Toogoolawah will escape blackout

RESIDENTS in Toogoolawah won't need a satellite to watch digital TV, with broadcasters set to build a new transmission tower to cover the area.

RESIDENTS in Toogoolawah won't need a satellite to watch digital TV, with broadcasters set to build a new transmission tower to cover the area.

The area had faced being left in the dark once the analogue signal was turned off unless they upgraded to the Viewer Access Satellite Television (VAST) service.

Toogoolawah and the Somerset Dam are now serviced by a Somerset Council-run re-transmission tower to cover a black spot in broadcaster towers. The council had previously decided not to upgrade its tower to provide a digital-ready service.

Somerset Mayor Graeme Lehmann said the decision by the broadcasters to build a new tower to cover the area was overdue.

"It's going to take the pressure off us," he said.

"It's the way it should have been in the first place."

Cr Lehmann said if the council had upgraded the tower it would have led to a lesser service for Toogoolawah residents.

"If we'd upgraded the tower then people would have only received the five existing channels rather than the full range of digital channels, and they wouldn't have been able to apply for subsidies."

Cr Lehmann said the tower was planned to be operational by the time the analogue TV signal was switched off on May 29, 2013.

He hoped the new Toogoolawah tower would also cover the black spot over the Somerset Dam area.

Digital transmissions have begun in the Scenic Rim after all but one upgraded tower were turned on, with only the Maroon tower yet to be completed.

Most viewers who now receive terrestrial TV in the Ipswich region will then receive a digital signal once the analogue signal is switched off.

Originally published as Toogoolawah will escape blackout