Residents and visitors to Rubyvale won’t miss a minute of their favourite free-to-air television shows following a decision by council this week to modify the self-help service.
Despite having no statutory obligation to do so, council spends around $40,000 every year maintaining a number of self-help television re-transmission sites across the region, including Anakie, Sapphire and the Willows.
The sites were originally built to transmit an analogue signal to the local communities, but in 2011 they were switched over to digital.
In May this year, the council decided to continue providing the service rather than forcing the Sapphire Gemfields community to pay to subscribe to the VAST (Viewer Access Satellite Television) network, which is the Australian Government-funded free-to-air satellite service.
Following this decision, the council received a petition from around 160 people in the Rubyvale area, particularly the owners and visitors to the caravan parks seeking better reception.
Rubyvale’s television reception is via the Sapphire re-transmission site and it’s known to be patchy because of the topography and vegetation of the area.
This week, council agreed to spend $10,000 to improve the system by adding three extra panels to the antenna system to receive a stronger signal and increasing the height of the pole by up to three metres.
The improved service is expected to be up and running by the end of November.