Free-to-air television channels SBS and Southern Cross Ten were due to change their frequencies yesterday, but as the retune occurred a number of people experienced problems with the channels on their television.

Viewers were told to expect disruptions to their service, including outages, on the day of the retune and over the two days following. 

Bing Lee in Bathurst was among those that suffered a service disruption, with all its display televisions coming up blank from early in the day.

“From approximately 9.30am this morning we’ve had no signals on our TVs,” assistant manager Warren Coggan said yesterday.

“It makes it a bit hard to sell TVs.”

But, despite the disruption and having to field calls from around the Central West all day, Mr Coggan remained optimistic about the retune.

“It’s a long period of time, but in the end we’ll have high definition, sharp pictures,” he said.

The retune was to be completed at 3.30pm, after which residents who receive their signal from the Bathurst East Tower had to retune their televisions.

Anyone who has yet to do this can do so through their remote controls. For most systems, viewers should press the ‘menu’ button on the remote, look for settings such as ‘channels’ or ‘auto-tuning’, then follow the prompts to retune. 

A video and three-step guide to retuning is available on the retune website. Those having trouble should contact the Digital Ready Information Line on 1800 20 10 13, which is available from 8am and 10pm, seven days a week.