News Release
SBS Television Commences in Broome
Wednesday, November 1st, 2000

As at 0500 hours WST November 25th, 2000 Broadcast Engineering Services (BES) successfully commissioned SBS television transmission facilities in Broome, on Western Australia's remote north-west coast. This site is the first of an extensive Australia wide transmission facilities upgrade for SBS which includes a total of 78 locations. The start-up of the service coincided, to the day, with the twentieth anniversary of SBS's commencement.

The service uses a 500 watt ABE, stereo audio, solid state UHF transmitter which is fed from twin satellite decoders receiving the SBS (WA) signal and is combined with the local Goolari TV service which uses an identical transmitter.

BES is also to commission a further 6 sites at other locations across Western Australia in the coming months.


Broadcast Engineering Services Wins SBS Television Contract
Friday, September 1st, 2000

Broadcast Engineering Services (BES) has recently been contracted by SBS Television to provide seven regional transmission facilities throughout Western Australia as part of their extensive Australia Wide transmission network upgrade.

The sites include Broome, Port Hedland, Karratha, Wagin, Kalgoorlie, Esperance and Albany with transmitters to provide between 100 watts and 100 kilowatts ERP. All will be fed from the Western SBS satellite beam.

The contract for the works was won in open tender against a number of national competitors. BES will provide both the initial installation and commissioning of all systems together with a ten year facilities and maintenance contract valued at over 5 million dollars.


Broadcast Engineering Services Granted Registered Carrier Status
Friday, January 7th, 2000

Effective December 22nd 1999, and under the authority of the Minister for Communications, the Honorable Richard Alston MP, West Coast Radio P/L, trading as Broadcast Engineering Services (BES) was granted Registered Carrier Status. BES now becomes the thirty third registered Carrier Australia wide – and only the second Western Australian based Carrier.

Granting of Registered Carrier status is a notable achievement for BES and will provide considerably expanded capabilities in respect of the services that can be provided within the residential HFC underground cable systems designed, installed and managed by the company. The Ellenbrook high speed Internet access system is the first of, what is hoped to be, many other consumer oriented leading edge technology services across a wide range of locations – that will greatly enhance the communication, information and education options of many estate residents.

At the same time BES "Broadcasting Services" activities have continued to expand with the recent completion of the Channel 31 (CTV) high powered UHF service (the last license available for the Perth metropolitan area). This complex project, involving sharing the existing SBS UHF antenna, was completed entirely under BES management within a very tight time schedule, and significantly under the original budget allocation. At the other end of the scale many smaller "regional services" have also been completed.

For further information relating to any of these projects, or matters relating to your own interests, please contact:

• Timothy Odea, General Manager,
• Timothy Hamilton, Cable Systems Manager