ABT (TV station)

ABT

Hobart, Tasmania Australia
City	Hobart, Tasmania
Channels	Digital: 8 (VHF) Virtual: 2
Programming
Affiliations	ABC Television
Ownership
Owner	Australian Broadcasting Corporation
History
First air date	4 June 1960; 64 years ago (1960-06-04)
Former call signs	ABT (ABC Tasmania)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 2 (VHF) (1960–2013)
Technical information
Licensing authority	Australian Communications and Media Authority
ERP	200 kW (analog) 50 kW (digital)
HAAT	1024 m (analog) 1042 m (digital)[1]
Transmitter coordinates	42°53′51″S 147°14′10″E / 42.89750°S 147.23611°E / -42.89750; 147.23611 (ABT)
Links
Website	www.abc.net.au/tv/

ABT is the call sign of a television station operated by the publicly-owned Australian Broadcasting Corporation, with a transmission area covering southern Tasmania. ABT began broadcasting on VHF channel 2 on 4 June 1960, with studios in inner-city Hobart and transmitter at Mount Wellington. The "AB" in the call sign stands for "Australian Broadcasting", as in Australian Broadcasting Commission (now Australian Broadcasting Corporation). The "T" in the call sign stands for Tasmania.^{[citation needed]}

As in other Australian states, the ABC television station in the state's capital city relays programs to a network of region-based transmitters: in the case of Tasmania, ABNT for northern Tasmania (transmitter located on Mt Barrow) and ABKT for King Island (transmitter located on Gentle Annie Hill). Whilst their callsigns imply that they are standalone television stations, they have only ever operated as relays from ABT.

As well as these two nominal stations transmitting programs from ABT, there is an extensive network of translator stations performing the same function. Their purpose is to provide improved signal reception in areas with poor or no reception from Mount Wellington. They pick up the on-air signal from the Mount Wellington transmitter and re-broadcast it on another channel (to prevent cross interference which would arise from two transmitters in different locations transmitting the same program). The broken terrain and scattered population of Tasmania has necessitated a relatively large number of translator stations, even within the Hobart urban area e.g. Taroona.