with digital tv aust wide is a top set box still required

If you have a digital Telly you don't need a set top box. Unless of course you want to use satellite telly, then you do, along with a sat dish etc.

Notso is correct, if your TV is digital already you do not need a set top box.

As you have a set top box it very likely means your telly does not have a digital tuner built in. You will still need to use the set top box if your telly only received the old analogue signal.

If however you have upgraded your telly recently then you should not need the set top box once the new telly is tuned in properly.

Cheers, Bruce.

Thanks members - my caravan internal TV is digital however whilst at Tambo last year we were only able to receive restricted free to air mainly Channel 2 and Southern Cross 7 - we are off again in late March via the same inland route and just wondered whether to take another electrical item. The hubby watches on another digital TV in the annexe however that is connected to the satellite dish so he can watch his beloved rugby on Friday, Sat and Sunday nights.

In remote country areas you will be out of range of TV stations.
For coverage in these areas a set top box won’t achieve anything.
You will need a Satellite disk and a decoder box (not to be confused with a set top box).

Just a caveat, When we were at Weipa the local TV was analogue as it was a rebroadcast of digital presumabley satellite ABC.
I don't know for sure but maybe there are still some aboriginal communities that rebroadcast digital satellite as analogue.
This doesn't really solve anything re set top boxes as AFAIK nearly all TVs sold these days are only digital. in these places if there are still any left A STB would not receive unless it had an analogue tuner.
Regards Philip A

Thanks all once again - we were at Tambo early March 2013 so acknowledge that full coverage now available.
We will be passing thru yet again early April 2014 so will let you know if we were successful.
I may have confused use of top-set box with vast system which we use with the satellite dish - I may have to invest in a splitter system so hubby can continue to watch his rugby and I can watch what I want. I will post if successful - thanks again

This link will give you all terrestrial broadcasting services in Oz. Extract the .ZIP file and open it in a spreadsheet. You will see tabs at the bottom for each class of service, click on the one you want.

You can sort the data by state and extract each state separately by copying and pasting into new documents. I then sort the data by the Northings column so the sort order is from the south of the state to the north.

You may just have to re-tune the channels in, when travelling through different parts of the country.