Doing it cheaply, properly

The cheapest sensible way to fix TV signal in Bunbury

Start at $130 to $280: a metered repair and retune of the antenna you already own. If the head is genuinely finished, $320 to $480 buys the coastal rated replacement that will not need doing again. Below $280 fitted, something has been left out of the quote, and it is usually the cable, the earth or the retune. Here is where you can safely save, and where saving means paying twice.

Get a written quote See the full price list

Nearly every antenna enquiry we take in Bunbury starts with the same sentence: the picture keeps breaking up and the owner wants to know the smallest amount of money that makes it stop. That is a reasonable question and it has a real answer, but the answer depends almost entirely on how old the hardware is and how far the house sits from salt water. The three tiers below are the three genuine paths, with what each one buys and what each one leaves on the table.

The three tiers

Budget, mid and premium: what each one actually buys

Real 2026 fitted prices for Bunbury and the surrounding South West. Every tier includes travel inside our service area, metering, and a fixed written price before we start.

Tier	Real price, 2026	Exactly what you get	Exactly what you give up	Who should pick it
Budget: repair and retune	$130 - $280	Callout and diagnosis included, signal metered at the antenna and at every wall plate, new compression connectors with gel boots, splitter and amplifier tested, mast fixings checked and tightened, every set retuned	No new antenna, no new lead in cable, no warranty on a head that is already a decade old, and no promise the same fault will not reappear in two summers	Anyone whose antenna is under about 8 years old, and any landlord or seller whose fault is intermittent rather than dead
Mid: new antenna, existing mast	$320 - $480	Coastal rated antenna with stainless fixings, existing mast reused if it passes inspection, new quad shield RG6 lead in to one point, earth bond to AS 1417, sealed wall entry and a new plate, every set retuned, 5 year workmanship warranty	No new mast unless the old one fails inspection, no masthead amplifier, and extra TV points billed separately at $120 to $240 each	The default for most Bunbury, Eaton and Australind houses with a dead or corroded head and one or two TVs
Premium: full system	$580 - $950	Marine grade phased array, new galvanised or aluminium mast with marine stainless fixings, metered masthead amplifier and power injector where the path needs one, new quad shield lead in, distribution to three or four points with new plates, earthing, every outlet metered and the readings written down, 5 year workmanship warranty	Nothing except the money. You are buying hardware life and outlets, not better pictures on a signal that is already clean	Beachside Dalyellup, estuary Australind, treed Gelorup, any double-storey, and any house with three or more TVs or a home theatre

Prices indicative for Bunbury in 2026 and confirmed in writing after a free measure. Compare against the full 2026 price list or the detailed installation cost breakdown.

Where you can safely save money

None of these eight compromise the result. Several of them are things we suggest before the customer asks.

Repair before you replace. Metering the signal at the antenna, the amplifier and the wall plate takes about fifteen minutes and costs nothing extra inside the repair price. It regularly turns a $500 replacement into a $180 connector and splitter job. Never authorise a new antenna that has not been metered first.
Reuse a sound mast and bracket. A galvanised mast that is straight, solid and unrusted has years left in it even when the antenna on top of it is finished. Keeping it saves $80 to $190. We will tell you honestly if it fails inspection, because remounting a new antenna on a dying mast is work we would only be doing twice.
Bundle the visits. Antenna, wall mount and retune done in one attendance instead of three separate bookings saves one lot of travel and setup, typically $60 to $120. If a neighbour on the same street needs work too, book the same morning and we can price both jobs knowing the van only comes once.
Do the ground level prep yourself. Clear the side access, move the TV unit and anything fragile off the wall, unlock the gate, clear the roof space manhole and park the cars on the street. That is 20 to 40 minutes of paid labour removed from the job.
Take the standard bracket. A flat or tilt TV bracket is $200 to $360 fitted, full motion with concealed cabling is $320 to $480. Unless somebody genuinely swings the screen around to watch from the kitchen, the tilt bracket is the better buy and the tidier finish. More detail on the wall mounting page.
Run cable while something is already open. During a reroof, a solar install, a ceiling insulation job, a kitchen renovation or a new build, additional TV points cost $60 to $120 instead of $120 to $240 because nobody is chasing brick or fishing a closed wall. The new home antenna page covers the build stage timing, and extra TV points covers retrofits.
Book off peak. Bunbury has two predictable rushes: the winter storm weeks when a front has taken antennas off roofs across the South West, and the fortnight either side of a major sporting season starting. Booking in spring or late summer usually means a shorter wait and work that is not being done between rain squalls.
Stick to standard sizes. A standard mast length and an off the shelf splitter are stock items on the van. A custom mast or an unusual distribution amplifier is a special order that adds both cost and about a week to the job.

Want to know which tier your house actually needs?

Tell us the suburb, the age of the antenna and how many TVs. We will tell you the smallest sensible spend, in writing, within one business day.

Get a written quote

Where saving money means paying for it twice

Each of these is a saving we have watched customers make and then pay for again inside a few years.

Skipping the earth bond. Saves $40 to $110. It is the compliance failure we find most often on Bunbury roofs, it is a genuine safety issue on a steel mast in a lightning-prone summer, and it is covered on the standards page. This is not a saving, it is a defect you paid for.
Non-marine hardware within a kilometre of the water. Saves $60 to $120 today and costs a full $340 to $580 replacement roughly four years early. Over ten years the cheap head is the more expensive one, and that is before the second lot of roof access.
Keeping the old RG59 lead in under a new antenna. A new head cannot fix a lossy, water tracked cable. You buy the antenna, still get evening dropouts, then buy the cable anyway and pay a second callout for the privilege.
An amplifier fitted without metering first. On a signal that is already strong, an amplifier overloads the tuner and produces exactly the pixelation you were trying to remove. That is $120 to $240 spent making the picture worse, and it is the most common mistake in self-installed systems.
A large TV hung on plasterboard anchors. A 65 inch screen is commonly 20 to 30 kg and a full motion arm multiplies the leverage. Anchors in plasterboard alone eventually let go. The repair bill is a wall, a television, and potentially somebody underneath it.
Climbing onto the roof yourself. A fall from a single-storey gutter is enough to end your working year. Roof work carries a genuine duty under the WA work health and safety rules, tiles are brittle in the cold and a Colorbond roof in a Bunbury February is dangerously hot by late morning.
Hiring somebody with no public liability cover. If they crack a run of tiles, put a foot through a ceiling or drop a mast on a car, an uninsured operator has no way to fix it and you own the repair. Always ask for a certificate of currency.

What a suspiciously low quote is leaving out

When a quote lands well under the mid tier, it is very rarely because somebody has found a cheaper antenna. It is because the scope is shorter than you think it is. These are the ten lines that go missing, and they are worth asking about by name before you accept anything.

The lead in cable, quoted as antenna only with cable priced later “if required”.
The earth bond to the mast.
Retuning any set other than the first one.
The power injector that a masthead amplifier needs in order to work at all.
The wall plate and a sealed, drip looped wall entry.
Travel out to Gelorup, Dalyellup, Australind or the outer estates.
Removing the old antenna and taking it away.
GST. A $290 job quoted excluding GST arrives as a $319 invoice.
Roof access equipment on a two-storey home.
Any written workmanship warranty at all.

Ask for the quote itemised against those lines, then compare quotes line by line rather than on the total at the bottom. The installer checklist has the rest of the questions worth asking.

Rebates, concessions and programs in WA: the honest version

There is no Western Australian rebate, concession or subsidy for a domestic television antenna. No state scheme, no council scheme, no energy-style credit. If somebody quoting you mentions one, they are describing something else. Four real things can still change the arithmetic, though.

Home and contents insurance. Storm damage to a rooftop antenna is usually claimable, but WA policy excesses commonly sit between $500 and $1,000, so a $400 antenna on its own is not worth lodging. Where the same front has also cracked tiles, torn a gutter or wet a ceiling, the combined claim usually is. The detail is on the storm damage and insurance page.
Investment properties. If the house is tenanted, a repair to an existing antenna is generally deductible in the year you pay for it, while a replacement antenna is a capital item written off over its effective life. That distinction is often worth more than any discount a trade will hand you, so it is worth a short conversation with your accountant before you decide between the budget and mid tiers.
Strata schemes. In a WA strata, the roof and any shared master antenna are almost always common property, so the cost sits with the strata company rather than with you personally. Repairing one shared head is far cheaper per unit than five owners fitting five competing antennas, and it avoids the approval problem entirely.
Satellite as a last resort. The Commonwealth satellite television service exists for households that genuinely cannot receive terrestrial signal. Access to the service is free but the dish, the decoder and the installation are not, and eligibility has to be established first. For almost every address in Bunbury, Australind, Eaton, Dalyellup and Withers, a properly aimed antenna on Mount Lennard is achievable, so this is an answer for a handful of deeply shadowed rural blocks rather than a town-wide option. We install antennas, not satellite dishes.

Concessions such as the WA Seniors Card apply to rates, water and energy, not to antenna work. Some trades choose to offer older customers a discount, and that is a courtesy rather than a program. If you are helping an older family member get set up, the TV setup for seniors page covers what actually helps.

Two worked budgets on real Bunbury house types

A 1990s brick and tile in Withers, two TVs, four kilometres from open water, two channels missing. Cheapest sensible path is the budget tier at $180. Metering found water in the rooftop F connector and a corroded two-way splitter. New compression connectors with weather boots, a new splitter, both sets retuned, forty minutes on site. The premium tier on the same house would have been about $620 and would have bought hardware life rather than picture, so it would have been the wrong purchase. We would have said so.

A beachside double-storey in Dalyellup, four TVs, twelve year old builder antenna, dropouts on every set after dark. The budget tier is wasted money here because the head is finished and the elements are pitted through. The mid tier fixes the antenna but leaves three outlets hanging off a tired original spine. The premium tier at about $880 buys the marine grade array, a new mast, the metered amplifier, a fresh quad shield spine and four documented outlets. It is the only option on this house that will not be revisited inside five years, and on a coastal double-storey the second visit is the expensive part.

When even the budget tier is the wrong spend

If nobody in the house watches live free to air television, the cheapest sensible option is to spend nothing at all and keep streaming. We would rather say that than take $180 off you for a retune of channels that nobody opens, and the trade offs are laid out on the antenna versus streaming page. Equally, if the antenna is more than fifteen years old, pitted through and feeding four sets, the budget tier is not a saving, it is a deposit on a second callout: the timing question is covered on the best time to replace page. We also do not run a 24 hour emergency service and we do not install satellite dishes, so if that is what the job needs, we will tell you rather than quote for it. If you want the specification detail behind these tiers, see choosing an antenna for coastal Bunbury, and for quantities see how much cable and signal you need.

Get a price

Find out the smallest sensible spend on your job

Send the suburb, the age of the antenna and how many TVs, and we will reply within one business day with the tier we would recommend and a fixed price.

Budget questions we get asked

What is the cheapest sensible way to get TV working again in Bunbury?

Start with a repair and retune rather than a replacement: $130 to $280 including the callout and the diagnosis. A large share of the no-signal jobs we attend in Bunbury turn out to be a water filled connector, a corroded splitter or a failed masthead amplifier rather than a dead antenna. Only replace the head once a meter says it has actually failed, because a new antenna on a faulty lead in changes nothing.

How much should a basic antenna install cost in Bunbury?

Around $280 to $450 fitted on a single-storey home, and that should buy a new antenna, a new quad shield lead in, an earth bond and a retune of every set in the house. Below about $280 fitted, something on that list has been left out, and the usual omissions are the cable, the earth or the retune. Double-storey and tiled roofs run $450 to $650 because the access and safety setup genuinely take longer.

Is there a rebate for TV antennas in Western Australia?

No. There is no Western Australian rebate, concession or subsidy for a domestic TV antenna, and anybody offering one is not describing a real scheme. What does change the maths is home insurance for storm damage, where excesses commonly sit between $500 and $1,000, and the tax treatment of a rental, where a repair is generally deductible in the year you pay it while a replacement is depreciated over its effective life.

What does a suspiciously cheap antenna quote leave out?

Most often the lead in cable, the earth bond, the retune of every set other than the first, the wall plate with a sealed entry, and GST. A $290 job quoted excluding GST is $319 by the time the invoice arrives. Ask for the quote itemised with those five lines named separately, then compare quotes line by line instead of on the total at the bottom.

Is the premium tier worth paying for?

Only where hardware life or extra outlets are the real problem. On a beachside Dalyellup double-storey with four TVs and a 12 year old head, the $580 to $950 tier is the only one that will not be revisited inside 5 years. On a Withers block 4 kilometres from the water with two TVs, the same money buys nothing you can see and the $320 to $480 tier is the correct purchase.

Can I save money by doing some of the work myself?

Yes, safely, on the ground. Clearing roof access, moving the TV unit, unlocking the side gate, opening the roof space manhole and parking the cars on the street removes 20 to 40 minutes of paid time from a job. What you should not do is go up on the roof yourself. A fall from a single-storey gutter is a serious injury, and the WA work health and safety rules put a genuine duty on anyone working at height.

Get the cheapest sensible price in writing

Free measure, fixed written quote, and an honest answer about whether a repair will do the job. Serving Bunbury, Australind, Eaton, Dalyellup, Gelorup and Withers.

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