Apartment Complex at Hickson Road, Walsh Bay, NSW

The Challenge

Hills Antenna & TV Systems was presented with the challenge of providing all dwellings in a Sydney multi-million dollar apartment complex at Hickson Road, Walsh Bay with Foxtel IQ and digital free-to-air TV services from North Sydney. It was a requirement that the installation was to be done without re-cabling or causing major disruptions to residents.

The complex had previously been wired for analogue only TV services and there was no capability with the old system to provide each dwelling with subscription TV services. In addition, the building has no plant rooms and very small risers on each level, making it extremely difficult to find a space for the MATV headend.

Technical Solution

Hills proposed an Astro TDT QAM headend as the optimum solution for this apartment complex. Astro is a leading German supplier of high end headend products, ideally suited for applications such as this one at Hickson Road. The installed headend receives all twenty six digital satellite transponders from the Optus C1 and D3 satellites, which carry the Foxtel services, and then trans-modulates the digital satellite signals onto cable TV channels. This arrangement allowed the single trunk and lateral cable topology to be utilised without the need to add extra cables for the subscription TV service.

The headend was finally installed in the car park, below sea level!

The Outcome

This project provided minimal disruptions to each tenant because only equipment in the car park and a few risers on some levels needed to be installed or replaced. Access to residents’ apartments was only necessary once each resident decided to subscribe to Foxtel, leaving all residents extremely satisfied with the final solution provided by Hills Antenna & TV Systems.