Mr Les Finn (Parkes Shire Director Technology and Corporate Services) said the Australian Government Department of Communications had notified Parkes of the changes being undertaken in regards to  television reception.

“Some channels are changing frequencies as part of the programme known as Retune,” Mr Finn said.

“The programme will move free-to-air television channels to new frequencies as a means of freeing up space for new services such as mobile broadband.”

Mr Finn said the retune was progressively taking place across Australia throughout this year.

“A number of towers which may affect the Parkes Shire Council area will be retuned,” he said.

“The approximate retune date for Parkes, Tullamore and Trundle has been set for September 3.

“However, according to the website digitalready.gov.au/retune the Peak Hill transmitter will not be retuning.

“It is anticipated the retune date for each location will be confirmed six weeks prior,” Mr Finn said.

Residents wanting further information regarding the retune can do so by accessing the website.

Stay tuned for retune

Some viewers may find some of their equipment will automatically detect changes to the channels and retune itself, or it may prompt them to retune.

If you are missing a free-to-air digital TV channel you will need to retune.

Retuning will follow the same process as that undertaken when you first purchased your TV set.

It is often called ‘auto-tuning’, ‘auto-scanning’ or something similar.

Start by pressing the menu button on your remote then look for your ‘set-up’ options.

The next step will be for you to try and find words like ‘channels’ or ‘auto-tuning’.

You might want to write down your favourite channel, program recording and parental lock settings before you retune, as retuning may delete these settings.