TV and AV installation, Parramatta & The Hills.

Ray has been on the tools for forty years, is fully licensed and insured, and does the work himself. He is based in Ermington, so Parramatta, Northmead, Baulkham Hills and Winston Hills are a short run rather than a cross-city trip, and same-day is genuinely on the table.

Graham in Northmead had a fault he could not place. Ray talked it through on the phone, offered the options that cost nothing first, then came out and metered the signal at the TVs rather than guessing. It was low. The antenna went higher on the roof and the problem went away. In Graham's words: “the results are what we expected.”

What makes the Parramatta & The Hills different

You are at the far end of the signal, not underneath it

Sydney's main free-to-air transmitters stand at Artarmon. Parramatta is roughly twenty-five kilometres from them and the newer Hills estates are further again, so the signal reaching your roof has already lost a great deal of what the North Shore gets. That single fact flips the usual advice: on the Lower North Shore a masthead amplifier is the classic wrong answer because there is too much signal to begin with, and out here it is frequently the right one. We meter before fitting anything, because an amplifier on a weak but clean signal helps and an amplifier on a noisy one just makes the noise louder.

The Hills is named for the terrain, and the terrain decides your reception

Baulkham Hills, Castle Hill, West Pennant Hills and Winston Hills sit on genuine ridges with genuine gullies between them. A house on the ridge can be fine while a house four streets away and thirty metres lower is in the shadow of it. This is why two neighbours can get completely different answers from the same installer and both be told the truth. Height, siting and sometimes a different antenna pattern are what fix it, and none of that can be settled from the driveway.

The new estates were wired for exactly one television

Kellyville, North Kellyville, Rouse Hill, The Ponds, Beaumont Hills and Stanhope Gardens went up largely in the last twenty years, and the builder's allowance was usually a single point in the main living room. The good news is that the roof space is a modern truss roof you can actually move through, so adding points to bedrooms, a media room and the alfresco is straightforward work. Nothing like threading cable through a terrace with no cavity. It is one of the few parts of Sydney where extra outlets are genuinely cheap.

A covered alfresco is standard here, and an outdoor TV is not an indoor TV outdoors

Nearly every newer home through the Hills has a covered alfresco, and it is the room people actually want the second screen in. An indoor panel put out there fails in a way that is entirely predictable: condensation, insects inside the housing, and a picture washed out by daylight it was never designed for. Weather-rated screens, IP-rated speakers and cable run for outdoor use cost more up front and are the difference between a system that lasts and one replaced in two summers.

A Parramatta apartment is a different job to a Parramatta house

The CBD towers run a shared master antenna feeding every unit through a splitter chain, and you have no roof access and no authority to touch the head-end. When the picture breaks in a tower, the question worth answering first is whether the fault is inside your unit or in the building's system, because those have completely different owners and completely different costs. We meter at your wall plate so you know which conversation you are having before you spend anything.

What we get called for here

• 03

  Digital TV Antenna Installations

  Sited for height and metered before any amplifier goes on, because out here the signal is genuinely thin.

• 02

  TV Antenna Repairs & Extra Points

  Extra points through a modern truss roof, which is the cheapest cabling in Sydney to add to.

• 01

  TV Installation & Wall Mounting

  Brick veneer and plasterboard on steel or timber frame, found properly before the bracket goes up.

• 05

  Soundbars & Sound Systems

  Alfresco speakers rated for weather, not indoor speakers moved outside for the summer.

• 04

  Home Theatre Systems

  Dedicated media rooms, which the larger Hills floor plans actually have space for.

• 09

  Wi-Fi Access Points & Whole-Home Mesh

  Two-storey plans on big blocks, where one router by the front door never reaches the back bedrooms.

Common questions

Do I need a signal amplifier in the Hills?

Often, yes, and that is unusual for Sydney. You are a long way from the Artarmon transmitters, so there is genuinely less signal arriving than closer in. The caveat is that an amplifier multiplies whatever it is given: on a weak, clean signal it helps, and on a weak, noisy one it makes the noise louder and the picture no better. We meter first and fit one only when the numbers say it will work.

My neighbour gets perfect reception and I do not. Same street.

That is normal through the Hills and it is the terrain doing it. The ridges at Baulkham Hills, Castle Hill and Winston Hills put the houses below them in a shadow, so thirty metres of elevation between two homes can matter more than four streets of distance. The fix is usually height and siting rather than a more expensive antenna, and it has to be judged at your roof.

Can you add TV points to a new estate home in Kellyville or Rouse Hill?

Yes, and it is some of the least expensive cabling we do. Homes built in the last twenty years have a modern truss roof space that is properly accessible, so running new points to bedrooms, a media room or the alfresco is straightforward. Most builders allowed for one point in the main living area and nothing else, so this is one of the most common jobs out here.

Can I put a normal TV in my alfresco?

You can, and it will not last. Overnight condensation gets inside the housing, insects follow it in, and daylight washes out a panel with nowhere near the brightness for it. A weather-rated screen and IP-rated speakers cost more at the start and survive; the alternative is replacing an indoor set every couple of summers and paying twice.

Do you cover Parramatta and The Hills seven days?

Yes, seven days, and same-day is realistic here more often than anywhere else we work, because Ray is based in Ermington. That covers Parramatta, Westmead and Northmead through to Baulkham Hills, Castle Hill, Kellyville and Rouse Hill. Antennas, cable, brackets and test gear travel in the van, so most jobs finish on the first visit.