The loss of commercial TV channels across the Wollongong area late last week was due to a “very rare” type of outage, said the industry watchdog.
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On Friday night, people across the Illawarra lost WIN, Prime and Southern Cross Nine for around an hour.
Responses to the Mercury’s Facebook page on Friday night suggested the outage spread from Stanwell Park all the way down to Nowra.
A spokeswoman from the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) said the fault originated at the Knights Hill transmitter, west of Jamberoo, which services the Illawarra.
“According to the broadcasters, the issue was power related as the Emergency Power Plant (EPP) failed at the site causing the issue,” the ACMA spokeswoman said.
“Broadcasters are still investigating the exact cause of EPP failure.”
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She said the repair work was the responsibility of the three commercial networks who used the tower.
Such an outage at “major high power sites” like Knights Hill was “very rare”, the spokeswoman said.
“The operations at the main high power sites are carefully planned and these sites have necessary back-up systems in place to ensure uninterrupted signal transmission.
“The broadcasters are investigating the exact cause of this outage to be able to put measures in place to avoid these issues in the future.”
While the commercial channels went dark, ABC and SBS were unaffected, because those channels did not broadcast from the affected tower.
“ABC and SBS transmissions are located at a separate tower at the Knights Hill site, which is managed by Broadcast Australia,” the spokeswoman said.
“The ACMA understands that the services from this tower were not affected by the issue.”
While there are other transmitters in the Illlawarra, including one at Brokers Nose and another at Stanwell Tops, the AMCA spokeswoman said these did not operate independently of the Knights Hill tower.
“Some of the other transmission sites in the area, such as the Wollongong site at Brokers Nose, receive their programming input feed off-air from the Illawarra site [Knights Hill],” she said.
“When the parent transmission fails, the repeater sites lose their programming input and they are not able to retransmit.”
Glen Humphries
I'm an award-winning senior journalist with the Illawarra Mercury and have well over two decades' worth of experience in newspapers. I cover the three local councils in the Illawarra for the Mercury, state and federal politics, as well as writing for the TV guide. If I'm not writing, I'm reading.
I'm an award-winning senior journalist with the Illawarra Mercury and have well over two decades' worth of experience in newspapers. I cover the three local councils in the Illawarra for the Mercury, state and federal politics, as well as writing for the TV guide. If I'm not writing, I'm reading.
