Analogue television shut down in regional Queensland on 6 December 2011. This was years before capital cities. All television in the area is now digital.

This web site is intended for Body Corporate owners of apartments in Whitsunday Terraces, not for potential guests. Make room bookings for accommodation at Whitsunday Terraces Resort, Airlie Beach, overlooking the Coral Sea, at the Resort Manager's web site.

I tested reception in July 2011 with a video cassette recorder that does not handle digital TV. I was able to receive all five of the Free to Air channels (SBS, 10, 9, 7, ABC). I was also able to receive a half dozen Austar channels. These were a movie channel (Extras), a News channel, two Fox Sports channels, and an unidentified Austar channel. All these Austar channels are now gone.

Your unit in the Whitsunday Terraces Resort needs digital television. If you only provide an older style analogue TV, you needed to replace it with a digital TV or supplement it with a set top box in 2011.

A test of a modern digital TV in a unit showed the same half dozen Austar channels. In addition, there were a large number (more than a dozen) of digital only Free to Air channels available. It appears digital reception works, and distribution via existing wiring also works.

I tested several digital TVs after the analogue signal disappeared. All the current digital signals can be received via the wiring. This even includes Channel 74, TV4ME, which most TV sets can not display due to its experimental use of MPEG4 coding.

In short, the wiring and distribution amplifiers all work fine.

Whitsunday Terraces Resort television wiring was redone around 2000. This wiring appears to work with digital television. The distribution amplifier for sending signals around the resort is working with digital television.

It seems that the then Resort Management reduced the number of Austar channels from more than a dozen channels to a half dozen or so sometime around May 2011. I was not aware of the reason for this change. However I am advised that no agreement could be reached with Austar regarding rooms whose owners did not want satellite TV.

As far as I know, Body Corporate committee were not advised of this change. I do not know if Lot owners who rent their Lots via Resort Management were advised of the change.

The new resort management have been in contact with Austar, but the results have been totally unsatisfactory. Austar want to be paid for all 130 units in the Whitsunday Terraces, many of which have no interest in Austar. Resort management only want Austar in the much smaller number of units in their letting pool.

When the wiring was installed many years ago, by an Austar certified installer, it was a requirement that units could be connected or disconnected from Austar as required. This was not done by the installer. As a result of this impasse, Austar are no longer connected to any of the rooms. This is unlikely to change.

Not permitted under Body Corporate By-Laws. Except as provided in these by-laws the occupier of a lot must not without the body corporate’s written approval make any change to the external appearance or structurally modify the lot;

In addition, most Lots are sufficiently far around the hillside from the television broadcast masts that TV reception from a local antenna is poor in any case.