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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
Wednesday, 9 May 2012
W
william8:58 PM
London
hi everyone, i am not having a great time with our TVs since the switchover;
we had a communal aerial installed for our whole maisonette, and since we started using that aerial we've had perfect reception, without any scrambling... until the damned switchover.
i've bought an attenuator, which hasn't helped at all; it almost never happens on the BBC channels, interesting, but on the ITV channels, channel 4, film4, channel 5's channels, CITV etc. sky news gets a little scrambling too.
what on earth is this? wasn't the switchover supposed to IMPROVE the signal? it's extrememly frustrating trying to watch a match or a film and have the signal break up into big blocks of frozen image during crucial moments. if someone could help, please let me know what i can do, thanks, william
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william's: mapW's Freeview map terrainW's terrain plot wavesW's frequency data W's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Saturday, 12 May 2012
S
Sandra E Lucas 4:59 PM
can you explain why when the sun hits the outside aerial why l get bad signal on my BBC channels ????????? Thank You From Mrs Lucas.
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Sunday, 13 May 2012
A
Ant10:43 AM
Haslemere
A friend of mine has bought a house off a relative who left her with a freesat service through a basic Sky digibox. She would like to upgrade to a box which will record, pause, rewind etc. I suggested that she get a Sky+ box for this. If she bought a refurbished Sky+ box from Amazon or somewhere like that, would she be able to use the same card? If not, how should she go about getting a new card without having to tke out a new subscription to Sky for a year? The only other alternative would seem to be to buy a Foxsat HDR box or an equivalent at a much higher price. Any advice gratefully accepted.
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Ant's: mapA's Freeview map terrainA's terrain plot wavesA's frequency data A's Freeview Detailed Coverage
J
jb381:05 PM
Ant: A Sky+ box without a subscription being in force is in effect just an ordinary Sky box and nothing more than that, Sky permanently retaining access to the boxes recording or playback facilities and only allowing its use if a subscription is taken out by the user, which I believe is £10.00 per month although this best checked on with Sky as the figure is not necessarily up to date
Another problem could exist though regarding the dish that's already installed, being that if its an old standard Sky installation then the LNB on the dish will only have a single output and a twin output is required for recording purposes, with this being applicable whether it be Sky+ or a Freesat HDR and so the LNB on the dish would require to be changed to a dual type, although its better to fit a quad type as that would give two spare outlet ports as well as the fact that a quad block kit can be obtained for as little as £10.00 or so from various e-bay outlets, this making it somewhat short sighted to fit a dual type as its always handy to have a spare outlet should one fail, the only other thing being required is a suitable length of satellite grade coax.
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Monday, 14 May 2012
C
Chris9:21 AM
Westgate-on-sea
Hi,
I hope that this is the right place for this. I use Freesat as opposed to Freeview and I receive TV using a Technisat HDFS receiver. Until recently I was able to receive the day's EPG but as of the last month or so When I look in the morning to see what is on in the evening all I get is the message "No Programme information available" and I often get this message up to an hour before a programme starts.
At first I thought it might be a problem due to maintenance or engineering work but the problem has gone on for so long that I think it must be something else. The question is, what?
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Chris's: mapC's Freeview map terrainC's terrain plot wavesC's frequency data C's Freeview Detailed Coverage
L
Liam Boyle8:02 PM
Peterborough
Hi,
I am having a few problems since retuning, as advised by the latest on screen message. My postcode is PE3 8LD and I am tuned to the Sandy transmitter (but see below).
Problem 1.
My main tv is a recently purchased Samsung LED model. The aerial is external on a 3 metre pole and was replaced when I went digital. I also have a signal booster. I can get all the channels I should.....but, I now get BBC Look North, from Belmont presumably, instead of BBC Look East which is a complete mystery bearing in mind the aerial points at Sandy, in exactly the opposite direction to Belmont. Am I getting a signal off the back of the aerial? If so, what is the point of aligning it?
Problem 2.
I also have a Sony receiver/HDD recorder and can not now get channels 8,10,27,30,31,38,39,44,47,60,62 and 72. I have cleared out the original channels and replaced them with the retuned ones. There doesn't appear to be any manual tune option with this item.
Problem 3.
I have a secondary Matsui idtv, about 3 years old, which runs off the same aerial as the main tv. This also has it's own booster. I cannot now get channels 10,11,16,19,20,23,25,27,29,30,31,36,37,38,39,43,44,46,49,60,62,72and 82. However, and this is really odd, I do get Look East on it!!
Please use both sides of the paper and show your workings....... : )
Liam
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Liam's: mapL's Freeview map terrainL's terrain plot wavesL's frequency data L's Freeview Detailed Coverage
L
Liam Boyle8:09 PM
Sorry, forgot to say that I have completely reset the Matsui tv and reloaded the channels
L
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Liam Boyle: This one isn't going to be easy.
Refer to the Digital UK Tradeview link beside your posting for the channel numbers used by Belmont and Sandy.
They are neighbouring or a few apart. In some cases a workaround is to unplug the aerial lead for part of the scan. E.g. if all the channels you want are in the 20s, and there are troublesome ones in the 40s, you could unplug the aerial at 30%.
If you can reduce the level of amplification then that might help as it will reduce the level of the unwanted signals and hopefully the Sandy signals will still be strong.
If you can, the answer may be to wipe what's stored and manually tune the five standard definition services (and one HD mux if applicable).
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Tuesday, 15 May 2012
A
Adina12:23 PM
Hi all, took your advice and re-tuned with aerials unplugged. Waited with baited breath but frustratingly still no improvement. Other than robbing the post office to acquire the £150-£300 cost of new aerial fitted and facing Crystal Palace, any other ideas on how I can gain better reception from SE2 area. Just moved from somewhere where the reception was brilliant and now a little piece of me dies each time I switch on the T.V and attempt to try and watch something. Missed that dancing dog and everything! Thanks guys.
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Adina: I looked at your earlier postings and noticed that your aerial is pointing to the Woolwich transmitter.
This is a Public Service Broadcaster (PSB) transmitter only which means that it carries only BBC, ITV1, ITV1+1, ITV2, C4, C4+1, E4, More 4, C5 and the four HD services. If your receiver picks up any of the Commercial channels (ITV3, Pick TV, Yesterday etc) then they are being broadcast from another transmitter and therefore are being picked up with the aerial being in the wrong direction and wrong polarisation so reception may be hit and miss.
What you need to do is ensure that you are tuned to the Woolwich transmitter for the services it broadcasts and not another transmitter such as Crystal Palace.
One reason that your TV may tune to Crystal Palace is because its signals are at the low end of the band of frequencies used for TV. So when it performs the scan, it "might" simply go with the first one it finds. Not all receivers do it this way.
If your aerial faces Woolwich, then what you need to do is go to BBC One and bring up the signal strength screen. Hopefully it will say what UHF channel (equivalent to frequency) it is tuned to. For Woolwich it will be C60 and for Crystal Palace it is C23. Do the same for ITV1. For Woolwich it is C57 and Crystal Palace is C26. If the receiver picks up HD services, then they are on C53 from Woolwich and C30 from Crystal Palace.
If any of these are wrong, then you need to correct them. Because Crystal Palace is at the low end of band and Woolwich is at the high end, you should be able to have the aerial unplugged for the first part of the scan to avoid Crystal Palace; say plug in at 60%. Then check again to see that BBC One and ITV1 are tuned to the channels used by Woolwich.
You will be missing the Commercial channels; those which Woolwich does not broadcast. If your receiver has manual tuning, you may be able to tune in those from Crystal Palace, although you should be mindful that reception of them may be poor because the aerial is facing the wrong way.
For the Commercial channels from Crystal Palace, ITV3 is on C25, Pick TV is C22 and Yesterday is on C28. The programme channels are broadcast in groups, so for each of these three channels, there are others; I've just given you the first service carried on each channel.
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