Hello and Welcome to our January 2023 Newsletter

Hi Folks,

Well 2023 is here at last, and we are all very happy to be putting the last couple of years in our rear view mirrors.
We have some exciting things planned for this year so stay tuned for new and exciting things coming your way soon.
The first of which is our social media presence (and our very new look newsletter thanks to the lovely ladies at Coast Marketing & Design)

Facebook has a new look

We have relaunched our updated Facebook and Instagram pages and we need your help.

One of the aims of these pages is to get information and tips about reception problems or changes out quickly to you, our customers, as well make it easy for you to share this with family and friends.

Another aim is to get some more reviews from our customers posted on Facebook. Although we have hundreds of good reviews on our webpage, we realised that so many of our customers use Facebook but we haven’t been taking advantage of this platform to share our good works with the Sunny Coast.

Although we know you are aware of all the services we provide, we have found some people think we only do TV antennas so follow our Facebook page for some upcoming posts on some of the interesting technology, gadgets and gizmos that we install.

To reach more people with our services we need your help to like and follow our Facebook and Instagram pages and, if the mood inspires, to write a review.
In return we will make sure the posts contain interesting and useful information along with some great views of the Coast.

Find us on Facebook and Instagram. Click on the links to like and follow us.

Security Camera Success

A few months ago, one of our clients neighbours cars was damaged while parked outside their house. There was no note left, just the damage. Fortunately the neighbour noticed the cameras we had installed for our client and asked if there was footage of what happened. And due to the wide angle lens and the recording system with some considerable searching (because we had a 24hr period to look through) we were able to find the footage and provide it to the police. For all of you who have ever had that horrible experience of coming back to your car to find someone has hit it and not left a note. Well, hopefully they have been found and charged.
And you well may ask “What is the penalty for hit-and-run parked car Australia?”
Generally, this offence is finalised by way of a traffic infringement notice, a fine of $349 and a loss of 3 demerit points.
I don’t know about you but I think it should be more!

Local channel outages cause confusion across the Sunshine Coast!

And “Why you should NEVER Rescan your TV during an outage”

Well the 3rd of January 2023 will go down as one of our busiest days of phone calls on record on the Sunshine Coast. All because all 5 of the local transmitters went off line on 2 main TV channels for most of the day.

Our hats off to Mandy who personally handled over 53 phone calls from customers, and the general public, on that day, helping and reassuring them that it was not their antenna or TV – it was a TV station transmission problem. And asking them not to retune their sets. Now regrettably, the TV stations never admit to the problem and don’t let anybody know, but we have been doing this for over 33 years and we know how the system works and we monitor a couple of the Sunshine Coast TV station transmissions so we generally know when it is a transmission issue pretty quickly. So we knew it was an outage! 
We also saved a lot of people from spending money on call outs and repairs by giving them the correct advice over the phone for free.

The fact is that TV transmission failures don’t happen all that often on the Sunshine Coast, maybe 2 or 3 times a year, but last year we had almost 10 outages during 2022, they were minor and for only short periods, but when it happens it sure does create some confusion.
One of the things that adds to the confusion is that so many people, as soon as the TV stations disappears for a little while, decide to do a rescan or autotune of the TV stations. This is the WORST thing you can do, no matter how tempting and no matter who on facebook or youtube tells you to retune – DON’T DO IT! Please.

Here’s Why:

So your TV is already tuned in and working, then your reception plays up (channel disappears, Signal breaks up, you get the “No Signal” message etc)

In this situation, it is not that the TV tuning has gone funny. The TV tuning memory of all your stations is still safely locked in the TV. Losing power or losing signal will not upset the TV memory. So, if you can resist the urge to retune the TV, then when the TV reception problem is fixed, all your channels will be there without any further tuning.

But, if you autotune when you see the TV reception is playing up, you will simply wipe out the TV memory and replace it with no channels or the wrong channels. When the TV transmission is restored you won’t know because now your TV is not tuned in.

Instead of retuning – What you should do is leave the TV on a channel that you know was working well before. eg ABC or Seven. You can leave it on and walk away, make a cuppa, do the shopping or gardening and in half hour or so check again. If it is still not working, go to our website or give us a ring and check if there is a known transmission problem in your area. 

If you are interested I have covered all this in further detail here:

If this doesn’t work then you likely need a service call because something else is wrong.
Hope that helps fill in the details so you understand what happens.

Audio News

Wow have I been having fun with the Denon and Polk Audio range!
Two products I want to recommend highly

The Denon Bluetooth speaker model Home 150 Retails for $359.00
This is a really impressive Wifi speaker with genuinely amazing bass and brilliant multidirectional (270 degree) sound coverage. In testing at ¾ volume this comfortably filled a 10m by 5m room with clean loud music.

Amazing punch for this very compact speaker and it integrates beautifully with Spotify as well as having a USB input for your own library.

I had so much fun playing around with this one I think I am going to buy one myself!

The Polk sound bar model, with vocal enhancement and wireless subwoofer.
This is the one that is really aimed at all of us who have trouble hearing the speech from TV shows and movies.
This sound bar solves that problem really well. It has great overall sound and 3 easy vocal enhancement settings so you can easily find the right one for you for maximum vocal clarity.

It has many other great features but basically it is well priced at $399 and in my opinion, it is perfect for solving the audio problems on vocals.

Our very first 98” Samsung TV install!

Wow – that is a big TV!

So we wall mounted this TV and the Sanus bracket and it all worked beautifully, once you get the TV on you can pull it out just the right amount to get to all the cable connections and then push it back almost flush to the wall with easy tilt adjustment. It is so good using good equipment and we really appreciated it with this large (and heavy) TV.

I am happy to report that the quality of the TV image was truly impressive. I took a quick photo of the screen with a TV show host and background and then one of a real person in the room and the TV picture looks as clear to me as real life and it is actually larger than real life. I am not going to bore you with all the features or specs, let’s just say it looks brilliant, sets up easily, talks to just about everything and if I had a room big enough I would want one! The TV sound was good but once hooked to the Sonos soundbar, sub woofer and surround speakers it was great!

Check out more pic’s here

Starlink Installations and Mounting Adaptor

Good news and bad news for anyone buying Starlink satellite internet and wanting us to install it.

First the bad – As you will find out as soon as you receive the Starlink kit, the mount they supply does not fit our Australian roof profiles. And the dish doesn’t fit onto any of our standard satellite mounts. While we recently did have a local supplier who made a Starlink satellite Mount they immediately ran out of stock and now have a 3 month wait for more.

Now for the Good news – instead of having to buy an expensive $100 adaptor to fit our standard satellite mounts plus the cost of a satellite mount, we made our own adaptor for a fraction of the cost! So now we can supply the adaptor and the mount as a kit for approx. $100. Bargain!

So if you need a Starlink to be installed on your roof – we can help and save you money!

As always we thank you for your continued support and we look forward to a bright and prosperous 2023 for one and all.

Cheers, Phil, Mandy and the Sunshine Team