My ITV/C4 Freeview channels have disappeared - what can I do? Is it my SCART ca
Brian Butterworth published on UK Free TV It is a feature of television signals that they can be effected by the weather. Aside from the obvious damaged that can be caused by wind or torrential rain, the onset of summer can cause a more intriguing problem called "inversion".
Basically, when the sun heats up the land, the hot air can get trapped below cold air at high level. This creates an "inversion layer" which acts like a polished mirror to TV signals. This causes two problems: you can receive both the original and a reflected signal from your own transmitter (on analogue TV this appears as "ghosting") or interference from TV transmitters that are normally too far distant.
The ITV/C4 multiplex of channels (ITV-1, ITV-2, ITV-3, ITV-4, CITV, C4, More4, E4, Quizcall) use a transmission "mode" called 64QAM, and it is sadly much more prone to these problems.
So, whilst a loft-mounted aerial will provide reception at some time, it will fail at others. The only real solution is to mount the aerial (or a new Class I aerial) outside on a pole, but some people report that changing the cable from the aerial to the set-top box to the high-grade satellite cable can also help.
The SCART connection, by the way, only carries a single TV picture, not the Freeview transmission multiplexes, so if this is disconnected it will result in degradation to every channel at once.
10:45 PM
s worden: Retuning whilst you had a problem was a bad idea as you've now deleted all your channels which were tuned correctly leaving you with no way of knowing when the problem is fixed. Check all your cables and connectors between the TV and the aerial (as far as those which you can safely access) as the most likely explanation is that something is loose/disconnected or damaged.
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7:28 AM
sorry Ive lost the whole message somewhere.
Ill try again :-)
When I moved in to me house last year I had to use satellite dish that was alreany on a wall to get me freeview channels.
But couple of days ago it all disappeared. Not even one channel.
Ive noticed me freeview box was stuck on a blue light (normally there is no light at all) so I went and bought new one. But still no joy.
I thought that maybe the dish or a cable is broken or damaged so went and bought internal aerial but still nothing.
Finally, had a nose in the loft and found two outdoor aerials. Ive seen cables around the house, but because I havent seen the aerials outside Ive assumed that theyve been cut off somewhere.
Ive tried the cable downstairs but still nothing even with different tv.
Ive tried the one upstairs and its working!!!!!
Can anyone help, please? As Im not sure why the signal downstairs disappeared even though Iwas using satellite dish which is installed high? Hope you can make some sense from it lol. Thank you in advance :-)
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10:58 AM
Kat:
You could not have been using the dish for Freeview as that is only available via ground-based transmitters and the dish would not receive any of those signals, but it does likely receive satellite signals for Freesat or Sky, etc. So the aerial cable you were using was possibly connected to one of the terrestrial aerials you found in your loft. TV aerials are not always mounted outside as many prefer to have them 'hidden' in the loft, partly for aesthetics and partly to protect them from weather extremes.
You need to trace the TV aerial cable, not the satellite cable which is thicker and has a screw-on F connector instead of a coaxial plug, from the downstairs room to where it should meet an aerial in your loft. The working connection upstairs is probably already connected to one of the aerials you've found.
Once you hace traced the cables, check all the connections are sound and that the cable(s) are not damaged and are connected properly to the aerial(s). The dish connections can only be used with a Sky or Freesat box.
Then put your full post code into this website to see which of the over 1000 transmitters serves your location. It will also tell you what channels to tune your TV set to if you can't do it automatically. Your User Manual supplied with the TV will tell you how to do that.
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8:26 PM
Mike P:
Thank you for that, will check it and let you know.
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3:58 PM
Mike P:
The first box Ive had is freesat and Ive managed to get it working. For some reason it was stuck on standby but by continuously pressing power button on the remote Ive managed to get it up and running.
Thank you again for all your help :-)
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10:27 AM
Kat:
Glad you've got the Freesat box working again. If it happens again, you should unplug the mains plug from the wall socket, wait 5 minutes and then plug it back in again and waiter another 5 minutes while the box re-initialises. Then try turn on again with the remote control.
This exchange does illustrate how important it is to describe things accurately.
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9:10 AM
I have no channels 1 - 9 and no BBC News Channel - looks like it is mostly BBC that is missing following Freeview re-allocations.
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9:37 AM
Carole Crooke: First, check for any loose or damaged cables or connections and don't attempt to retune. Please provide a full postcode so we can see which transmitter you're using and your predicted signal strength etc.
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8:44 PM
I've lost my
ITV channels after recent bad weather. I retuned the channels at the time, following the tv prompts but now it looks like that's the problem. What can do please....desperate.
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