For years, the first thing an antenna installer did before quoting a job was type the address into mySwitch, the government's digital TV reception tool. It told you whether a house sat in strong coverage, in a shadow, or outside terrestrial coverage altogether, and which transmitter it should be pointed at. The site was retired after the digital switchover wound down, and nothing replaced it.
The data behind it still exists. The ACMA published the full set of mySwitch coverage predictions as open data, and we have rebuilt the tool on top of it. You can use it here: Australia TV Reception Map. Type a street address, or click anywhere on the map, and you get the predicted reception class for that point, on a Google map you can zoom from the whole country down to your roof.
What the map shows
Every point on the map is coloured by the best predicted reception from any TV transmitter that reaches it, on the same six-point scale mySwitch used:
| Class | Meaning | What it usually means on the roof |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | Strong | A standard antenna on the correct transmitter works |
| 5 | Very good | Same, with occasional local shadows |
| 4 | Moderate good | Antenna choice and mounting height start to matter |
| 3 | Variable moderate | Street-by-street differences; a signal survey is worth it |
| 2 | Variable poor | Expect a high-gain antenna and masthead amplifier |
| 1 | Unlikely | Outside modelled terrestrial coverage; VAST satellite is the usual answer |
The predictions come from the ACMA's terrain-based coverage modelling: the transmitter's power, antenna height and pattern, the frequency, and a digital elevation model of the ground between the transmitter and every 90-metre cell of the country. That is why the map shows valleys behind ridgelines as poor even when they are only a few kilometres from a transmitter, and why the Blue Mountains, the Adelaide Hills, the Dandenongs and the Gold Coast hinterland look like patchwork.
How to use it
Enter your address in the search box. The map zooms to the property and reports the predicted class. Then look around it: if your house is green but the next street is orange, you are near the edge of a shadow and the exact position of the antenna on the roof matters more than the antenna model. If the whole area is orange or red, the fix is usually a taller mast, a higher-gain antenna, or a different transmitter than the one the previous installer chose.
For the transmitter itself, open your suburb page (search your suburb from the locations page). It lists the transmitter that serves your suburb, how far away it is and in which direction, whether it is VHF or UHF, the channel table, and the local translator if there is one. That combination, the reception class from this map plus the transmitter details from the suburb page, is what we look at before we quote.
What the map cannot tell you
The predictions are modelled, not measured. They assume an outdoor antenna at roof height with a clear local horizon. Trees, the building next door, a metal roof above you and the quality of the cabling inside the house all change the real result, and a prediction of "Strong" does not mean an indoor antenna will work. Most of the predictions date from 2014, before the digital restack, and a small number of translators commissioned since 2017 are not in the data at all. Where the map says "No data", that is a gap in the modelling, not a verdict on your reception.
Treat it the way we do: as the starting point that tells you which conversation to have. Strong coverage with a bad picture points to a fault, whether that is cabling, connectors, a failed amplifier, or an antenna pointed at the wrong transmitter. Variable coverage with a bad picture points to the antenna system itself. No coverage points to satellite.
Where the data comes from
The coverage rasters are the ACMA's mySwitch television signal coverage data, published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence, © Commonwealth of Australia (Australian Communications and Media Authority) 2018. The transmitter details on our suburb pages come from the ACMA's Broadcast Transmitter Data register, updated quarterly. The base map is Google Maps.
If the map says your area is variable or unlikely and you want a straight answer for your own roof, book a technician and we will measure it.