What is on Aurora? (Australian Satellite TV)
I get a lot of people asking me “what can be received from the Optus Aurora satellite TV system?”
Here is a list of the channels you will find and a link to a program guide for each channel.
Commercial Channels
Southern Cross Television
Imparja
Golden West Network (GWN)
WIN WA
Non-Commercial Channels
SBS WA
SBS SA
SBS NT
SBS SE (South East)
SBS QLD
ABC1 WA
ABC1 SA
ABC1 NT
ABC1 SE
ABC1 QLD
The Catch
However, you will not be able to see all of these channels at the same time. If you are not travelling (ie LIVE in a remote area), you will only have access to the commercial channels that are produced for your area. This has nothing to do with where the satellite beams the signal to (in reality all channels are transmitted to the entire country). It is simply that Southern Cross and Imparja will only unlock their signal if you can convince them that you live in their area. Likewise GWN and WinWA will only unlock their signals if you tell them you live in their area. Unfortunately, these guys talk to each other and since you can’t physically be located in both of their areas, you can not have both sets of commercial channels enabled at the same time. If you are a traveller, you can submit an itinerary of your planned travels and they will switch on one set of signals for the time you are in that area and the other set when you are in the other area.
Internet guides to what is on
UPDATE JULY 2010 – a new (and very cool) full guide is now available at http://hobohome.com/auroraguide/
Some of the links provided below are now out of date – please use the full guide.
Southern Cross Television
(Previously known as Seven Central)
The link below will take you to a 7 day guide
Southern Cross Television Guide
Imparja Television Guide
The link below will take you to a 7 day guide. There is also a link on this page that will allow you to download the full 7 day guide as an Excel spreadsheet.
Imparja Television
Golden West Network (GWN)
GWN publish a 7 day guide at the link below.
GWN TV Guide
Win Television broadcasts on the WA time zone and you can view a full 7 day guide by following the link below.
Win WA Guide (be sure to select the Western Australia option)
SBS
SBS broadcasts in all time zones and is known as
SBS-WA
SBS-SA
SBS-QLD
SBS-SE (South East)
SBS-NT
Programming is almost identical with the exception of the time zone change and the local news (which of course is tailored to each state).
The full month guide for each zone can be found at the link below.
SBS Guide for every time zone
ABC
ABC Australia broadcast on the same zones as SBS and a full monthly program guide can be found by following link.
ABC TV Guide
If you would like to know more about the Optus Aurora satellite system, leave a comment and I will be happy to answer any questions.
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Tags: Satellite, Technology, TV
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Many thanks - Gavin & Tracey.
July 10th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Hi! Thanks for all the useful info. I recently too k a dish bush and gave up!
I was wondering is it possible to get ABC 2 and other digital channels via Optus. Does it require a different LNB? Or what.
Regards,
Carol
July 10th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Setting the dish up for the first few times can be very frustrating. We recommend getting a lesson.
ABC2 can be received – but it is on a different satellite (D2). This means you have to physically move the dish each time you want to change channel from ABC1 to ABC2.
Optus are launching a new satellite that will co-locate with C1 in August this year – there is speculation that the added capacity that this satellite will provide, will allow Optus to broadcast existing Aurora channels and SBS2 and ABC2 from the same satellite. If your LNB has a LO of 11300 you may need to chnage this for a 10700.
March 1st, 2010 at 7:32 pm
Hi Gavin,
We have both a gold card and an optus card. Both came with a second hand Satelite system we bought. We are still living at home and only want to use the dish occasionally.
When we put both cards in the decoder and after leaving them for about 48 hours at a time, all we can pick up is the ABC. No SBS.
I realise that to get 9 and 7 you have to apply for their access and pay for the privilage, but we thought that we should at least be getting SBS. Are my thoughts correct??? We wondered if the cards where OK?
Not really knowing much about the whole thing it would be nice to get a little more info.
Thanking you in advance
Denise
March 3rd, 2010 at 9:46 am
Hi Denise,
The Optus card is a controlled access device, so what you see when using this card is of course dependent on what they have turned on for your card (and be aware that if you told hem that you are a traveller when you registered the card, they will turn ot off every six months). The Gold card is another story… generally, if it will receive any encrypted channel – it will receive all of them. I have never seen a Gold card that will only allow access to a subset of the channels. Are you sure that you are pointing at the correct satellite (Optus C1)? You can prove this by viewing the tuning channel (Optus C1 at 156E).
Take a look at the setup guide located here http://hobohome.com/news/?p=196
Regards,
Gavin
March 4th, 2010 at 8:54 am
Hey thanks for that Gavin. The people we bought it from where travellers so may assume that it should have been swithched on, but we have never ever been able to pick up anything but the ABC. Is SBS one that is free and should we be able to pick it up?
Stuart will have another look at the Satellite but he is pretty sure it is spot on.
Also do you have to change ownership and address with the optus card people when there is a change of ownership?
How much is the charge for having these other channels activated?
Denise
March 12th, 2010 at 5:31 pm
The activation of smart cards is a strange process. They often get it wrong. As far as I am aware, the only station charging to activate cards is Imparja (about $50 per 6 months) . I don’t think there is any provision to change ownership of cards. A far better option (if not entirely legal) is to get a Gold Card – this card will give you ALL channels and no further payment or activation is required. These are about $45.
March 13th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
Thanks Gavin.
I rang Optus and got an automated message saying put my card no. in and after it cheched and validated it, It then said that we should have the sat dish set up and the box turned on and that it would be reactivated in the next 3 minutes. We Have had the System running now for 24 hours and still only the same channels. Abc.The only thing is insted of getting a mesage saying scrambled signal, we now get bad or no signal message….???
How do we get one of these gold cards Gavin???
Denise
March 13th, 2010 at 8:27 pm
Scrabbled Channel means that you have an authorization issue – ie, your card will currently no decrypt the signal. This may mean simpy wait a bit longer OR it my mean that you are (and never will be) authorized to receive this channel.
“Bad or No Signal” is a totally different story – this is NEVER a card related issue. It is always caused by a lack of the proper signal.
Possible reasons…
- Not correctly positioned on the satellite
- Not on the correct satellite
- LNB not set to the correct polarization (rotation)
- Bad connection(s) in the coax
- Faulty or waterlogged coax
The C1 satellite broadcasts the Aurora signal on three separate transponders. These are NOT all the same transmitting strength – thus it is possible to have dish alignment good enough for one of the strong transponders but not good enough for one of the weaker ones. You should have a minimum signal strength on all channels of at least 60%-80% (with a dish of 65cm or larger).
You might like to read my article on setting up the system at http://hobohome.com/news/?p=196
March 14th, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Hey Gavin,
Thank you so much. Problem solved!! Both cards are now working!
Wow, what a difference moving the LNB made….Who would have “thunk” it!!!
Yeahhhhhh!!!
Denise
April 13th, 2010 at 11:43 am
Gavin, just touching base and letting you know that Stuart has become a whiz now with the Sat Dish and it’s allignment. We are now enjoying all the channels with no problems. Once again, thankyou for pointing us in the right direction.
One more question…I note in the second entry of questions above you say that Optus launched a new satellite back in August last year that may allow viewing of Digital Channels. Do you know if this is now possible, apart from of course as you explained realligning the dish to a different satelite.
Cheers
Denise
April 13th, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Hi Denise, The Federal Government has announced the shell of a proposal to upgrade the existing remote area broadcasting system. To date there are no specific details and there is great skepticism about when it might be implemented. While the equipment is all there – the project is very likely to drown in red tape for a number of years. While it would be great to be proven wrong – I am resisting the urge to hold my breath.