menuMENU    UK Free TV logo Archive (2002-)

 

 

Click to see updates

Some UK Free upgrades

There have been some upgrades to UK Free TV to deal with new information. This includes various maps, the analogue and DAB radio pages, and fixes for the transmitter information system.

There have been some upgrades to UK Free TV to deal with new in
published on UK Free TV

Over the last week I have installed a number of fixes to UK Free TV. Some of these are in the "backend" and should make the site run faster.

Automatic map area selection

When you select an map of multiple transmitters, such as Details of 12D/Leeds DAB multiplex or BBC West the map now automatically zooms to show all the transmitters.

Radio and DAB pages

Pages such as List of all DAB multiplexes now show the lists of transmitters or multiplexes in multiple columns, making the pages much easier to read. There are two new colours for the new DAB "blocks" of 05A and 10C.

Also, the import of radio and DAB pages is now set to happen daily, rather than manually. This means new services (such as 05A Oxfordshire service) will appear automatically.

Faster conversion of URLs

I have improved the way that the automatic conversion of posted links in comments are changed to actual links - for "trusted" sites these are displayed much quicker than before.

Better HTML

A number of issues relating the HTML on each page have been corrected, so the pages now always "validate", and there is always the correct tags for text-to-speech software.

Better email notifications

The pages used to select email notifications have been updated to the current "style".

Faster pages

The UK Free TV site uses the "APC" system to improve performance. By eliminating various bits of very old PHP3 and PHP4 code from the site, the pages compute and load faster.

Updates to transmitter engineering

I have created a list of "alternative transmitter names" to match the output of the BBC engineering system to the names used on UK Free TV. Pages such as BBC Transmitter Engineeering information link directly to all transmitters.

The list of alternative names is:

Barnstaple (Barnstaple Uhf), Beddgelert (Beddgelert Link), Berwick (Berwick-Upon-Tweed), Bexhill (Bexhill Uhf), Bleach Green (Bleachgreen), Brecon (Brecon Uhf), Brighton (Central) (Brighton Central), Bristol Kings Weston (Bristol Kings Weston Hill), Bury St Edmunds (Bury St. Edmunds), Cannongate (Canongate), Cefn Mawr A (Cefn-Mawr), Clacton (Clacton-on-Sea), Coniston (Coniston High Man), Corsham (Corsham Uhf), Craig Cefn Parc (Craig-Cefn-Parc), Cwm Twrch (Cwm-Twrch), Cwmafon (Cwmafan), Derby (Derby Uhf), Dunoon Forest Row (Dunoon), Eastbourne (Old Town) (Eastbourne Old Town), Exeter St Thomas (St. Thomas Exeter), Gartley Moor (Gartly Moor), Glencoyne (Glenridding Link) (Glencoyne), Gorleston on Sea (Gorleston), Grantown Link (Grantown), Ham Street (Hamstreet), Hastings (Old Town) (Hastings Old Town), Hythe Marina (Hythe), Kilbride South Uist (Kilbride), Kirkoswald VP (Kirkoswald), Leicester (Leicester City), Llangollen (Llangollen Uhf), Llangurig (Llangurig Uhf), Lowestoft (Lowestoft Uhf), Manchester Hulme (Hulme), Moel y Sant (Moel-y-Sant), Mynydd Pencareg (Mynydd Pencarreg), Nant Y Moel (Nant-y-Moel), Nottingham (Nottingham Uhf), Ogbourne St George (Ogbourne St. George), Olivers Mount (Oliver'S Mount), Penaligon Down (Penaligon Downs), Perth (Perth Uhf), Peterlee (Peterlee (Horden)), Plymouth North Rd (Plymouth North Road), Plymouth Weston Mill (Weston Mill), Preseli (Presely), Preston (Preston (Weymouth)), Rampisham (Rampisham Uhf), Rhondda (Rhondda B), Ross on Wye (Ross-on-Wye), Rouncefall (new) (Rouncefall), Skriaig (Skye) (Skriaig), St Albans (St. Albans), St Anthony-in-Roseland (St. Anthony in Roseland), St Austell (St. Austell), St Bees (St. Bees), St Briavels (St. Briavels), St Davids (St. Davids), St Dogmaels (St. Dogmaels), St Fillans (St. Fillans), St Just (St. Just), St Marks (St. Marks), St Neot (St. Neot), Stavely In Cartmel (Staveley-in-Cartmel), Tarbert (Tarbert Loch Fyne), Tarbert (Harris) (Tarbert Harris), Trefor B (Trefor), Walton Le Dale (Walton-le-Dale), Washford (Washford Uhf), Wells next the Sea (Wells-next-the-Sea), Whitehaven (Whitehaven Uhf), Worlds End (World'S End), Wrexham Rhos (Wrexham-Rhos), Ynysowen (Ynys Owen), and Lochgoilhead AD (Lochgoilhead Link).

All questions
BBC Three Linear channel re-opens1
Removing all barriers to communication between diverse cultures2
How do I get a test card with Freeview3
What can I do when my Sky Digibox says 'No Signal' or 'Technical fau4
Can I receive UK TV in Ghana?5
In this section
Seeing something different? We are doing A/B testing on a new Material Design1
Please share your thoughts about UK FREE TV2
The next 50 things on UK FREE TV. What would you like to see? 3
UK Free TV now uses friendly web addresses4
Best ever emails and improved menus on UK FREE TV5
Use the Knowledge base to find answers to your technical problems6

Comments
Monday, 24 December 2012
K
Keith
4:17 PM

Briantist: Re my post of 19th Dec and your reply, thanks. In fact, the TV does have a DVB-T2 tuner built in (checked with handbook!), so I tried a retune and VOILA! HD's come back! The auto tuning routine gives a signal quality indication, 1 best, and I can see that the SD channels are quality 3 but the HD is only quality 4. My guess is that the previous retune may have been done at a time of particularly poor reception (we have occasionally lost other channels in very poor weather), but all now works... at least for the time being! Thanks.

link to this comment
Keith's 2 posts GB flag
C
Charles Stuart
sentiment_satisfiedSilver

7:09 PM

May I offer a suggestion for the next site upgrade? The national transmitter maps are almost unusable, particularly for radio. This is because there are so many transmitters that the tags sit on top of each other. Could I suggest that you adopt the approach used in road atlases, though in modified form? That is, a map of the UK cut into squares. One clicks on a square to see the transmitters in that area. The squares can be different sizes, as long as they cover the whole country and the transmitters shown don't overlap when displayed in an average-sized window. If one still wants to see an overview of all transmitters on one map, you could offer a link to that.

I think that my idea would make searching for transmitters by location on a map much easier.

link to this comment
Charles Stuart's 159 posts GB flag
Tuesday, 25 December 2012
Briantist
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

11:23 AM

Charles Stuart: The "zoom" option provided by Google Maps API already provides what you ask for. Just zoom in using the slider on the left (or "pinch and zoom" if you are using a touchscreen).

link to this comment
Briantist's 38,915 posts GB flag
C
Charles Stuart
sentiment_satisfiedSilver

12:38 PM

I find the zoom function very hard to use. It always seems to zoom into the wrong part of the country and then using the arrows to move to where I want is slow and laborious. Is there some trick to getting the thing to zoom in on the right area in the first place?

link to this comment
Charles Stuart's 159 posts GB flag
Briantist
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

2:10 PM

Charles Stuart: It zooms in on the center. You can double click on the map to zoom into a particular area.

link to this comment
Briantist's 38,915 posts GB flag
Wednesday, 26 December 2012
D
Doug
12:21 PM

You have nothing about the uk tv transmitters in the Channel Islands

link to this comment
Doug's 6 posts GB flag
Thursday, 27 December 2012
B
b horner
10:06 AM

i only get freeview channels in wet wheather andloose channel 1 2 3 4 5 why is this ?

link to this comment
b horner's 1 post GB flag
M
Mazbar
sentiment_satisfiedGold

2:09 PM

b horner : the most likely problem is broken cable letting in water or the cap on the aerial has detached

link to this comment
Mazbar's 384 posts GB flag
Tuesday, 1 January 2013
N
Nick
8:37 PM

Hi, I have very poor reception of the ch.59 mux on the Oxford transmitter on my Panasonic freeview tv although the separate freeview pvr is ok. I have tried manually tuning ch.59 and it shows full strength but I notice it reports 778.00 MHz rather than 777.8 MHz. Can I try anything else?

link to this comment
Nick's 2 posts GB flag
Select more comments
Page 2

Your comment please
Please post a question, answer or commentUK Free TV is here to help people. If you are rude or disrespectful all of your posts will be deleted and you will be banned.







Privacy policy: UK Free Privacy policy.