KALAMUNDA born and raised Karene Nixon says she’s experienced issues with TV reception in her area ever since she can remember.

Ms Nixon said the lack of reception was a daily occurrence, which happened anytime between 6pm and 6.30pm.

“It goes from being a perfectly good screen, then starts to do a little pixelation and then it just completely pixelates out and it’s just a black screen,” she said.
“You can scroll through channels and it’s just black because it can’t pick up any signals at all.”
Ms Nixon said throughout her childhood Channel 10 was always an issue but in recent years, channels 7 and 9 followed suit.
She said the ABC and SBS networks worked normally and she believed the issue to be with commercial broadcasters.

Ms Nixon said she already had two aerials at her home and thought the aerial wasn’t the problem.

“I was blaming the magpies and the kookaburras for landing on it, but that’s not it.”

She said she has lived at the house for about 50 years and said the lines are about 60 years old.

“That’s about when the house was built,” she said.

When Ms Nixon finally had enough, she turned to Facebook at the end of March and asked if other Kalamunda residents had experienced the same issue.

As people commented on her post, she found it wasn’t just a problem at her home, there were others.

Ms Nixon found another resident who installed two aerials to try solve the problem but throughout the 26 years of having the second aerial installed, the resident still had issues with reception.

According to the government’s mySwitch website, Kalamunda should have good coverage.

A City of Kalamunda spokesperson said TV and digital reception enquiries and concerns fall under the responsibility of the federal government.

“The city’s involvement is generally limited to instances where infrastructure, such as communication towers, is proposed on city-managed land, at which point we may enter into a lease agreement.

“While the city can advocate on behalf of residents where known reception issues exist, we recommend directing your questions to the relevant federal representatives or agencies who oversee broadcasting services,” the spokesperson said.

When Echo News asked the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts (DITRDCA), why transmission was a problem in Kalamunda, a spokesperson advised the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) would have information and advice.

An ACMA spokesperson told Echo News TV broadcast stations were responsible for the transmission of their signals.
ACMA was also asked if it could provide statistics on the uptake of Viewer Access Satellite Television (VAST) in Kalamunda.

VAST is a service for remote communities and travellers who are unable to receive TV reception from a land-based transmitter or would like to receive free to air TV in their vehicles or camp sites, according to DITRDCA.

Ms Nixon said she used to have a VAST box when she lived in the country.

“You used to get a VAST box and that’s how you got your channels.

“We shouldn’t have to have that in the middle of suburbia,” she said.

ACMA’s website stated VAST is managed by MySatTV.

But a spokesperson at MySatTV told Echo News they do not keep track of statistics regarding VAST.

Ms Nixon hoped action would be taken to address the issues with TV transmission in Kalamunda.

“I just want to sit down and relax, whip my feet up, watch the news and stuff like that.

“It’d be nice to have enough signal to be able to do that without losing those other channels,” she said.