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Brian Butterworth published on UK Free TV For the last six years, I have answered many thousands of personal emails that you have sent to UK Free TV.
Sadly, I am unable to offer this personal service at the moment.
Until I can restore this service, please can you leave any questions you have on an appropriate page, where they will be answered as soon as possible, or below, if you can't figure out where to ask.
I look forward to your questions!
Help with TV/radio stations?
In this section
Friday, 20 April 2012
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sparky12:06 PM
Hemel Hempstead
dave, i have just done an autotune to see if these channels would revert,channels 810-819 have disappeared,all other channels still working ok,including bbc channels,i have also notice in the signal checking bit that channel 44 has disappered,this is a channel on the hemel hempstead transmitter,i wonder if this could have been interfering with the cp signal.
on the old digihome it would indicate what transmitter it was scanning ,the humax does not seem to show this unless i am missing something.
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sparky's: mapS's Freeview map terrainS's terrain plot wavesS's frequency data S's Freeview Detailed Coverage
sparky: The signals from Hemel Hempstead cannot interfere with those of Crystal Palace. They can, however, be stored as the "main" channels but this may only happen at the automatic tuning stage when the box makes its "decision" as to which BBC One to go with, which ITV1 to go with etc.
You can eliminate the possibility of picking up Hemel Hempstead by unplugging your aerial during the tuning scan when it gets to 30%. All of HH's channels are above this and CP's are below.
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Saturday, 21 April 2012
B
betty_chienne10:12 AM
Kingston Upon Thames
Dear jb38 and Dave: Many thanks for your kind help and tips! I will try the set top aerial idea and report back...
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betty_chienne's: mapB's Freeview map terrainB's terrain plot wavesB's frequency data B's Freeview Detailed Coverage
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tony9:38 PM
Peterlee
my digi box hasnt worked since thursday but the one upstairs works i tried swapping them over and still nothing someone said that the transmitter is down. is this right if so whens it going to be up and running again. i live in peterlee, county durham
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tony's: mapT's Freeview map terrainT's terrain plot wavesT's frequency data T's Freeview Detailed Coverage
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iain11:35 PM
hi jb38 did you find any info for me starting to get real annoyed now still nothing tried grundig but they dont even reply
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Sunday, 22 April 2012
J
jb3812:10 AM
sparky: Just spotted your update on events.
Regarding the settings you see when on the manual tune screen of your box, do not alter anything that's pre-set as far as the bandwidth (or anything else) you see is concerned, as the bandwidth is the standard spacing between channels in the UK system, and therefore any alteration to this will cause confusion in the tuner as you will be bringing artificial offsets into the equation of a far worse nature than already exists in some UK muxes with either plus or minus offsets.
Also, and as touched on in my previous posting, I can tell you that you are not achieving anything with that type of aerial you are using and should discard it in favour of something more in line with what I suggested, as you should appreciate that the debatable higher gain claimed for these type of aerials brings with it the penalty of them being super directional, this meaning than unless they 100% absolutely perfectly razor sharp aligned on the signal then their performance is worse than from a small contract type aerial, as the numerous directors (elements) you see whose whole purpose is to direct the signal towards the active element of the aerial (in front of the reflector) can actually partially block the signal from getting to it if the aerial is the merest fraction off being perfectly aligned, because as well as the directors then acting like partial screens any signal that is directed will be wasted by being focused towards a small part of the active element or even onto the reflector, this defeating the whole object of the design.
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jb3810:41 AM
iain: Unfortunately I haven't, as not only have I enquired at two of the service depots I have contact with, searching for info there only to find that the minimum of service information has been supplied and with none of appropriate to what I was seeking, of course when dealing with TV's that use variants of PCB's manufactured by Vestel (Turkey) this is nothing unusual.
The only thing that did make me wonder was the fact of you stating that it was originally BBC3 that you lost as that's on the main PSB mux, and so if anything had glitched during scanning it would have been corrected with a subsequent full scan after resetting the TV, but now that you have lost all channels then its either a case that the tuner has completely packed in or that the tuner is not capable of dealing with the new transmission modes, as you have verified that the problem is not caused by an excessive level of signal by the test being done with the set top aerial.
I realise that Argos was the main source of this model so it might be of interest to give them a call and "attempt" (debatable if they would tell you) to find out if the problem you have is common knowledge to them.
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sparky12:28 PM
sparky:
Hi jb38
Thanks for your reply.
Following the 7mhz scan every thing worked perfectly,even recording all channels,the epg was in the correct order and the 800 series BBC channels have disappeared.(the ITV ones are still there but nothing on them),the signal was still being reported as 8mhz though.
The only anomaly was on the BBC channel recordings they were marked as channel 800 series although they were in position 1,2 etc. I then took the set top aerial upstairs and extended the co-ax up to one of the front bedroom windows facing CP and did a full auto-rescan(at first with no aerial plugged in).
I achieved a 51% signal /100 quality with this set-up and the Humax seems to work fine,no breaking up ,no noise on the picture and recording with the correct channels indicated in the epg.
The only thing that I think could have been incorrect is that the wideband was picking up channel 44 from the Hemel Hempstead relay (despite not pointing in that direction and in fact being horizontal opposed to it) and as Dave said,putting them in the position 1,2 etc in the epg.
On this latest rescan channel 44 is not shown in the signal section,another channel has appeared (channel 59 but there is no signal on this ) whereas channel 44 was showing sporadic 48 to 55 signal strength.
I have now reconnected the wideband aerial and the signal/quality is about the same (with out the amp)with the amp it is about 72signal /100 quality but the picture has stayed the about the same.
Apart from that I don,t know what the problem was,it seems this digital stuff is a bit more prickly than the old system and as I have read on the atv aerial site it is something of a black art,,if you had snow on the picture on the old system you probably had a signal problem!
I still think the old FM system was better quality,the picture quality on this Humax makes skin tones look pasty just like the satellite signals.
Anyway, I will replace the aerial with one of your suggestions, and use sat grade co-ax to top it off,I hope they stop fiddling around with stuff now.
Thanks again for your help, and Daves too.
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L Bea4:27 PM
BUSH DFTA11/A FREEVIEW SET-TOP BOX
Why has my BUSH(DFTA11) freeview set top box stop showing all channels after the digital switchover on 18-Apr-2012?
I ran re-scan/re-install and still no channels appear. The INFo. shows the channel numbers and program names correctly, but no picture nor sound. The signal strength is full, but nothing.
Please can someone tell me what is wrong with my box.
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Andrew8:12 PM
Is there anyway I can get PCNE [Chinese station] on my non-subscription Sky box or with additional box or card please?
Would it also be possible for the extra sky room box to work as it did when subscribed to Sky?
Thanks.
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