Bunbury · Australind · Eaton · Dalyellup
No TV signal in Bunbury: what to do in the first hour
Start at the wall, not on the roof. Switch the TV off at the power point for 30 seconds, turn it back on and run a full auto retune from the setup menu. Still black? Try a second TV on a different wall plate. If every TV in the house is dead, the fault is upstream: find the masthead amplifier plug pack (usually in the roof space, a hallway cupboard or behind the main TV), confirm it is switched on and its indicator is lit, then unplug it for 10 seconds and plug it back in. If only one TV is dead, swap its fly lead first.
The rest of the first hour, in order
Most of the no-signal calls we take in Bunbury are solved or correctly diagnosed by these seven checks, and every one of them is done with both feet on the ground.
- Look out the window first. If a front has just come through and the antenna is leaning, hanging by the coax or gone from the roofline, stop here and read the urgent section below. That is a structural problem, not a tuning problem.
- Check every TV in the house. One dead TV with the others working means that TV, its fly lead or that one wall plate. All TVs dead means the antenna, the lead-in or the amplifier. That single test halves the possible causes, and it is the first thing we ask you on the quote form.
- Retune properly. Not a quick channel scan with the aerial lead half out, and not an update scan. A full auto tune, with the lead firmly screwed or pushed home at both ends.
- Check the amplifier power supply. A masthead amplifier is powered from inside the house, up through the coax. If that little plug pack has been knocked off at the socket during a clean-up, or its outlet is on a switched circuit somebody turned off, every TV in the house goes dark at once. We have driven to Withers and Carey Park for exactly this.
- Feel the wall plate. A wall plate that is damp, stained, green around the centre pin or loose in the plasterboard tells you water has come down the coax. That needs a visit, but it is not dangerous.
- Ask a neighbour. If the same channels are missing three houses down, the problem is the transmission, not your roof. Broadcasters publish scheduled maintenance and fault outages, and the Australian Government mySwitch tool will tell you which services your address should receive and from where.
- Write down when it started. During Saturday night’s squall, gradually over a fortnight, or the moment the solar installer packed up. That timeline is worth more to a diagnosis than any photograph.
Work out your urgency
Bunbury TV fault triage table
Find your symptom, then read across. The costs are realistic fitted 2026 prices for Bunbury and the South West, with the callout and the diagnosis included rather than added on top.
| Symptom | What it usually means | How urgent | Typical cost to put right |
|---|---|---|---|
| Antenna leaning, hanging or off the roof after wind | Mast, bracket or tile fixing has failed. The coax is often the only thing still holding it up. | Now | Make-safe $180 to $320. Re-mount or replace $340 to $650. |
| Water dripping or staining the ceiling near the antenna entry | The roof penetration or the cable gland has let go and water is tracking inside. | Now | $130 to $280 to reseal. Ceiling and insulation repair is separate. |
| Any part of the antenna, mast or cable near an overhead power line | A genuine electrocution risk, whatever the television is doing. | Now | Nothing from us. Stay 3 metres clear and contact the electricity network operator. |
| Burning smell, sparking or a hot plug pack | Failed power supply or a damaged outlet. | Now | Switch it off at the switchboard. A licensed electrician is $150 to $300 to attend. |
| Every TV dead, antenna looks straight and intact | Failed masthead amplifier, water in the lead-in, or a corroded F connector at the head. | This week | $130 to $280, including a replacement amplifier if that is the fault. |
| Everything pixelates when it is windy or raining | Loose connector, a cracked balun at the antenna head, or an antenna that has rotated on its mast. | This week | $130 to $280. Add $340 to $580 if the head is corroded beyond saving. |
| Some channels perfect, others missing or blocky | Aim has drifted, the gain is wrong for the block, or a nearby mobile site is overloading the amplifier. | This week | $130 to $280. A mobile-band filter is $40 to $90 supplied and fitted. |
| Green or white powder around the antenna fittings | Salt corrosion. It is working today, but the mounting hardware is on borrowed time. | This week | $340 to $580 for a marine-grade replacement before it fails in a storm. |
| One TV dead, the rest of the house fine | That television, its fly lead or that single wall plate. | Can wait | A new fly lead is about $15 at any electrical retailer. A reterminated wall plate is $120 to $180. |
| Break-up on still, hot summer evenings only | Atmospheric ducting letting distant transmitters interfere. Nothing on your roof is broken. | Can wait | Usually $0. A tighter, more directional antenna is $340 to $580 if it truly bothers you. |
| Neighbours have the same missing channels | Transmitter fault or scheduled maintenance. | Can wait | $0. Retune once the service is restored. |
Indicative fitted prices for Bunbury in 2026. The exact figure is confirmed in writing before we start. The full list is on the pricing page.
What makes the damage worse while you wait
A dead picture costs you an evening. The four things below cost you a roof, a ceiling or a person, and all of them get worse by the hour.
- A loose antenna on a Colorbond roof. Every gust drags a steel mast across the sheet, and that scratch is exactly where the coating fails and the rust starts. On a tiled Australind roof it breaks tiles instead, and the next front puts water into the ceiling.
- An open coax entry. Once the gland or the flashing lets go, rain runs down the outside of the cable, through the penetration and along the ceiling batten. A $130 reseal turns into a plaster repair, and a Bunbury winter can deliver a fortnight of steady rain without a break.
- Leaving a mast where the wind can lever it. A half-detached mast is a lever with a heavy antenna on the end. It works its remaining fixings loose, then goes over the gutter into the neighbour’s yard or onto a car.
- Water still sitting in the coax. Water wicks a surprising distance along a damaged cable and corrodes the copper as it travels. Every week you leave it, more of the run has to be replaced instead of just the last metre.
Safe to do yourself, and what is genuinely dangerous
Do these yourself, happily
- Retune every TV, and test each one on a different wall plate with a known-good fly lead.
- Unplug and re-plug the amplifier power supply, and check the outlet it is on has not been switched off at the wall or at the switchboard.
- Hand-tighten an F connector at the wall plate. Finger tight plus a nip is right; pliers crush the dielectric and make the fault worse.
- Photograph the antenna from the ground with the longest zoom your phone has, from two different angles. That is genuinely useful to us and to an insurer.
- Take the set-top box or recorder out of the chain and plug the aerial lead straight into the TV to rule the box out.
Do not do these
- Do not go on the roof. Falls from height are the injury that ends careers in this trade, and WA work health and safety law requires proper fall controls above 2 metres for good reason. A wet Bunbury tile roof in July has close to no grip, and Colorbond with a light dew on it is worse.
- Do not touch anything near an overhead line. Keep yourself, a ladder and any mast at least 3 metres from an overhead power line. An aluminium ladder against a line is a fatality, not a fright.
- Do not cut, splice and tape a damaged lead-in and re-energise the amplifier. You will drive water further into the run, and you will destroy the evidence an insurer wants to see.
- Do not drill into fibro eaves or sheeting on a pre-1990 house. Asbestos cement is common in older Withers, Carey Park and South Bunbury homes, and drilling it is regulated work in WA.
- Do not let anyone put up a bigger antenna as a guess. If nobody has metered the signal, nobody knows what the fault is. Read how to choose an antenna installer before you agree to anything on the spot.
After-hours callout versus waiting until Monday
We work Monday to Saturday, 7am to 6pm. Here is the honest arithmetic on paying to jump the queue.
| When | What it costs | Worth paying for? |
|---|---|---|
| Next available weekday slot | $130 to $280 all-in for a repair and retune | Yes. This is the right choice for almost every picture fault. |
| Same-day priority, weekday | Add roughly $60 to $90 | Only if the property is being handed over, inspected or listed that week. |
| Saturday booking | Add roughly $60 to $90 | Fair enough when nobody can be home midweek. |
| Sunday or public holiday make-safe | $250 to $450 minimum before parts | Yes if the antenna is loose or water is coming in. No if the picture is simply out. |
Put plainly: a $250 to $450 Sunday visit to restore a television picture buys you one evening of viewing for most of the price of a new antenna. Waiting until Monday costs nothing, changes nothing and keeps the money in your pocket. Paying the premium makes sense when the roof, the ceiling or a settlement date is at stake, and not otherwise. If storm damage is involved, read the insurance claim guide before you authorise a full replacement, because the order in which you do things changes what gets paid.
When it is not an emergency at all
We would rather talk you out of a callout than take your money for a visit you did not need. These are the ones we regularly stand down over email.
- A single missing channel after a retune. Broadcasters move and rename services from time to time. Another full retune, with the antenna connected, fixes it for nothing.
- Pixelation on one channel only, at one time of day. That is interference, not a broken antenna. It is worth logging for a week before anyone climbs anything.
- A new TV with no picture on the antenna input. Nine times out of ten the tuner is set to the wrong source, or the region was set wrongly in the setup wizard.
- A caravan or annexe with poor reception at a South West park. That is a site and terrain problem rather than a fault. See caravan and RV antennas.
- Streaming has stopped but the antenna channels are fine. That is the internet connection, and no antenna technician can help you with it.
If you are weighing up whether to keep repairing an old head at all, the replace-or-repair guide works through the break-even point, and why is my TV signal bad in Bunbury covers the Mount Lennard path and the coastal blocks in more detail. A well-installed antenna in this climate should not need us more than once every few years, and if yours does, replacing it usually costs less over five years than repeatedly repairing it. The coastal maintenance schedule sets out what actually keeps one alive out here, and the service areas page shows how far south and east we travel.
Frequently asked questions
Is a dead TV antenna an emergency?
Rarely. A picture fault can safely wait for a normal booking, and holding off from Sunday to Monday saves the $60 to $90 priority fee or the $250 to $450 weekend minimum. It becomes genuinely urgent when the antenna or mast is loose on the roof, when water is tracking down the lead-in into the ceiling, or when any part of the install is near an overhead power line.
How much does a same-day antenna repair cost in Bunbury?
A standard antenna repair and retune is $130 to $280 in 2026 and that figure already includes the callout and the diagnosis. A same-day priority slot inside our Monday to Saturday hours adds roughly $60 to $90. A Sunday or public holiday attendance starts around $250 to $450 before any parts.
Why did every TV channel disappear at once?
When every TV in the house dies at the same moment the fault is almost always upstream of the TVs: a failed masthead amplifier or its plug pack, water in the lead-in coax, a corroded F connector, or an antenna that has swung on the mast. Those repairs sit in the $130 to $280 band unless the antenna head itself has to be replaced, which is $340 to $580 in marine grade.
Can I climb up and look at the antenna myself?
We would rather you did not. The WA work at height rules exist because roof falls are the common serious injury in this trade, and a Bunbury tile or Colorbond roof after rain is genuinely slippery. Everything useful can be checked from the ground and from inside the house, and if anything is within 3 metres of an overhead power line it is a job for the electricity network operator, not for you and not for us.
The picture only breaks up on hot summer nights. Is something broken?
Usually not. Warm still nights over the Indian Ocean create a temperature inversion that lets distant transmitters interfere with the local signal, and it clears when the weather turns. If it happens all year round rather than on still summer evenings, the antenna aim, the amplifier gain or a nearby mobile tower is the likelier cause and it is worth a $130 to $280 diagnosis.
What is a make-safe visit and what does it cost?
A make-safe is the short visit that stops the damage getting worse: we take down or secure the loose antenna and mast, cap and seal the coax where it enters the roof, and photograph everything before it is moved. It runs $180 to $320 in Bunbury and it is the visit an insurer expects you to arrange straight away, with the full replacement booked separately once a decision is made.
Get a price
Tell us the symptom and we will tell you if it can wait
Send the details now and you get an honest read on urgency plus a fixed price by return, within one business day, with no obligation to book.
Antenna down, or picture out, anywhere in the South West?
Repairs and retunes from $130. Make-safe visits from $180. Fixed written price before we start.