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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, 21 December 2012
Martin H: Stockland Hill's COMs (those channels that the Pennsylvania transmitter does not carry) are on the same UHF channels (frequencies) as Rowridge's COMs. They are also on lower power than the PSBs which is probably so as to reduce the area of clashes between the two.
The predictor takes into account factors it thinks are relevant including the degradation from other stations (interference).
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jb381:07 PM
Viv Gunton: In addition to that already said by KMJ,Derby and Dave Lindsay, as far as your type of query is concerned its essential that anyone offering assistance has knowledge of a persons location, yours at no time having been mentioned, this info being required purely for the purpose of assessing the signal levels expected wherever a person might be located within the stations coverage area, and with the assessment being made with reference to a useful technical facility called DUK's reception predictor, but one that can only be accessed via a post code or at least one from somewhere nearby, such as a shop, post office etc.
The other point to note being, that its also useful to know the model number of the receiver (TV or box) that a person is using, as some equipment is known to perform much better than others when operating under iffy reception conditions and where lower level atmospheric changes play a part in reception, something which unfortunately exists in many areas albeit that this fact only showed up when the much more critical digital service commenced, as prior to that when reception was via analogue the only indication of an unsatisfactory signal level was by variable (and intermittent) levels of grainy pictures being seen, or maybe even occasional spells of ghosting being noticed to the right hand side of the image.
Just thought that I would point these facts out as its not always understood why certain questions are asked.
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Saturday, 22 December 2012
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Viv Gunton11:39 AM
jb38 & Dave Lindsay: thanks for your help. The next time I have time to spare I will search for the signal strength.
Meanwhile: postcode is RG291PH, the TV is a Sony Bravia KDL-26V40xx and the aerial is routed through a Sony RDR HXD995.
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jb3812:33 PM
Viv Gunton: Thanks for the updated info, and which reveals that you are located at just under 14 miles away from the Hannington transmitter which is on a bearing of 285 degrees from your location.
Crystal Palace is also indicated at 40 miles away on a bearing of 71 degrees and these two stations are indicated as being roughly equal for reception possibilities as far as reliability is concerned.
However, on looking at what you have mentioned regarding your set up there is one thing that I would advise changing, that being not to route your TV's signal through the recorder as that can reduce its level, and in situations such as yours its always best to use a two way powered splitter which not only supplies each device with the same level of signal, but also gives each output a slight boost, and judging by what you had initially reported I feel that your signal would benefit from receiving a slight boost.
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Viv Gunton: The manual for that TV is here:
http://pdf.crse.com/manua….pdf
Page 27 says that the signal level can be viewed via the menu:
Settings > Digital Set-up > Digital Set-up > System Information
Along with the signal strength, receivers usually give the UHF channel (frequency) to which they are tuned. This allows the user to check to see that it is tuned to the correct transmitter (the one to which the aerial faces). It is a good idea to ensure that you are tuned to the correct transmitter.
From Crystal Palace, ITV3 is on C25 and from Hannington it is on C41.
If it is wrong, then unplugging aerial trick should work as each transmitter uses frequencies that aren't intermingled and therefore scanned at different times. Should this be the case, then let us know.
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R H Yorke2:17 PM
Sometimes the Guide for selection of programmes to be recorded has gaps and even complete omission of a channel particularly C4 and C5 . I have 2 TVs off a split aerial and whilst the one Guide is OK the other one may not be This happens enough to be very frustrating ----- your help would be vry much appreciated
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jb384:49 PM
R H Yorke: On the occasions where you find that Ch4 or Ch5 is missing is ITV1, ITV2 or More 4 also missing? because these are all on the same mux transmitter.
Your location and circumstances are unknown, but type of problem is frequently associated with viewers who reside in slightly iffy reception areas whereby the signal is varying in level & quality (particularly the latter) during any auto-tuning that's carried out, something that can this cause corruption in the data being loaded.
There really isn't anything you can do about this other than to carry out another auto-tune and hope that it loads OK, but though it "might" correct the problem if you carry out a "manual" tune on the mux channel involved and save the results.
Another and better method is to delete all the channels stored in the memory by carrying out a first time installation but stopping before it carries out the auto-tune as you want to manually tune in the mux concerned, then after checking the EPG list to ensure that these programmes are there (as only programmes on the mux scanned will be) then use the "add channels" facility to populate the EPG again.
Manual tuning is always being better anyway as when a channel is being scanned its not getting pulled along by the band (21 - 69) scanning circuitry.
By the way, although an iffy reception area was referred to it should be noted that this can also happen if the signal is verging on being excessively strong, as the symptoms experienced when in both these type of situations is exactly the same.
Unable though to advise on the mux channel to scan as your location is unknown, this having to be in the form or a post code, or at least from somewhere nearby such as a shop etc.
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alex6:35 PM
i have a freeview pvr box, and a logic digital tv. As the tele can't record, but the digi box can. can i connect the two or will the fact that they are both receiving a signal mess things up? My mum had a virgin tv box connected to a freeview tv and it constantly seemed to be playing up! not sure if that was because the systems wont work together, or my mum's technical knowledge!! Thanks
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alex: You can connect both and both can be receiving different channels without interfering with one another.
I'm not familiar with the V Box, but I am wondering if there is no need to feed the terrestrial aerial lead through it. Presumably all the channels you watch come from the cable connection and you watch via a scart lead, so I can't see that feeding the aerial into the V Box and out and into the TV performs any function. In which case, I would just feed the aerial into the TV (or via the PVR you intend to add).
If a reason is subsequently discovered that necessitates it to go via the V Box, then you can always put it back.
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Sunday, 23 December 2012
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alan10:27 AM
I have just changed from freeview to free sat so i have a dvd digital recorder that is now redundant.In another room I have freesky via a Pace box Is it possible to connect my freeview dvd recorder to this.
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