What's the Best Antenna?

There are three main types of antenna/aerial design used for television reception; the Yagi, Phased Array and Log Periodic.

MAS prefers the Fracarro made Log Periodic antenna for most situations.  In most situations we find it technically superior to the other styles.  They're also well made and handle the salty costal environment better than many of its competitors.

Phased arrays can be useful in certain situations, particularly where the signal is affected by trees or buildings.  However, many in the industry believe that they're overused in the Tweed/Gold Coast area and, because of their wide beam width, they contribute to reception problems.

Will an Amplifier (booster) help?

Yes, sometimes!  However, if your antenna/aerial is not receiving a good quality signal, then an amplifier will not make much difference.  If the quality is poor at the antenna then all an amplifier will do is give you a stronger, but still poor, signal.

Where an amplifier is important is when you get a good signal at the antenna but, because you have many TV outlets or the coax is of poor quality, it's weak at the TV.

Every time you split the signal you also split the signal strength.  So two TV outlets get half the signal each; three outlets get one third of the signal, etc.  Also as the signal travels along coax is becomes progressively weaker.  Less than 5% of the signal remains after travelling 100 metres; far less if poor quality cable is used.

Recent Changes to Digital TV

In 2014 the government restructured part of the spectrum used for digital TV broadcasts.  This event was known within the Industry as “Restacking” but the federal government is running advertising campaigns calling it "Re-tuning" http://retune.digitalready.gov.au/.

All digital TV broadcasts on or above channel 52 were reallocated, with that part of the spectrum being used for 4G phone and internet use.

The theory was that this event wouldn't cause too much disruption.  All that was required was to simply re-tune your TV or digital Set-Top-Box/PVR.

However, residents with specialised Filter/Diplexer that were previously installed to mix QLD and NSW found that these were now killing the QLD reception.  MAS has new a new range of Filter/Diplexers the can merge the NSW and Mt Tamborine QLD broadcasts well.

Also, many residents will need a special LTE filter to prevent your equipment from picking up the 4G broadcasts (see: LTE Creates Havoc).