With the necessary upgrades to transmission towers atop Mt Mackenzie now complete, local viewers have begun receiving full high definition transmissions of Southern Cross 10 and its affiliated channels, including One sport.

Southern Cross Broadcasting finished upgrades to the FM radio tower on Mt Mackenzie last week, strengthening the tower and installing new equipment needed for it to begin broadcasting digital signals.

Southern Cross Channel 10 HD and One HD began broadcasting test transmissions at 1pm on Friday. People with HD set-top boxes or integrated HD flat-screen television can tune into the new broadcast on channel 61 or on 760.5 megahertz, though Southern Cross Broadcasting representatives said viewers may experience some outages while the broadcast is in test stages during the coming month.

Currently, NBN and Prime digital services are not broadcasting from Mt Mackenzie and the Tenterfield Star understands that neither channel plans to begin transmissions before the end of 2012. Both ABC and SBS and their related channels already broadcast in full HD from Mt Mackenzie.

Ron Roosmalen, Network Transmission Manager for Southern Cross Broadcasting, said the towers were now ready for NBN and Prime digital equipment but the decision to upgrade was with the broadcasters themselves.

Four riggers and up to four Southern Cross Broadcasting staff worked on the FM tower throughout last week. Mr Roosmalen said the windy weather played havoc with the workmen and was the cause for interruptions to the FM service in Tenterfield during the week.

Analogue TV broadcasts in Tenterfield will cease between July 1 and December 31, 2012. Mr Roosmalen said he expected some people to wait until that period before they upgraded their television but said that those viewers would receive regular warnings of the forthcoming termination before the analogue service is switched off.

Broadcasts from the Darling Downs to southeast Queensland, including those in Wallangarra, will be officially switched off between July 1 and December 31, 2011 although viewers south of Ballandean have already reported a noticeable drop in broadcast quality.