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Television frequency allocation has evolved since the start of television in Australia in 1956, and later in New Zealand in 1960. There was no coordination between the national spectrum management authorities in either country to establish the frequency allocations. The management of the spectrum in both countries is largely the product of their economical and political situation. New Zealand didn't start to develop television service until 1965 due to World War 2 and its economic harm in the country's economy. The demand and planning for television in Australia intensified after WW2, with the Chifley government first favouring the existing British model (
state monopoly In economics, a government monopoly or public monopoly is a form of coercive monopoly in which a government agency or government corporation is the sole provider of a particular good or service and competition is prohibited by law. It is a monopo ...
) in 1948, and New Zealand used a similar model during the introduction of television in the 1960s. Private broadcasting did not come to the country until the 1980s, but there was no spectrum expansion to cope with the new arrangement.


History


Australia

Australian television broadcasting commenced in 1956 in Melbourne and Sydney to coincide with the 1956 Summer Olympics. Three stations commenced operations on a ten channel spectrum arrangement: the ABC operating in the VHF low band (VHF Ch 2), and the commercial stations operating in the VHF high band (VHF Ch 7 & 9). At the outset, commercial stations were independently owned, but due to economic forces network affiliations were soon established. This pattern of television spectrum allocation was replicated in most of the state capital cities over the subsequent decade, with the exception of Hobart (one commercial service on VHF 6) and eventually Darwin (both the ABC and the commercial service were allocated in the VHF high band). Geographical conditions differed in Melbourne and Sydney. The Melbourne transmission towers were located on the nearby Mount Dandenong, and their elevation and broadcasting power on an otherwise relatively flat terrain meant that the broadcasting signal could be received for some considerable distance, although there were some areas that experienced reception difficulties due to hills or buildings. In the Sydney "basin" (formed by the Blue Mountains) the broadcast towers were collocated on the original studio sites, and given the undulating geography of Sydney there were many areas that experienced reception difficulties. The Blue Mountain terrain in the West of Sydney meant that capital city broadcasting did not penetrate into the hinterland of NSW, unlike that of Melbourne. It is possible that the penetration of weak signals into the Victorian hinterlands hastened the demand for the establishment of regional television stations, which commenced in 1961. The Australian Government restricted regional television broadcasting to one commercial service and a repeater station of the national broadcaster from the capital city ABC station. Regional television stations tended to be allocated to VHF 6, 8 or in some cases 10.


New Zealand

In popular culture, there is a TV series "50 Years of New Zealand Television" that covers in Episode 1 some of the early difficulties of getting TV broadcasting started in NZ, but with no coverage at all with respect to Frequency Allocation. New Zealand for all practical purposes did not get television broadcasting until 1960. The existing documentaries on TV development in NZ don't cover Frequency Allocation
The First 5 Years of Television

Network New Zealand

25 Years of Television

50 Years of NZ Television


FM allocation artifacts

The United Kingdom and New Zealand until recently shared an FM broadcasting allocation of 88.0 MHz to 105.0 MHz. Since the early 2000s both nations have full use of the standard FM band due to reallocation activities related to their separate implementation strategies for digital television. This smaller FM Band allocation (less than 20 MHz: 88 MHz to 108 MHz as is used in most countries) can be traced to the 405-line television system's VHF allocation block. The UK adopted the 405-line system but NZ did not. The slightly smaller allocation only posed problems for the UK for its densely populated metropolitan regions, but NZ had few problems with the smaller allocation. NZ's allocation for FM remained smaller as if NZ had adopted the 405-line system. New Zealand considered adopting the 405-line system in the late 1950s to early 1960s but adopted PAL instead. This impacted the frequency allocation block for FM broadcasting making it smaller. New Zealand's FM frequency allocation issue was not fixed until the late 1990s, when the FM band was expanded to the standard full 20 MHz block. As of the mid-2010s NZ totally abandoned its VHF band for UHF channels above 25.


Differences in frequencies

There is a frequency offset for many DTV channels between Australia and NZ, because of historical reasons relating to the introduction of PAL. * Both Australia and New Zealand use 7 MHz channel spacing (for PAL B) on VHF, but the frequencies and channel numbers differ substantially because of Australia revising its VHF TV band usage. * Australia adopted
Zweiton Zweikanalton ("two-channel sound") or A2 Stereo, is an analog television sound transmission system used in Germany, Austria, Australia, Switzerland, Netherlands and some other countries that use or used PAL-B or PAL-G. TV3 Malaysia formerly us ...
for stereophonic audio broadcasting, whilst NZ adopted
NICAM Near Instantaneous Companded Audio Multiplex (NICAM) is an early form of lossy compression for digital audio. It was originally developed in the early 1970s for point-to-point links within broadcasting networks.Croll, M.G., Osborne, D.W. and Sp ...
. * For PAL, the only difference is the placement of the
NICAM Near Instantaneous Companded Audio Multiplex (NICAM) is an early form of lossy compression for digital audio. It was originally developed in the early 1970s for point-to-point links within broadcasting networks.Croll, M.G., Osborne, D.W. and Sp ...
carrier vs the
Zweiton Zweikanalton ("two-channel sound") or A2 Stereo, is an analog television sound transmission system used in Germany, Austria, Australia, Switzerland, Netherlands and some other countries that use or used PAL-B or PAL-G. TV3 Malaysia formerly us ...
carrier, for broadcasters using
NICAM Near Instantaneous Companded Audio Multiplex (NICAM) is an early form of lossy compression for digital audio. It was originally developed in the early 1970s for point-to-point links within broadcasting networks.Croll, M.G., Osborne, D.W. and Sp ...
. NZ used 5.824 MHz NICAM carrier offset, as used in mainland Europe. * Australia's Zweiton offset was not changed with respect to the European standard. * Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Papua New Guinea have the same UHF band allocation for TV broadcasting.


Obsolete channels

* With the introduction of digital terrestrial television in Australia in 2001, channels 10 and 11 were moved up by 1 MHz. ** This allocation change allowed a full 7 MHz for a new channel (9A). ** VHF channel 12 was added following the new channel 11 to compensate for the change. * channels 0-2 and 5A ceased to be used for television when analogue television broadcasting was discontinued. * Television broadcasts on channels 3, 4, and 5 were previously discontinued in most regional areas in 1991 and 1992. Since the frequencies for these channels overlapped the range used for FM radio, any television broadcasts on these channels prevented the allocation of new FM radio licences, predominantly in regional areas. * VHF Low Band DX using ITU TV Band (I) and part of Band (III) from NZ may disappear with the transition to DVB-T.


Frequency allocation table

DVB-T channel allocation notes: * The allocation for terrestrial television must be seen in terms of uniform system G 8 MHz blocks (for bands IV and V in NZ) and system B 7 MHz blocks (for bands I to V in Australia) after the cessation of analogue television. * DVB-T, analogue systems B and G utilize the same 250 kHz guard-band. * After analogue television transmissions have ceased, only the preferred main carrier wave centre frequency should be listed, because
QAM Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) is the name of a family of digital modulation methods and a related family of analog modulation methods widely used in modern telecommunications to transmit information. It conveys two analog message signa ...
modulates all AV channels and other data into a single
H.222 MPEG-2 (a.k.a. H.222/H.262 as was defined by the ITU) is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods ...
data stream. * Digital services on channels above Ch 51 are going to change channel after the analog services are switched off. The ACMA has published the pre-stack and post-stack channel in a spreadsheet on its website. * Australian channel 12 was discontinued decades ago but is being reintroduced with digital television, generally for the
ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...
in the major metropolitan areas. * A common problem (for metropolitan areas in particular) of difficulty receiving digital 10 (on channel 11) and digital ABC (on channel 12) is because older antennas were not designed to receive channels 11 and 12. Many VHF Band III antennas were only designed to receive channels 6 to 10 for analog television transmissions. * Australia and New Zealand analog sub-carriers use the standard B/G offsets from the vision carrier. ** PAL color difference at +4.43361875 MHz ** FM monaural full mixed down channel audio at +5.5 MHz ** New Zealand (B/G version)
NICAM Near Instantaneous Companded Audio Multiplex (NICAM) is an early form of lossy compression for digital audio. It was originally developed in the early 1970s for point-to-point links within broadcasting networks.Croll, M.G., Osborne, D.W. and Sp ...
stereo or dual monaural at +5.824 MHz ** Australian
A2 Stereo Zweikanalton ("two-channel sound") or A2 Stereo, is an analog television sound transmission system used in Germany, Austria, Australia, Switzerland, Netherlands and some other countries that use or used PAL-B or PAL-G. TV3 Malaysia formerly us ...
right or second monaural channel at +5.742 MHz (AM signalling at +5.46875 MHz)


DTT allocation

NOTE: Text in ''italics'' means these frequencies are not currently used but set aside as a Guardband or for future use.


Very high frequency


UHF

External Data is from ACMA Register of Radiocommunications Licences


Australian frequencies


Channels according to State

* The external territories include the Cocos Islands, Christmas Island & the Bayu-Undan Gas Project in the Timor Sea.


State-owned stations

The ABC has the highest number of transmission sites: often, but not always, SBS and ABC signals are transmitted from the same masts.


Private networks

Some commercial broadcasters have a call sign that operates over multiple areas, whereas others may only serve a single area. This is due to historical ownership of regional stations. Nevertheless, most regional stations are now affiliated with the major metropolitan networks.


New Zealand frequencies

Channel 25 is being used as a Guardband, but could be used if a channel reallocation be needed.


See also

*
Television channel frequencies The following tables show the frequencies assigned to broadcast television channels in various regions of the world, along with the ITU letter designator for the system used. The frequencies shown are for the analogue video and audio carriers. ...
**
North American broadcast television frequencies The Pan-American television frequencies are different for terrestrial and cable television systems. Terrestrial television channels are divided into two bands: the VHF band which comprises channels 2 through 13 and occupies frequencies between 54 a ...
**
North American cable television frequencies The Pan-American television frequencies are different for terrestrial and cable television systems. Terrestrial television channels are divided into two bands: the VHF band which comprises channels 2 through 13 and occupies frequencies between 54 a ...
** Ultra high frequency ** Very high frequency *
Moving image formats This article discusses moving image capture, transmission and presentation from today's technical and creative points of view; concentrating on aspects of frame rates. Essential parameters The essential parameters of any moving image sequence a ...
*
Broadcast television systems Broadcast television systems (or terrestrial television systems outside the US and Canada) are the encoding or formatting systems for the transmission and reception of terrestrial television signals. Analog television systems were standardized by ...
**
ATSC (standards) Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) standards are an American set of standards for digital television transmission over terrestrial, cable and satellite networks. It is largely a replacement for the analog NTSC standard and, like that ...
**
Multichannel television sound Multichannel Television Sound, better known as MTS, is the method of encoding three additional audio channels into an analog NTSC-format audio carrier. It was developed by the Broadcast Television Systems Committee, an industry group, and somet ...
** NTSC **
NTSC-J NTSC-J is the informal designation for the analogue television standard used in Japan. The system is based on the US NTSC ( NTSC-M) standard with minor differences. While NTSC-M is an official CCIR and FCCNational Television System Committee ( ...
** PAL **
RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Com ...
**
SECAM SECAM, also written SÉCAM (, ''Séquentiel de couleur à mémoire'', French for ''color sequential with memory''), is an analog color television system that was used in France, some parts of Europe and Africa, and Russia. It was one of th ...


References


External links

New Zealand
VHF & UHF Frequency user databases



Radio Spectrum Usage in New Zealand

Current TV Bandplan
Australia
Digital TV Switchover Australia

PDF extracts of the license holder database

VHF DTV Channel Embargo

Radio and television broadcasting stations

Digital TV Channels

TV Channels - Freeview [Broken Link]

A comprehensive list of digital tv transmitter locations and frequencies
{{DEFAULTSORT:Australasian Television Frequencies Lists of television channels by region Frequencies Frequencies