Buzzy--Bee

State-dependent.

In VIC you can change your own plugs. I think in QLD you can't.

BB

Swerv-o

Yes, don't do this. I doubt you would find an electrician that would be willing to fit UK sockets, despite them being far superior.



Yes, don't get your hopes up that you will be getting good internet speeds. I live in inner city Sydney, and get a massive 3.1 mbps.



Yes, no problems in NSW - you just can't do it in a workplace without a proficiency training course.


S

KJCherokee

How long do you plan to stay in Australia? Unless you are only here for a short time it makes sense to change the plugs on the equipment rather than using extension boards brought from the UK. After all, you may well buy some new appliances whilst you are here - if all your power points are full of UK extension boards you're stuffed!

Yes, in Qld any such work legally has to be performed by an electrician - but the only time doing it yourself would be a concern is if your faulty wiring caused a fire - if there was a fire caused by something else your insurer couldn't refuse to pay out because of an illegally fitted plug.

Amazulu

Surge protection is fine but does not allow for brownouts (low voltage) or single-phasing (loss of phase)

We had a brownout earlier on this year that fried our PC (Western Power paid my claim without any argument)

To avoid this problem, I bought a UPS - which also protects against surge

That bad electrical storm a few weeks ago took out the power lines at the top of our street. The UPS kicked in and shut down the PC as planned. There was the added benefit of continued wifi and internet as I have the router and modem connected to it too. When power was restored after 4 hours, it single-phased and there were brownouts with intermittent cuts into the night. The UPS handled them all with ease

Amazulu

Get a UPS

Another big electrical storm going on at the moment. A think the telephone and power lines got hit as both the internet and power dropped out but the UPS kicked in and did its job

westom

Brownouts never damage properly designed electronics. An international design standard that has existed long before the PC even existed.

Brownouts can be potentially harmful to motorized appliances. But normal voltage to PCs is even voltage so low that incandescent bulbs dim to 40% intensity. If voltage drops lower, electronics simply power off - without damage.

Some brownouts can be preceeded by a surge that would well exceed 1000 volts. Then the utility hardware would cut off power or a brownout would follow.

No protector adjacent to a computer claims to protect from that type of anomaly. Informed consumers install something completely different (unfortunately also called a surge protector) that makes such transients irrelevant. So irrelevant that the homeowner does not even know a surge existed. These proven 'whole house' protectors come from companies with better integrity including Novaris, Clipsal, and ABB. And (like all protectors) is only effective when connected low impedance (ie 'less than 3 meters') to a single point earth ground.

BTW, a pure sine wave UPS can output 400 volt square waves with a spike of up to 500 volts on the 230 volt power cord. Due to superior surge protection already inside electronics, this 'UPS in battery backup mode' power is ideal. But may be harmful to motorized appliances.

A UPS also does not claim to avert that above discussed surge. Since the surge is done in microseconds. And a UPS takes milliseconds to respond to any changes.

winston_1

The TV won't work in Australia unless you buy a local set top box.

old.sparkles

Not true - some older TV's wont work without a set top box but newer one's should be fine.

winston_1

You are wrong. Australian DVB-T uses VHF and UHF tuning at a 7MHz bandwidth. UK uses UHF only at 8MHz bandwidth. Also the spot channel allocations are different, Australia uses non standard channels.

It is the bandwidth which is the killer.

Pollyana

So have things changed in the last 3-4 years then? Cos its not a common question now but a few years back lots of expats were getting TVs to work by just retuning?
I'm no expert on this, far from it, but I know a lot of people were posting on here and getting assistance with retuning which got their UK tVs to work ok

old.sparkles

Don't think that is true anymore. Certainly my TV has an Australian selection (only cheap Asda TV not some high end buy) and is running fine with no set top box. Of the 4 TV's we bought, 2 connected direct to aerial (one 2 years old, and one a little older), one is used for games and DVD's only but I suspect it wouldn't work being around 8 years old, and one requires a set top box (also around 7 or 8 years old)

winston_1

Interesting. The cheap supermarket TVs are more likely to have an Australian selection. The high end known brands are the main problem. Panasonic in particular are hobbled to only work in one country. Some UK ones won't even work in Ireland.

old.sparkles

Only the newest had the option to set to Australia - the other is set to Germany which also seems to work

winston_1

So if you take your gear across the border, then change the plugs, is it legal to take it back to QLD?

Swerv-o

I would say that without question that any electrical work done out of state would need to be re-certified by a locally accredited and licenced electrician, to ensure that it conforms with the new state's regulations...


S