digital service was postponed for "other priorities."
By now George Hird was fully engaged rolling out digital television and had, in 2002, assumed the title of DTV Transmission Manager, NBN LTD. Another of George’s roles was as NBN’s transmission 'Rottweiller,’ defending its infrastructure and services against unintended consequences of issues and actions that kept coming out of nowhere - typicall government edicts, or other networks' actions.
In February 2005 one such 'edict' (in the form of a Draft LAP Variation) was flagged regarding two new FM radio licences proposed by the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) for Cabbage Tree Mountain near Port Stephens. NBN opposed these because the frequencies chosen - 93.1MHz and 94.1MHz - “will cause interference to NBN3 viewers and also interfere with the Dungog translator, which is line-of-sight to Cabbage Tree.” Interference, mentioned earlier, was not only endemic even before DTV, but was to continue and grow to near crisis proportions after the analogue switch-off in 2012.
Interference is a generic word for multiple causes. The big one for broadcasters, especially on NSW’s east coast, was “co-channel” interference. Literally, another television broadcaster using the same channel number of another and both within range of each other. And by ‘range of each other’ is meant: when atmospheric conditions carry the signal of one to the other station’s primary viewing area with sufficient strength to disrupt reception for viewers of that other station. Co-channel interference was from day one a problem at Coorei Hill. For decades, WIN's VHF channel 3 repeater often reached the Hunter during tropospheric events. Now it was WIN's UHF channel 36 swamping NBN's channel 36, even in Mt Sugarloaf's primary reception area. In which the tower on Coorei Hill was considered to be.
In November 2005, Broadcast Australia had installed diversity antennae for ABC and SBS services. George described the new setup: “Of the four receiving Yagis on the NBN tower at Dungog for ABC and SBS, the two most recent are used as diverse inputs for the digital services and the other two each for ABC analogue and SBS analogue.” "Space diversity" reception works because interference from a distant channel varies in strength at different points in space at the same moment. To receive a single channel, two receive antennae are separated sufficiently so that one will (expectantly) have a better signal than the other during adverse reception conditions.
Height is always an advantage for transmitting to a wide viewing population. Coorei Hill excelled as a convenient and readily accessible point. It was the local trig station on a hill overlooking the township and had a fairly unobstructed view in all directions, away to distant mountains to the east, north, and west - but particularly, and importantly, southward. NBN’s tower was, by regulation, stipulated at 30 metres height. The transmit antenna (shared by all channels except SBS, due to that service’s frequency being outside the antenna’s bandwidth) sat atop this tower. The tower needed a clear view south to get a clean receive signal from Mt Sugarloaf’s channels that were to be ‘translated’ to local channels for rebroadcast.
Pictured: Looking slightly to the west of south, directly at Mt. Sugarloaf from Coorei Hill, Dungog. Sugarloaf can be seen with a strong imagination. Photo: Greg Williams 2010.
It’s now October 2005. In response to an enquiry by TEN (Southern Cross Broadcasting) about what NBN’s timeline was for digital rollout at Dungog, George explained:
Currently NBN does not have any plans to start at Dungog, but if you go ahead then we need to discuss a receive antenna system for the three commercial channels. The ABC and SBS digital are having receiver fading problems and are looking at diverse receive antenna and receivers. Since there is limited space on the tower for more such antennae I would like to have shared antennas for the commercials.
“…limited space…” tells us the tower was approaching fully loaded and that George was aware of it.
Which brings us to 2006.
Like any structure, and by engineering necessity, NBN’s tower was designed to exceed the maximum anticipated wind loading for hilltop exposure. Structural engineers are quite proficient at this, but they cannot predict what the owner will then add to the structure in excess of what they were told would be on it.
Dungog’s tower was made of tubular steel welded into a lattice. It was fabricated in sections to enable transport to the site, where they were lifted by crane and bolted together. Of two manufacturing options - welded tube or bolted angle - both have pros and cons. So it shouldn't have mattered because whichever was chosen, the wind-loading equations would apply. It was simply a matter of leaving it up to the favoured tower manufacturer to meet specifications.
George was fully aware of these choices, and the loading limitations of towers under his charge. After all, he had dealt with assessments of the Mt Sugarloaf tower, heavily loaded with dozens of antennae, and read reports that sections such and such were overloaded according to this equation and that guess about maximum probable wind gust.
In January 2006 a letter arrived from Dungog Council:
Dungog Shire Council would like to upgrade the data link between Council’s Administration building in Dowling St and our Works Depot in Common Rd. After running a number of scenarios and assessing terrain data the best option for Council is to establish a wireless link between the two sites. To enable us to achieve this, the signal is required to be ‘bounced’ as there is no direct line of sight between the two properties and upon examination of terrain data the best position on which to site a repeater would be the NBN transmission station on Coorei Hill, Dungog (formally owned by Dungog Shire Council). Accordingly Council seeks agreement with NBN to site the required equipment at the transmission station at Dungog.
Suppliers have indicated the following equipment would be required at the repeater site; an integrated outdoor unit and antenna, a lightning protection system in series and two indoor power units. A shelf would be required for installation of the indoor equipment in the Communications Hut at the repeater site and a double power point for connection of the power supplies (any required installation or electrical work would of course be arranged in consultation with NBN and at Council’s cost). As requested I have also included below a picture and dimensions of the proposed outdoor unit to be installed at a height of 15 meters on the tower.
The response was a little surprising considering NBN's form was to make money off any reasonable proposal.
Further to your conversation with Greg Williams regarding tower space, unfortunately we cannot accommodate your antenna. The tower is a light weight structure and capacity (space and loading) is limited. Future allocations are for antenna for the digital television commercial services for which the tower is primarily designed, and these will increase the loading to a maximum. I suggest you approach Telstra for access to their tower.
Had Council felt a little slighted by the refusal, that would only last until November that year. A storm struck the area on 28th November and flattened NBN's thirty metre tower, taking all services and their antennae to the ground when the trussed lattice construction folded in rather spectacular fashion.
Early on the 29th NBN sent off hurried missives to various affected parties. First on the list were the least affected but most important, ACMA and ABA.
Yesterday afternoon the NBN 30m tower came down during a storm and consequently all services are currently off. Services as follows: Analogue: NBN, Prime, TEN, ABC and SBS. Digital: ABC and SBS. We are currently building a temporary structure to mount the antennas and expect to have all services back on air ASAP.
~ Regards George Hird, NBN Television, Manager DTV Transmission”
Pictured: The next morning NBN crews arrive to survey the damage, retrieve what aerials they could, and reposition them on temporary mounts to resume service. Although, apart from the two original panels, the rest were apparently purchased domestic versions, and not Yagis retrieved from the downed tower.
Notices then went down the line to Broadcast Australia, Prime, TEN, and assorted NBN executives. The RF team worked throughout the day and had "all services" back at full power by 4:30pm.
We are now transmitting from a RFS panel (PHP11) pointing at township of Dungog. We have installed temporary transmit and receiving antennas with the transmitting antenna pointing directly at Dungog, the transmit antenna is directional and will cover all of viewers in the town. The original transmit antenna (now on the ground) was Omni so some viewers who live outside the town (farmers etc.) will probably have difficulty in receiving the signal. We have used two PHP panel antennas for the transmit antenna, the second panel only carries SBS analogue which is separate to the main channel combiner. The panels are pointing at the town which is the majority of viewers. Receiving antenna are three domestic Yagis: one for SCB and Prime, one for ABC and SBS (dig and ana) and one for NBN. All temp antennas are mounted on the old brick building.
What had come down with the tower? Everything.
- Dual RFS Band 5 CBS6 and CBS7, mounted at top of tower 27m
- RFS 3 Element Band 2 (85 – 92MHz) Yagi 22m
- RFS PHP11 panel Band 4/5 20m
- RFS PHP11 panel Band 4/5 18m
- Receive 10 element Band 4/5 Yagi 24m
- Receive 10 element Band 4/5 Yagi 16m
- Receive 10 element Band 4/5 Yagi 19m
- Receive 10 element Band 4/5 Yagi 17m
- Communications 13 element 450 MHz Yagi 16m
- Communications 8 element 450 MHz Yagi 15m
- UHF CB 6db vertical collinear 19m
- UHF CB 6db vertical collinear 10m
Not just aerials, mind, but also their very expensive coaxial feeder cables. A subsequent insurance claim would find cable costs alone (feeders to all the antennae) amounted to over $20,000 (in 2006 dollars).
Facing NBN was a major project that in normal planning and scheduling could take a year, but because service had been lost it was on rush. Pressure was not going to move immovables any faster, however.
Quotations and schedule of works for the new tower were illuminating in how many services were operating from it. TV was broadcast from a UHF dual-slot dual-input omni-directional aerial in a radome. Two panels: band 5 and band 4/5, one receive, one transmit (for SBS, afaikt). Seven Yagi antennae: five receive aerial from Mt Sugarloaf, and two for telemetry. And a local UHF CB service's collinear verticals.
On 4th December 2006, quotation for a tower was sought from AusTower and LeBlanc Intl. It requested a 27 metre tower of sufficient wind loading to carry a specified list of antennae, their cabling, and a central ladder and cable gantry. This was the schedule of works (SOW):
- Move existing tower away from site to allow new construction (old tower will be disposed of by NBN).
- Remove existing concrete slab foundation.
- Install new foundation; please note that the site is 90% rock (my estimate only, no geotechnical information available). [A subsequent geotech report would find no rock obstruction to the new foundation dig].
- Install new tower.
- Install new antenna and feeders as per antenna list. NBN will terminate new feeders inside the equipment shelter.
- All vertical feeders to be mounted (every 800mm) on a central vertical cable gantry adjacent to the tower.
- Install earthing kits, one top and one bottom for each feeder. Connect bottom earth kit to a common earth bar adjacent to the cable gantry as supplied with the tower.
- Install cable gantry from tower to the building (2 – 3m long).
- Connect tower to existing earthing.
- NBN will supply all antenna, feeder, and earthing kits. Tower installers to supply all SS (stainless steel) cable ties for cable support. Brackets for antenna mounting to be decided.
While the shared transmit antenna looked to be physically intact [in photographs] it was either clearly damaged after an inspection, or considered too risky to reuse, or simply not worth the effort to test as it was insured anyway. Being the major item, after the actual tower, a quote was sought but it was complicated by what the future had in store. To get all questions out of the way, it was confirmed to, and then by, RFS that in construction of a new dual omnidirectional collinear antenna:
…the “CBS6” variant would be fed by analogue channels 42, 60, 63, 66, and 69 at 50W peak, and digital channels (proposed) 59, 61, 62, 65, and 68 at 15W each. SBS’s analogue channel 42 would feed the second section of the dual, the “CBS7” variant. We should keep in mind that these were temporary allocations, pending the analogue switch-off in 2012 and a subsequent ‘restack’ in 2013/14.
It was the worst time of year for such turmoil. Apart from the hot weather, the approach of Christmas and those typical last minute demands made on all company staff, the dreaded seasonal interference was wreaking its havoc on reception to the Dungog community, worsened by the weaker receive feeds to Dungog from Mt Sugarloaf due to the former's antennae proximity to ground clutter, mounted on the brick building instead of up the tower where they should be.
With the temporary transmit antenna using one of the directional SBS panels instead of the omni-directional original, all the signal, such as there was of it, was pointed at the township. The other potential 8,000 viewers in the shire were out of luck. By January 2007 reception complaints were being made, particularly from the north and north east.
Keeping in mind that NBN as site owner was responsible for the ABC and SBS equipment, and that Broadcast Australia (BA) was a tenant, and that BA were sticklers for detail, a missive arrived on 14th February, 2007:
I am emailing to enquire if you are experiencing any loss of input on the Gan Gan Hill ATS service. Since the service was taken over from NBN in November 2006, we have recorded many occurrences of loss of input. The ABC service has recorded 102 alarms and SBS service has 82 alarms during since the handover. I have attached our alarm record for this period for your reference. The pivot table on the front page clearly shows the input faults we have recorded and the recurring nature. The ABC and SBS events are almost always at different times indicating that it is service independent, possibly frequency dependent interference. Can you please confirm if NBN (or others) are experiencing input issues (Knights Hill co-channel?). We have just proven through test equipment with remote access that this also occurs at Coorei Hill (Dungog).
Greg Williams, George’s right-hand man and Broadcast manager, replied:
I believe the problems you are experiencing are caused by co-channel interference from Knights Hill (Wollongong). We have proven this with our own service at Gan Gan. I’m sure George can expand on this further when he gets back next week.
On 26th February, 2007, ACMA wrote to George asking for a progress report on replacing the tower. It seems complaints had reached the minister.
We have received a request from Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (DCITA) for advice on a ministerial enquiry about problems with reception from the Dungog translators. The complaint is from a viewer near Myall Creek Road, Munni, about 12km NE of the Dungog translator site. The viewer claims that they had good reception before the tower blew down in a storm last November and have lost their analog reception - although they claim their digital reception was mostly OK (possibly from Dungog or Mt Sugarloaf).
George replied (describing the setup in the image at right):
We have two temporary transmitting antenna (RFS panels) facing towards the town. North and south of the translator site is not covered by the current temporary set up. I located Munni 16Kms NW of Dungog and would expect the reception to be poor from Dungog. Re the tower, we expect the building of the new tower to commence shortly. Re the transmit antenna we expect delivery in Late April. The old tower and many of the receiving antenna and the transmitting antenna are unusable.
‘Shortly’ was to be much longer than the agreed duration of what 'shortly' normally is.
A geotechnical report was given to NBN on 13th March 2007. It was non-committal and suggested there was no subterranean rock of any strength so the tower would rely on a floating slab of sufficient mass to anchor the tower. The fallen tower had not dislodged its much smaller concrete base.
Dungog council was informed on the 17th March that a replacement tower with antennae was being readied, and that it was to all effects identical to the old, and did any council regulations apply? Council’s only request was for NBN to supply expected RF EME levels, in accordance with ARPANSA guidelines.
An inordinate silence led George to ask LeBlanc if NBN’s order for the new tower had been received. The reply that came back on the 22nd May was slightly disconcerting. LeBlanc had closed its Perth manufacturing and moved it overseas, causing a delay in processing the order.
Hi George, I’m waiting on the latest manufacture schedule from Malaysia, we have a project meeting tomorrow where I’ll bring this up, I know our plant in Malaysia has received an order for a few hundred ton of steel but I believe the towers are of similar design to Dungog, I’ll get back to you as soon as I know.
Although NBN was aware of these changes at LeBlanc, price overcame all concerns, as it historically did, so they had stayed with LeBlanc. Subject to weather, completion of the tower, antenna, and feeder, was scheduled for mid August 2007.
In late June, George asked TEN (Southern Cross Broadcasting) “to provide communications frequencies used at Dungog for your telemetry system. I am currently ordering new antennas. I am looking at the Y409SS from ZCG Scalar 9 element Yagi.”
On the same day, Broadcast Australia said they would visit Coorei Hill on 4th July to assess how and where a receive satellite dish could be installed to resolve interference issues. Their signal, also received from Sugarloaf, was being wiped out regularly by Wollongong's Knights Hill transmitters, which were on the same channels as Newcastle’s Mt Sugarloaf channels that fed the Coorei Hill translators.
In response to a TEN enquiry in July as to whether NBN would add a digital service to Coorei Hill before year’s end, George replied:
Not this financial year [which we assume meant 2007-08]. Not sure if you are aware of the problems BA have been having with the ABC and SBS digital at Dungog, they are looking at satellite input instead of the current off air Sugarloaf due to co channel interference from Knights Hill. We plan to do some testing later this year to see what we get during the summer months, if there is co channel then it would mean a [microwave] link from Sugarloaf.
On 23rd July LeBlanc had a progress report:
Hi George, I have had confirmation that the tower was loaded last week and is slowly chugging it’s way [from Malaysia] to us, we are expecting to have it in hand Wk1 August. As we are thin on the ground at the moment due some recent staff departures I am currently aiming at mobilizing two crews week after next to complete the works by Wk 2-3 Aug, one crew will be charged with cleaning up the site and pre-assembly of the tower and the other with the foundations, the boys can do a lot of prep work for the cable install also if you can supply the hanger brackets so they can be fitted while the tower is horizontal.
July was proving busy right across the network - the entirety of northern NSW, in case you had forgotten! - and Dungog matters weren’t helping. Also not helping was an enquiry from someone with a very long title: Digital Broadcasting Branch, Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts:
I refer to our phone conversation on the 24 July when you advised me that the old tower and Dungog was subject to an insurance claim and that as a consequence the time-frame for the construction of a replacement tower was unknown. I understand that NBN and the other broadcasters are still operating at Dungog with a temporary tower albeit with reduced coverage. As this reduced coverage has implications for viewers in the outlying areas, please advise if a commencement date for the construction of the new tower has now been determined and when normal coverage is likely to resume. In addition, you spoke of NBN concentrating on the rollout of digital services at the higher powered sites before considering the smaller sites such as Dungog. Please advise if your planning strategy remains so, or if the 2008/2009 estimate for Dungog has shifted.
After his explaining progress on the tower rebuild - weather [rain on an unsealed, unformed track] had created problems “getting concrete to the top of the hill” [one can imagine the agitators slipping about on the steep unsealed goat track to the peak] - George stated a second concern:
Regarding Dungog digital for NBN, it has come to light that there are problems at Dungog with regard to the input signal for the proposed digital translator. Co-channel interference from Knights Hill is the problem and we are looking into other methods of providing a reliable and economical input source. At this time the [whenabouts of an] NBN digital service for Dungog is not known.
When the weather cleared some photos were taken of the concrete pour as it happened on the 19th. Pictured at right, the base's formwork is at the bottom of the excavation. Formwork for three concrete pillars rise to ground level, positioned by a template in the dimensions of the tower's legs that would bolt to the pillars.
At the same moment almost, an urgent and worried message (sent also to Prime) came from Ron about the Bonalbo tower, which was in a similar situation and making him nervous (along with everyone who read his message):
Gents, BA have approached us for temporary access to the UHF receive antenna at Bonalbo for ABC DTV. I can't remember if NBN or Prime own the antenna, however, there should be ample signal for the additional split. The reason they are looking at using an existing antenna is because I have asked BA not to add any further load to the tower due to concerns of the tower being overloaded. Last week in strong winds, the tower was vibrating due to the VHF antenna wind load and I don't want another Dungog or Lithgow.... I am currently looking at establishing a receive pole for the VHF to lighten the load on the tower. Once this is in place, we can add UHF RX antennae to the tower for our digital requirements. Can whoever owns the antenna please get back to me?”
By reply, NBN’s was “the long Yagi, horizontally-polarised - just below the panel.” [And we would love to know what happened at Lithgow]
George and Greg were on site at Coorei Hill on 27th September 2007 attending to details in preparation of the tower construction, scheduled for the week commencing 1st October. The base section was lifted into position on Friday, 28th September, 2007, some time between 10am and midday. Subsequent sections were then added by crane and bolted into place.
It was reported to engineering staff meeting early in October that erection of the tower would progress through the first two weeks of October, with the hope it would be commissioned along with its services during the following week, mid month.
Finally we are close to a new tower, the foundations were poured last week and the tower is scheduled to be lifted into situ on Friday. Next week we will progress with the installation of the antennas and feeder onto the tower, this will probably take a couple of weeks all going well. ~ George Hird 26 September 2007.
Above, the base section bolted to concrete pillars awaiting addition of next section.
Broadcasters were notified by George on 15th October that services would suffer an outage while they were moved from the temporary structure to the new tower. Affected were ABC, SBS, NBN, TEN, Prime analogue and ABC, SBS digital services.
While all notifyees accepted the disruption as a matter of course, leave it to BA to come back with “Can you please provide a bit more info re: what work is being carried out?” To which George - not quite sure how ‘up to speed’ the enquirer was - chose to explain the obvious, with a touch of history:
All TV services have been operating in a temporary emergency configuration (reduced coverage) since December 2006 due to the tower being destroyed in severe winds. The new 30m tower is now complete with new receiving and transmission antenna. The transmission outage is to transfer all the services from the temporary antenna to the new receive and transmitting antenna on the new tower. This will return all services to full coverage.
The move went smoothly on the 17th. The final antenna and feed arrangement were listed thus:
The shared transmit antenna - RFS’s CBS6/7 cylindrically-domed collinear - sat on a small platform at the peak, 30 metres up.
Next down were ABC & SBS digital diversity receive Yagi (Ch37 & 38), NBN’s receive Yagi to take Channel 3 VHF, two UHF panels, TEN’s (SCB) analogue receive of channel 57 and Prime’s analogue receive of channel 54.
Five more Yagis in sequence downwards were ABC Analogue Rx Antenna (Ch 48), ABC&SBS digital diversity (Ch37 & 38), SBS analogue receive (Ch45), SCB data communications, and NBN data communications.
All were pointed at Mt. Sugarloaf, source of all Coorie's television rebroadcast services at this time.
From left: Phil Lindsay and John Hills pretend to inspect the aircon, while EonRisk assessor (white shirt) and Greg Williams discuss hut interior. Photo: Rob Stubbs
On the 18th Rob Stubbs, NBN’s operations manager, visited the site with Aon Risk assessor, and would later visit Mt Sugarloaf. Nine had been on a mission lately to learn what revenue would be lost should towers come down. Well, Dungog had just been a real-life example for them - not only a live demonstration of risk to revenue at a small translator site where it, NBN, hence PBL, were the responsible party for all five broadcasters, but also of how agile NBN's small team could be.
Not to be outdone by their earlier colleague's enquiry, a “Customer Liaison Officer” (CLO) at BA came back at George on 31st October, asking “I understand the tower at Coorei Hill (Dungog) has been replaced. Can you please provide details of the transmit and receive aerials for the SBS & ABC services, and details of the new structure.”
Pictured: NBN's tower back to full operation. Telstra tower at left.
An ever-patient Mr Hird replied:
Yes, the new tower and transmit antenna came into service on 17 Oct 2007 at around 1100. The new transmit antenna is identical to the old one, it is an RFS dual CBS6/CBS7 at 30m. The SBS analogue service operates on the CBS6 and all others ABC (analogue and digital), NBN, SCB* and Prime analogue on the CBS7. Transmit feeder 7/8 inch LDF5. The receiving antennae are as follows: [and the list shown further above was reproduced].
*SCB is Southern Cross Broadcast aka TEN
As George returned to his egg and lettuce sandwich, and was about to once more attempt his first bite, his Outlook email client chimed its next interruption. It was BA’s CLO with an afterthought: “Can you please provide the response sweeps and test results for the replacement transmit and receive aerials.”
Loose Ends
Early in November it was found that the Dungog tower needed strengthening of struts that supported the transmit antenna at the top. It’s unknown how this need was realised, which is unfortunate because that would be an interesting story to tell. LeBlanc was arranging extra steel struts to strengthen the tower and to meet future wind loading from projected antenna additions for DTV, plus possible multipath receive antennae. So it would seem to be new information about what type of antennae would be required for digital services still to come, and where to put them on the tower. That project was pencilled in for 2008.
While ACMA was - at this early stage in the DTV rollout - still claiming that co-channel interference from Knights Hill near Wollongong was “anecdotal,” Broadcast Australia considered the matter closed, and was pushing ahead with plans to feed Coorei Hill from satellite, rather that tolerate further complaints about the national service. BA surveyed Coorei Hill on 7th December 2007 to decide where to site a satellite receive dish.
As you are aware, BA conducted a site visit at Coorei Hill (Dungog) on Wednesday 4th July this year, to consider how a receive satellite dish might be installed to resolve interference issues in this region. BA would like to propose the installation of a 3m (diameter) ground based receive satellite dish on the northern boundary of the NBN property at Coorei Hill. As you are well aware, the steep topography of the land makes siting even a smaller sized satellite dish difficult at this site. The installation of the proposed dish will therefore require the removal of up to 10 trees of various sizes to ensure an appropriate look-angle can be achieved. A proposed site layout plan (showing the proposed dish location and trees for removal) and relevant site photos from the above mentioned visit are attached for your reference. Could you please review this proposal and provide a response on behalf of NBN.
George replied 10th December: “Your proposal looks ok, as you say, it is a difficult site. Are you sure the position of the proposed dish is on NBN property? If so I would like to discuss terms since satellite receive antennas are agreed to on a site by site basis.”
BA, by reply on the 11th: “We believe that the proposed dish location is within the NBN property area. Once we have obtained Council’s consent BA would engage a Surveyor to confirm this and prepare a licence area plan. I suggest that we agree on an annual licence fee for the proposed ground space (please advise) and all other terms and conditions are as per the NBN/BA portal agreement.”
Further correspondence lapsed until 15th May the following year.
The recent survey of NBN’s property at Coorei Hill, Dungog has led us to review our proposed satellite dish installation. Broadcast Australia (BA) now proposes the installation of a 4.6m (diameter) ground based receive satellite dish on the eastern boundary of NBN’s property - near the ‘Coorei’ Trig Station – at Coorei Hill. A revised site layout plan (including details of the recent land survey) and relevant site photos are attached for your review. Recent discussion with Council indicates that obtaining development and construction consent for the proposed works should be fairly straightforward. Could you please provide a response on behalf of NBN at your earliest convenience. I look forward to hearing from you.
Which triggered yet another protest from the landlord. George replied 26th May: “My first concerns are that the dish will block vehicle access to the equipment shelter (very desirable in wet weather), could you relook at positioning so that access is maintained.” BA went away for another ten months to mull over this thorny little hillside. It would return for discussion in March the following year (2009, see further below).
Meanwhile, LeBlanc’s tower “upgrade” was presumably not urgent, and if so just as well. It dragged on into the year (2008, just to get our bearings), month by busy month. A large amount of time was spent getting all concerned to agree on what day - and what time of it - best suited them to have their transmissions (read ‘programmes’) interrupted.
The upgrade to the new tower meant only replacing several struts with heavier duty members. The steel elements were those at the very tip, strengthening the triangle that supported the horizontal antenna mount plate. There were also additional diagonals to add just beneath the triangle.
Pictured: Transmit antenna bolted to top plate. Two coaxial cable feeds enter through the base to the dual-band RFS CBS series collinear.
The outage was due to radiation levels for riggers working near or even in front of a radiating element. And to allow for the possibility that disconnecting the transmitting antenna’s cables might be necessary.
So, in February 2008 George (yet again) set about getting all the “ducks in a row” for tower work at Dungog, scheduled he hoped for 26th March. The ducks, after some negotiating, especially with the nationals, all agreed, and work was pencilled in. But then…
The outage at Dungog this morning went from 0727 – 0907. Unfortunately the work could not be completed due to problems with the new steel work. To complete this work we require another outage in April as per the attached schedule.
The next attempt would have been from 0630 till 1030 on Wednesday, 23rd April but was postponed due to weather. The next slot was 7th May, 0710 to 1030. On the 5th, Greg Williams told his techs (Andrew & John) to check the antenna sweep before and after to confirm, if nothing else, that the two cables weren’t accidentally swapped at the antenna.
Please take the FSP and the VSWR bridge (out of the MUF box). The outage is scheduled for 06:35 to 10:30 for all services. Turn off all services. With the Harris Txs, just turn off the Amplifiers. Using a 7/16” adaptor, disconnect the cable at the channel combiner (the EIA/7/16” directional coupler stays on the cable) and give the main antenna a quick sweep across the band before the riggers disconnect. You should get a trace close to the first picture in the attachment. Don’t do individual channels, just one quick measurement. When the antenna is reconnected do a quick sweep to confirm that it is the same as before. The main thing with the sweep is to prove that the cables haven’t been accidentally swapped around on the antenna. Turn on all services. Note that one of the Harris Txs will bring up over current alarms for a while but it should clear.
Apparently it not only went well, but went at last! As an IT colleague liked to say, "All's well that ends."
But life just keeps coming at you.
On 3rd July 2008 Ron Roosmalen told George that his (Ten’s) DTV rollout plan had Dungog scheduled for November, and would that site be ready? George replied that it was budgeted for the 2009/10 financial year. It would also require a new channel combiner. But a temporary work-around could be to provide a separate antenna for TEN and Prime’s DTV transmitters, if they wished to proceed in advance of that.
Next in line, Optus notified on 22nd July that it would run optical fibre (in 50mm conduit) from Stroud Hill Road, then along the Coorei Hill access track and into their existing Optus GSM site nearby. It was a courtesy call, as Optus had site access already and work had no effect on NBN.
Optus are collocated on a Telstra tower and also hold a lease with the property owner Coorei P/L. In addition to this, Optus hold a site access licence with NBN for the site access track that encroaches on NBN owned land (Lot 2 of 545302). Proposed works are to be carried out on the neighbouring property and will not encroach the NBN tower or land.
Pictured: Second gate leading to steep incline on unformed track, some of it overgrown by grass. A very difficult climb for construction vehicles, especially concrete haulers. Photo: Courtesy Optus
Attention to Coorei Hill resumed when in April 2009 George asked RFSWorld to quote for a 9-input channel combiner for Dungog. The combiner was to feed the CBS transmit antenna with analogue channels 60, 63, 66, and 69, each at 50W peak, plus digital channels 59, 61, 62, 65, and 68 at 15W RMS. This was as plans firmed for the installation of digital transmitters, for the eight-year deadline approached to receive government rebates if DTV sites were deployed in time. It would be six months before further action could be taken on this request, whereupon George would need to start over with technical enquiries, quotes, capex's, and scheduling.
The middle of the year plunged staff into yet more paperwork when in May 2009 ACMA’s National Licensing & Allocations Branch began nagging George about inconsistencies in his report for NBN Dungog digital IP document.
The following are my comments regarding the NBN IP for Dungog. The Site identity of Broadcast site Coorei Hill Dungog should be described in the IP as 40610. The orientation of the CBS7 Slot antenna is 0/360°T according to the attached HRP. However, this orientation is inappropriate as it is not pointing towards Dungog. Our records indicate that the ABC and SBS IPs for Dungog have been approved with the orientation of approximately 260°T which is pointing towards Dungog. Can you please confirm if the nationals and commercials are sharing the same CBS7 Slot antenna or not? Also can you inform us whether the orientation of the antenna is 260°T or not? Assuming the nationals and commercials are sharing the same Slot antenna with the orientation of 260°T, then the radiation pattern should be modified as shown below to reflect the actual HRP.
Bearing or Sector (clockwise direction) Maximum ERP
0°T – 15°T 25 W
15°T – 145°T 15 W
145°T - 175°T 25 W
175°T - 345°T 50 W
345°T – 360°T 25 W
A response, stating a change from the DCP spec, should be answered to the question (Q12) asking for the consistency of the technical specifications in the IP.
George’s response:
The orientation of the Dungog antenna is with the maximum ERP oriented on the northern side of Dungog which is approximately 260/270 degrees from Coorei Hill. The antenna in use which is for all digital services and all analogue services could be considered almost omni pattern (plus or minus 3db) and its orientation is approximate only. I am happy to change the HRP to as shown below in your email. I will make the changes to the IP and email them to you.
To which ACMA conceded “The revised NBN Dungog IP does not need any edit or correction. I will recommend approval of the IP as is.” And charged NBN the sum of $820 for their trouble, as this was apparently a licence renewal t-crossing i-dotting exercise.
[Ed: Correct me if I’m wrong - I’m sure you will - but it’s assumed that ‘IP’ stands for ‘Infrastructure Provider’ while ‘HRP’ would surely be ‘horizontal radiated power’ and ‘ERP’ is effective radiated power and so forth.]
ACMA came back at poor old GH in June [9th, 2009] with more nit-picking:
ACMA has completed the revised IP assessment for NBN Dungog submitted on 18 May 09. The technical specifications have been approved - email sent on 19 May from Aung. The administration assessment shows that this IP will need revised to fix up a few administration errors; B47 Q5 not answered: technical specifications consistent with DCP? B47 Q19 reason for no clearances obtained from all relevant third parties. B47 Q21 requires answer. Could you please submit the revised with the above changes. I have also attached the invoice (previously sent on 19 May) for the IP assessment.
George replied… “Please find attached a new version of the Dungog IP which includes answers to the questions as per your email. Thanks for the invoice, it is with our accounts department and will be paid shortly.”
ACMA in return: “Thanks for that, but the technical specifications aren't consistent with the DCP (as per Aung's email to you back in May) you changed the ERP which doesn't match that listed on the DCP, please change the answer to "No" the technical specifications aren't consistent with the DCP and resend. All the other admin problems I raised have been fixed.”
After a long silence from George (busy, not sulking) - it’s now the 22nd of June and ACMA doesn’t seem to have gotten GH’s last missive - “Just wondering if you have had a chance to submit the NBN Dungog IP with the below change? Could you let me know where you are up to with this?”
ACMA’s Implementation and Evaluation Section was polite but insistent. Patient as ever, George replied with yet another edit to this infernal “ACMA B47 Dungog” document, with a terse “Here is the Dungog IP with the change.”
And so ACMA moved on to the next hassle…
Thanks George I'll go through that today. If everything is fine then all that needs to be done is for you to pay the fees for IP assessment and the approval process will start. I did want to ask you what you wanted to do about the licence though. I can see that the B12 has been received but the commencement date for it is 10 November 2009, and no licence has been issued. Has there been some prior arrangement worked out for the licence to be issued later on this year?
George: “I will check today to see if the fees ($820) for the IP assessment have been sent from NBN accounts. Re the B12 for Dungog, as far as I am aware it hasn’t been sent, the licence will be applied for closer to November 09.”
Good luck on the payment. NBN’s favourite sport was dragging accounts out.
We’re well into July 2009 now, and:
Dear Mr Hird, I'm happy to inform you that NBN Dungog IP has been approved and the letter of approval has been send out by surface post today. I'd just like to remind you that you are required to send in a ACMA B12 to get an apparatus licence for broadcasting issued, these can be found on the ACMA website: http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_90210. You will also need to send in a confirmation of broadcasting when you have begun testing and full time broadcasting.
In its sound defence, ACMA did have responsibility for the many hundreds of commercial and national broadcast sites spread across a country of 7.7 million square kilometres. And stringent record keeping was essential. But this exhaustive account of correspondence between the company and the government give a clear idea of how much time was spent behind a desk, when the real world was demanding action.
DTV Rollout Approaches
Come October, on the 12th George had another go at the nine-channel input combiner, the device that took outputs from all the transmitters and mixed them into a single feeder to the shared antenna. For the geeks, these were the specifications:
Analogue input 50W peak, Digital input 12.5W RMS, Channels as follows:
ABC
59 Digital 746.5MHz
ABC 60 Analogue 750 – 757 MHz
SBS 61 Digital
760.5 MHz plus offset
Prime 62 Digital 767.5 MHz plus offset
Prime
63 Analogue 771 – 778 MHz
SCB 65 Digital 788.5 MHz
SCB 66 Analogue
792 – 799 MHz
NBN 68 Digital 809.5 MHz
NBN 69 Analogue 813 – 820
MHz
Combiner to include forward and reflected power directional couplers
on the output
Input connector 7/16 DIN, output connector 7/8 EIA flange
Combiner mounted in a standard rack
Pictured: The RFS combiner being tested. There's a lot of magic going on here.
A deadline was approaching. Towards the end of October a flurry of quote requests and PO’s circulated to get NBN's Dungog DTV underway. The site’s “DTV Capex” was signed by CEO Deborah Wright and, yes, sent off to the mothership for approval by Nine’s David Gyngell on the 20th.
The main item, after the combiner, was for NEC to quote on a DTL-10/R05S transmitter that included a DVB-T receiver - that is, the entire unit was a translator (or repeater). Quote arrives as: DTL-10/R05SR 50W transmitter. Single exciter, single 50W amplifier, integrated receiver at a cost of $34,000 (in 2009 dollars). NEC's DTL series were UHF to UHF, so it was highly probable that the new transmitter would ingest NBN's channel 36 and rebroadcast on 68 (later 'restacked' to UHF 44). That would be important to keep in mind as events unfolded - unravelled? - following the analogue switch off in 2012.
NBN's October 2009 Board Report included the line “Capital expenditure for October totalled $210,047 including $125,000 for the Dungog DTV rollout.” The scramble, as mentioned, was due to the government promising rebates on the costs of equipment and licensing on condition that regional broadcasters get their digital transmitters operating by certain dates. With limited staff and a huge workload, NBN's reporting to ACMA was rather patchy, so ACMA was becoming rather tetchy:
Please check and update the rollout data in the attached spreadsheet. I have listed our data on which services are on-air, the date they commenced or they expected commencement date. This rollout data is used in reports to the department, minister and viewers and I'm aware that there are some broadcasters services which we have reported as being on-air which have not yet commenced.
We do receive some notifications of service commencement, either on the ACMA B82 form (see http://www.acma.gov.au/webwr/_assets/main/lib100048/acma_b82.pdf) or via broadcasters' general notification. To ensure our records keep as up to date as possible could you please use the ACMA B82 and email it to DTV_Technical@acma.gov.au.
Note that I have also added information on the current RADCOM licence details and the "Commencement Reqd Date". The Commencement required date is the date that the service was stated to commence in an approved IP. If a service is not on-air by this date then approval of a revised date needs to be requested using an application to vary an approved IP form (ACMA B48 at http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_90151).
I would appreciate any feedback you can provide as soon as possible.
At this time, of 32 sites, NBN had commissioned 19 sites, and Dungog was not listed among them, despite its "required" on-air date marked as 10th November, 2009. The dreaded B82 form was needed. It was sent to ACMA on 2nd November and contained the slightly confusing [to us, unconversant in bureau-speak] lines:
Commencement/Non-Commencement details.
(A) I advise that the above broadcasting service commenced full time service on: (30 March 2010)
(B) I advise that the above broadcasting service DID NOT commence full time service as per the scheduled start date (Form C/ Form E): (09 November 2009)
Reasons (attach supporting evidence): Budget Constraints
Presumably (A) was a prediction and (B) a confession.
The year ended, as so many had, with tropospheric zones along the coast (see image), whereat NBN and WIN battled it out on the hapless viewers' TV sets. Afterhours phone monitoring reports were filled with reception complaints for three days - 10th, 11th, 12th - with all manner of digital TV misbehaviour... pixellation, invalid service, disappeared service, lip sync. Unlike analogue TV where the cause was apparent right there on the screen, with DTV it was either a nice picture, a nice picture with 'pixellation,' or computer-like error messages.
Greg compiled a collection of disparate reports that described how wide-spread the problem was:
Digital reception interference was reported at approximately 16:10 AEDT in the following areas: Belmont North, Wallsend, Medowie, Gan Gan (input to DTV retransmitters at Gan). See Tx logs attached.
Also from approx 16:10 on 11th November through to 06:30 on 12th November a report of ABC Classic FM on 92.9 apparently getting into the Ch3 input of the Dungog translator.
Extreme fading conditions reported between Sugarloaf and Muswellbrook over this period as well. This affected both microwave bearers and the Ch36 input signal to NBNs Rossgole transmitter.
As 2009 drew to a close, it appeared that George Hird had reached his retirement. He no longer wore any title, and Greg Williams was rebadged as Broadcast Engineering Manager. During 2010 George's role was consultant, completing projects or answering inquiries that required his intimate knowledge. However, he remained 'on tap' for several more years, assisting with the analogue switch-off - in fact, he physically DID the switch off! - and the subsequent restack of UHF channels. The video is archived here on the Wayback Machine. It will take a minute or so to load.
Greg Williams was now in the thick of it, while full tilt with the Dungog DTV installation.
George, on 18th January, 2010, sent to ACMA Dungog's B12 apparatus licence application form, listing a proposed start date for DTV from the site as 1st of March on channel 68. For which ACMA charged NBN and extremely modest $115. He then, on 1st February, asked for all broadcasters' consent for an outage to replace the channel combiner. The new channel combiner would take all the broadcasters' transmissions feed the single master aerial.
Please find attached a proposed outage for the NBN site at Dungog. The outage is to change over form the existing transmission channel combiner to a new channel combiner for all analogue and digital services. The proposed outage is for one hour duration on the 24th. There is flexibility within a 4 hour window from 0900 – 1300. I have nominated 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM as the NBN choice.
Notice of the impending start of digital TV, scheduled for Monday 8th March, was sent to the Dungog Chronicle in late February, for their publication on Wednesday 3rd March.NBN’s channel 68 at Dungog was commissioned on Monday, 8th March, 2010.
As UHF channels at Wollongong’s Knights Hill site would have been coming online for WIN to meet deadlines similar to those faced by NBN, interference into susceptible Hunter areas would consequently be an issue. And Dungog’s Coorei Hill was one such site being impaired by co-channel interference, as will be detailed further below.
Pictured: Broadcast Australia's final location for their satellite dish was south east of the NBN tower. Photo: Greg Williams
Which might be why, once more, Broadcast Australia renewed their interest in a satellite receive dish to feed the national broadcaster’s ABC and SBS transmitters at Coorei Hill. NBN was ok with this project, which was pencilled in for 22nd March 2010:
You may be aware that Broadcast Australia (BA) is planning to install a 4.5 metre ground-mounted satellite dish at the Coorei Hill site at Dungog – the proposed dish location is not on NBN’s land, but on the adjoining property. There were some discussions with George Hird about this in 2007/08. This downlink is an upgrade for the ABC Digital TV service. BA is securing a lease with the owner of this land and is currently seeking development/building approval from the Dungog Shire Council. The location of the satellite dish is shown on the attached site layout plan.
I also attach the survey drawing and a photo showing the proposed satellite dish location for your reference. BA will need to trench from the new satellite dish to the existing NBN building as shown on the site layout plan. We will also be modifying programme input equipment within our existing racks in NBN’s building. This is described in the attached method of procedure and on building and rack layout dwgs attached. I also attach a Safe Work Method Statement. Please note that outages will only impact on the ABC DTV service. Work is scheduled to start from 22 March subject to receipt of approvals.
Interference
Dungog's UHF digital channel 68, commissioned in March 2010, allowed little time for reception complaints as the problem of co-channel interference happened only during tropospheric events, and they were confined mostly to summer months. The first summer, 2010, would have had a new viewership, and any strange reception behaviour would be a curiosity. Viewers had no incentive to switch to channel 68 while the analogue channel was on, and those who had would have switched back to 69 when their channel 68 was unuseable. Reports were therefore random or anecdotal and had no statistical value at this stage. Not so in 2011 with a greater dedicated number of DTV viewers.
Those locals who moved to watching the digital channel were unimpressed by the amount of disruption that channel 68 appeared to suffer, their concern amplified by noticing the analogue channel 69 at the same time was fine. By May 2012, with the impending loss of channel 69, the local member, Bob Baldwin, was approached, who in turn 'wrote a letter' to minister Stephen Conroy:
I write to you in response to a growing number of my constituents that have contacted me concerned about their digital television reception in the township of Dungog, particularly with the impending switch off of the analogue signal later this year.
In recent weeks I have received numerous complaints from a number of my constituents in the Dungog Shire. I have enclosed correspondence from my constituent Jim Chadban who is responsible for maintenance of the Dungog television transmitter. According to Mir Chadban, after consulting with the local broadcaster NBN Television, he was advised that a transmitter in Wollongong is using the same transmit frequencies as the Dungog transmitter which is causing interference under certain atmospheric conditions. According to the MySwitch website, the tower east of the Dungog township should be providing “good digital coverage” to Dungog residents, however this does not seem to be the case.
Could you please provide me with an update of what measures the Government will take to resolve this matter before the analogue switch of date of 27 November 2012.
There was little doubt that WIN’s signal from Knight’s Hill, also on 36, arrived during favourable atmospheric conditions directly at the Dungog translator 270 Km away, and with sufficient strength to interfere with NBN’s much stronger input signal from Mt. Sugarloaf. But these were seasonal, and so far only in summers of 2010 and 2011.
But when NBN's VHF channel 3 analogue transmitter was powered down by George Hird at 9am on Tuesday, 27th November 2012... all hell broke loose.
Image below: It also - most unfortunately - had a clear line of sight to WIN’s equally well-sited Knights Hill. Over the horizon, perhaps, but unobstructed nevertheless.
NBN's transmission team had long been keen to find out just how badly the interference from Wollongong was, and how often it was creating interference, and hence reception complaints. They had their suspicions because the national broadcaster at Dungog planned to feed their Dungog channels from satellite and had recently moved on the project, which seemed not a coincidence, but a confirmation.
Now the old standby channel "Channel 3" was gone. Viewers around the Lake, the Bay, and elevated townships to the north, must rely on whichever of the multitude of NBN's and NENs and NRNs appeared on their DTV set top boxes or digital TVs. So many channels with strange names that turned out to not be the main channel at all, but one of the multichannels. When and if the main channel found, it might turn out to not be the strongest, the best or nearest for reception, but just happened to be OK on the day.
However there was no choice at Dungog. There was only the five local digital channels.
Due to tropospheric ducting, mainly and especially in Summer, Illawarra signals poured into coastal and mountainous regions north of Newcastle. They were confirmed to be affecting Dungog via its receive aerial at the translator input, fed, you will recall, by an antenna pointed at Mt Sugarloaf for the purpose of collecting NBN's now and only UHF channel 36. For rebroadcast on UHF 68 - soon to be 44 after the restack - to Dungog and surrounds.
One particular evening, with a tropospheric phenomenon in full swing, teams visited Sugarloaf and Dungog:
With interference being reported on the evening of 9th December 2012, NBN TV took the unprecedented action of switching off the Mt Sugarloaf transmitter at this time to see if the interference was in fact coming from Wollongong. On the output from the monitoring receiver at 2.30am at the Dungog site, the receiver locked to the incoming signal from Wollongong, showing an MER (in the final grab) of 31.8dB. …Given the impact of this interference at Dungog it is understood the interference at Medowie, Lemon Tree Passage, Salt Ash and Soldiers Point is likely to be comparable. ~ FreeTV Report to DSO-TF [Digital Switch-over Task Force]
What does that mean in words?
A Modulation Error Ratio (MER) of 31.8 dB in a digital television signal indicates an excellent, high-quality signal with a very high margin of safety before reception failure. In terms of reception, this value suggests the signal is nearly identical to the original broadcast transmission, free from significant interference, and well above the "cliff edge" of pixelation or failure. ~RadioParts.com
In other words, Wollongong's channel 36 was strong enough to knock out NBN's local channel 36.
As interference to NBN's primary channel 36 from Wollongong was now a major issue for viewers north of Newcastle, and as 'in-fills' were added for Belmont, Anna Bay, Wallaroo (Medowie) and Warners Bay, NBN advised ACMA on 28th April 2013:
[Our] main concern with the whole plan is that there will be so many channels operating in the Port Stephens area that it will be almost impossible for the average viewer to rescan their receiver. We have seen evidence of this already in the Anna Bay area where an auto scan can produce results from Sugarloaf, Anna Bay, Gan Gan, Wyong and Sydney. Given that we won’t necessarily know the strongest server for each viewer it will not be possible to advise them of reception problems relating to mistuning.
The year 2013 also brought an increased significance for the Coorei Hill tower. George was still consulting three years into retirement. He describes additional small dish antennae for the tower, two pointing north to Mt Peppers, one pointing south to Sugarloaf, also a small dish, and a 3 metre dish pointing east at Port Stephens, at Gan Gan, presumably for a microwave link. Some of these appear to be CountryTell equipment. This of course is ancient history, but the growth of services hanging off strategic towers around the country was to be ever ongoing.
The government never deviated from the Hunter and Illawarra regions' joint allocation of block C channels. This led in part to an expensive regime of installing "in-fill" translators fed from a more expensive daisy-chain of microwave links rather than simpler and cheaper off-air sources. The non-metro commercial broadcasters established Regional Broadcast Australia Holdings (RBAH) to build and maintain these sites, with no financial assistance from the taxpayer, and no advertising revenue benefit from the small population served.
In the final washout, Gan Gan became a focal point for many translators to overcome their co-channel interference. Dungog, as the diagram shows, was also fed by a direct link from Gan Gan, rather than the troublesome input from channel 36.
The reader might find useful this clever searchable map of Australian TV channels: Television Reception Map of Australia
Extra Curricular
Dungog was so close by Coorei Hill - a mere few minutes away - that inevitably not all interactions with NBN were reception complaints, site access requests, or about towers falling over. There were other tales to tell.
For example, by July 2011 the old main gate was worse for wear with the comings and goings of all and sundry. A quote was sought and delivered that would cost about $750 to fix the gate and its supporting fence posts. Finance sat on the quote for so long that the contractor, when a go-ahead was finally issued, replied that they had stopped fixing fences and gates were now proprietors of the local tyre service! But thank you for thinking of us.
Another contractor was sought, who had a great suggestion: a more expensive but simpler to manage gate - the padlock device illustrated earlier in this article. The conversation went thus:
As discussed, please see the attached photos of the gate and lock design we are proposing. We are currently getting quotes to get one made up but I believe the best option is for us to do all the necessary work with the same contractor and NBN can make a contribution. Let me know what you think anyway. I can explain how the system works if you need me to.
To which Greg, in his ever-humorous and charmingly self-deprecating way replied: “After great debate someone here figured out how it worked (smart bugger!). Needless to say it wasn’t me. It’s very clever and so simple, like all good inventions.” To this day there is no obvious indication the device was installed.
Township events were often on the menu. Someone wanted to make a movie, and Dungog was an ideal location to record a scenic view of a generic township from a nearby hill - Coorei Hill.
One day a letter arrived at NBN:
I'm working on finding locations for the up coming feature film called 'Tomorrow When the War Began' and we're interested in possibly gaining access to the repeater station at Coorei Hill to use as a camera position for a 'high and wide' shot of Dungog. We'd like to do a site inspection next Thursday 27th August which would take us half an hour at the most and then at later date - probably mid October - schedule a 4-6 hour window of access when we would shoot a time lapse (with a still camera) of the town through the afternoon and into night. On October 19th and 20th, we're shooting at Dungog Showgrounds and on one of those afternoon/dusk/nights we need to get back up there to shoot the town in time lapse from day into night, because we'll have all our lights on at the showgrounds which is what we need to see from atop the hill.
A Letter of Demand
Filed under "Corporate Affairs, Finders Keepers"
Before NBN was acquired by Nine/PBL Media, an NBN tower at Dungog was damaged. The damage was repaired after the sale to Nine at NBN’s cost. This damage was covered by a group insurance policy in Soul’s name, so the insurance proceeds of $78,770.64 were paid to Soul after the sale completed, even though Soul had not itself incurred any losses as a result of the sale. Given NBN has incurred the loss to which that insurance payment relates, NBN requires Soul to reimburse it for the full amount received from the insurer, being $78,770.64, by 31 March 2010.
In 2012 there was a friendly report from a local. It was titled "On a sunny Saturday afternoon in Dungog."
Just some info, Greg, that you may like to have at your disposal. A Para glider did not glide so well on Saturday and met the earth about 50 meters below the middle gate. [We] had unlocked the gate to his paddock to give access to Newcastle Hang Gliding Club. When they arrived a bit later, they supposedly found a crashed glider just off the track. The guy told them that he had walked up the hill and crashed, it is claimed that he is not one of their members and has no insurance. They had to bring him out in a 4x4 ambulance and the by Chopper to the spinal unit. The Fire Rescue, a bloody big truck, made it up to the scene just as the Ambulance was leaving with the patient. There were 4 x 4 all over the hill all afternoon because the coppers left the wide gate open for about 3 hours. I did not ring you because it really was of no import. I'll go up the hill and check things out on Monday, but I don't think there are any problems. Cheers.
Radio Dungog.
While, like any community project, this might have been brewing for many years earlier, it appears on NBN's radar in 2009 when local Dungog maintenance contractor [Jim] offered his services for quick response to nearby transmissions sites. Dungog had plenty of people willing and ready to sink their teeth into creating a local FM radio station.
Pictured: NBN's brick equipment hut in 2011 with Dungog FM radio's folded dipole transmit antenna on a mast attached to building. Photo: by Radio Dungog.
The town's popularity had, over the years, attracted quite a number of ex-pats from the big smoke, many of whom were wise in the way of broadcast affairs. They had progressed as far as creating a committee, which already had ACMA's reply to its application:
I refer to your application for a temporary community broadcasting licence. Our technical staff have advised that the specifications you requested in your application form can be accommodated. However, the service on 107.9 Mhz is interference limited, only field strength levels of 66 dBuV/m and above will be protected from interference. ~ Community Broadcasting Group Australian Communications and Media Authority
Through 2010 discussions continued regarding access, insurance, work safety, technical concerns, such as interference, and finally where to place the transmitter and antenna. Fortunately NBN's original brick hut was under-utilised, and the perfect premises for both the electronics and for the antenna, which was a simple dipole affair bolted to a short mast, in turn bolted to the brick hut. NBN, long-staffed by HAM radio operators sympathetic to amateur repeaters and community stations, was happy to assist. And NBN's management, in the fine transactional tradition of 'contra,' was equally happy to host the station at no cost other than promotional spots for the TV station, aired to the Dungogians at the station's pleasure.
Radio Dungog, or 2DCR 107.9 FM, launched on 19th June, 2011.
To Conclude
This was the story of a typical country township and the considerable effort by a television broadcaster to maintain the townsfolk's link to the world. It was the story, too, of NBN Television fulfilling its original charter at considerable cost not recoverable from such small communities.
The events described above were repeated in some form or other (except, fortunately, the towers collapsing) at nineteen other NBN-owned locations across northern NSW, and in part the remaining thirty odd where NBN was co-hosted by other regional broadcasters.
Dungog was representative of every isolated Hunter township that felt a connection to Newcastle, its regional capitol. Before aggregation in 1991 it's reasonable to assert that every community - on or within the ring of mountains that comprised the Great Dividing Range’s circular enclosure of The Hunter Valley - felt a sense of belonging. It was not only the marketing and promotional people at NBN who created this fellowship with their attention to isolated townships beyond any possible return on investment. Nor was it only the news team's hour-long bulletin each night that enabled so much local news from across the valley and mountain townships to so often appear on their screens each night.
News cameraman Glenn Cook recalls the reception the new NBN chopper got on one of its early visits to the upper hunter. What had happened was the lady at the telephone exchange told everyone in the region that NBN helicopter was coming up to do a story on them. Everyone took a day off school and everyone stopped working on the farms to come and see the new NBN helicopter land. It was just... it was great! It was the people of the Hunter who were proud of the helicopter, not just us.
To that we can add the sight of those NBN-liveried 4WD wagons loaded with pipes and ladders, rushing on their way to mountaintops, that gave the locals a sense that they too were a part of their TV station, though it might broadcast from that distant little city on the coast.
And although the story for us might end in 2013 (as we write this in 2026), it yet goes on into an uncertain future and whatever that might bring.
Coorei Hill transmission site, Dungog, NSW, Australia. Viewed from Stroud Hill Road. Photo: Greg Williams 2010
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