COME 3.30pm, many of us will be busy retuning one, maybe even two TVs as all free-to-air channels change frequencies across Hervey Bay.

However, spare a thought for Ron Jones, maintenance manager at Torbay Retirement Village, as he takes on the challenge of retuning hundreds of television sets in one afternoon.

"There are probably about 200 TVs and the majority of the residents would be relying on us to retune them," Ron said.

"We've just had three days warning that the retune was happening. We've put flyers around to all of our residents that they may experience disruptions to their television signal.

"We've got a crew of about five or six and we'll probably have to go around individually and doing one section at a time.

"Television is a big part of life for residents here, so it is important we get them done as quickly as possible."

The retune, which takes place today, will only affect viewers receiving their television signal from the Hervey Bay tower as residents who receive their TV signal from the Wide Bay tower will be set for retune later in the year.

The move is part of the national retune program that aims to free up broadcasting spectrum for new services such as mobile broadband services.

After channels have changed, viewers will need to retune their digital TV, set-top box or digital TV recorder to find the channels that have moved.

Retuning should not be done until after 3.30pm as channels won't move until then.

How to do it

• Retuning is done using the remote. For most systems press the 'menu' button on the remote.
• Look for settings such as 'channels' or 'auto- tuning' and follow the prompts to retune.