All posts by Richard Cooper
Below are all of Richard Cooper's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Jerry: Hi Jerry, The Digital UK website says that the residents of Standean Farm in Patcham should be using Whitehawk Hill, so if you're near that, then you should too! The proper aerial for Whitehawk Hill is a Group E, although a Group C/D would do! You do indeed need to ensure that your aerial is pointing at Whitehawk Hill, which, as you probably realise, that is roughly South/South-East from Patcham centre. Remember that the elements or little rods on the aerial must be orientated horizontally for receiving Whitehawk Hill, not vertically, which you'd use for a Freeview Lite transmitter! You need to bear in mind that Whitehawk Hill doesn't carry multiplexes COM7 & COM8, so even using Whitehawk, there will still be some channels you can't get. If you have a study of this website in a little more depth, you can find all the info you need about what you can expect to get and what you can't get. Remember that you'll have to do 2 full re-tunes to get the max no. of channels. Best to do a re-tune with aerial unplugged (i.e. no signal feed) first, so receiver forgets what's stored in it at present, then replace aerial feed and re-tune again ( after re-aligning aerial to Whitehawk of course!) Richard, Norwich.
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Jerry: Further to my reply timed at 7:13 p.m., the aerial group for Patcham Freeview Lite is the same as the aerial group for Whitehawk (Group E), but the question really is, will you aerial have enough gain to pull in the Whitehawk signal? If you're at the top of a hill, you stand more chance of picking up Whitehawk than if you were down in a dip. Remember that you won't pick up Whitehawk without re-orientating your aerial, changing its polarisation to horizontal AND re-tuning. All three things must be done!!! Richard, Norwich.
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Rachel Gundry: Good morning, Rachel. I think that you will find that it is the prerogative of the broadcasting company to choose which platforms it wishes to use to reach viewers. Al Jazeera English is an international state-funded 24-hour English-language news and current affairs TV channel owned and operated by Al Jazeera Media Network, which has its headquarters in Doha, Qatar. You could, therefore, contact the broadcaster with your comments. I have, however, found an alternative way for you to watch Al Jazeera English! You obviously have a computer with internet connectivity, otherwise you couldn't be sending comments to UKFREE.TV! I have found the website address for the Al Jazeera English 'watch live' TV webstream especially for you. You just copy and paste this link into your web browser and start watching!
Live Stream HD - Al Jazeera English
If your tablet or computer screen is too small, you simply run an HDMI lead from your computer into the HDMI connection on your tv set and then you can watch the live web-stream on your big screen tv again. I hope this advice will help you and restore your viewing of al Jazeera in English, using modern technology, but not Freeview any more! Richard, Norwich. PS My solution only costs the price of an HDMI lead, which is one poun ninety-nine pence plus delivery!
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Mel Ouseley: Hi Mel. I shall do a little investigating and then report back to you. If your house radios all use FM for Radio 2, you will be getting your signal from the Blaen Plwyf transmitter on a frequency of 88.7 megahertz. There are no faults and there is no engineering work on this transmitter. Check that the telescopic aerial rod on the radio is fully pulled out, especially for Radio 2 and try putting it at a slanted angle. Put the radio as high up as possible and near a window. If there is a way of switching from stereo to mono, do that, because mono is easier to pick up when the signal is weaker. If any of your house radios are DAB radios (that stands for 'digital audio broadcasting'), then you get your signals from a number of different transmitters, including Blaen Plwyf, Fishguard and also possibly from Arfon ( but less likely from there). There is no engineering work going on, or any faults occurring on any of these. A DAB radio should have its aerial pulled up to a height of 33 centimetres (13 inches) and should point straight up ( i.e. vertical). As with an FM radio, put the radio as high up as possible and near a window. If you go to the room where your television is you can get Radio 2 out of your tv speakers if you switch your television channel to channel 702. You probably get
your tv signals from the Fishguard relay transmitter and sadly i have to tell you that works is being done on it today, so Radio 2 on Freevew television is not an option today, but usually it would be. Try my tips above for Radio 2 on FM or DAB radios! Hope what I've said will help, Richard, Norwich.
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Sue H: Hi, Sue. I'm very sorry that you and your mother have been so unfortunate as to experience issues with your Freeview reception on such a frequent basis! Engineers were working on the Bluebell Hill transmitter on Friday, but it should be 'all good' again today. Have you CAREFULLY checked everywhere that a coaxial cable (aerial lead) goes into a coaxial plug (aerial plug)? Connections inside these plugs are notorious for fraying, not making proper connections and so on, and so they are well worth checking CAREFULLY! Then, of course, a visual inspection is necessary outside. Has the aerial swung round, so as not to point to Bluebell Hill, which is half-way between Maidstone and Chatham. Have a look at neighbours' aerials and compare yours with theirs! Is it a problem to do with tree leaves or any other obstruction blocking the line of sight from Bluebell Hill to your aerial? That can be a significant factor at this time of year when trees increase their foliage. Finally, have you re-tuned correctly? Re-tune first with the aerial completely unplugged. this is to reset the receiver's memory. Bear in mind this will cause it to forget any favourite channels or recording timer settings, but these can be re-inputted again later! Then re-connect the aerial lead and re-tune again. Good Luck. I'd hate you to give up on Freeview when you're in an area that should receive a good signal!!! Richard, Norwich.
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Andy Parrett: Hi again, Andy. as long as you have THOROUGHLY checked the aerial lead connections from the aerial socket wall plate in your tv viewing room, right through to the tv set, then it rather sounds as if you need to go up into the loft and check the booster. The key thing is to ensure that no dampness has got into the electronics inside its plastic packaging. For safety reasons, make sure it isn't getting any power supplied to it before you pull it apart. Often, boosters like this get their power sent up to them along the aerial cable, but not always. Sometimes they are plugged into a mains socket in the loft! If the booster's electronics look dry and there are no signs of dampness at all, check its plug wiring and fuse if it has a plug., replacing its fuse if necessary. The booster could have failed completely due to use over many years and a failed booster, instead of boosting your signal, does the opposite: it cuts down or 'attenuates' the signal, which is what I think could be happening in your case. To ascertain whether you have a booster which has failed, take it completely out of your system. Without the booster 'in circuit', you'll have to find a way of joining the aerial lead from the aerial back to the lead which finds its way down into your viewing room. Don't try to get away with twisting wires together! I would suggest you put an aerial plug on the end of the aerial lead that comes from the aerial and another one on to the end of the lead that comes up from downstairs. Join them with a double female coax connector. alternatively, put a female connector on the lead from the aerial and a male on the end of the lead from downstairs and plug the male into the female. Go downstairs, switch everything back on ( except the out of line booster!) and see if the signal coming down without the booster has sufficient strength and quality to give you the channels yiu want. If not, you could either buy a new booster or, in my opinion, a better idea, replace the ten year old aerial with a brand new multi-element Group'T' ('Total band') aerial which will last you until 2019 when it will need to be changed again due to a reshuffle of the channels from Tacolneston. Come back and let us know how you get on, Richard.
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s Hirons: Hi, S Hirons. I would agree with MikeB, that you need to thoroughly check the whole of your aerial installation, from whether the aerial is in good condition and still pointing in the correct direction, through to the condition of the down-lead, the connection from the fly-lead to the wall-plate in your viewing room, through to the aerial input connection to your t.v. receiver. The Bromsgrove transmitter has no reported issues on it, which means that there must be a problem at the receiver end, i.e. your end, hence the advice for you to carefully carry out a thorough check! Richard, Norwich.
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James : Hi James. It is generally thought that your signal STRENGTH should not be any greater than 70%, whereas the quality can be as high as you like - indeed the higher the quality the better. You see, it is often said that if the signal STRENGTH is greater than 70%, you are putting unnecessary strain on the receiver by " giving it too much of a good thing". You can decrease the signal strength a little in a number of ways. If you have a booster in your system remove it completely and plug the aerial lead connection from the wall-plate in your viewing room directly into your Freeview HD tv receiver (set-top box or HD tv set). t would be useful to us if you could give us your full postcode, and then we can advise you further with some more simple tips on reducing your signal strength a little more, to get you down to 70% sig strength max. in the meantime, do what We've said above. Hear from you again very soon! Richard, Norwich.
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jb38: Good morning jb38. I'm not sure whether your posting at five minutes past midnight was specifically for me because it also looked as if it was meant to be read by 'James'. He will hopefully have seen it too. I found it highly interesting anyway. By the way, I had to throw away my old Freeview HD box recently, a Sharp TUT2 from the early to mid -2000s. The reason I had to get rid of it was that the picture would completely freeze and the sound would mute after the box had only been on for a few minutes. I don't know if you're familiar wit the Sharp TU-T2 Freeview HD box, but might it have been prone to the issue of too high a signal strength overloading its tuner, like the Samsungs mentioned in your posting? The thing is, the Sharp box would only usually show a signal strength of 60% to 70% on the two HD muxes and so I didn't think I was overloading it with too much signal! as you say, though, the accuracy of the signal strength indicators on Freevew receivers is very variable, so perhaps the Sharp's indicator was und-estimating the signal strength by up to 30%? Is that possible? Anyway, I couldn't put up with the picture and sound loss any longer, so have reverted to SD from a Topfield PVR 5800 which I was given and it seems to have plenty of life left in it at the moment, anyway. I don't think I shall worry about not having HD until SD switch-off in a few years' time, because my living room tv screen size is 50 cm ( 20"), so I wasn't fully benefiting from HD with a smaller screen, although the HD pictures were sharper and crisper than SD seems to be. Your comments back , if you please! Richard, Norwich.
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Sunday 19 June 2016 6:21PM
Norwich
Derek: Hi Derek in Epping Green. I am very sorry that you are currently unable to view CBS Drama, which I believe, should be on Channel 71 on your Electronic programme Guide (EPG). If this channel is not listed in your EPG, then your Freeview HD set-top box has not registered it, so you will need to carry out a re-tune on the box. Alternative ways of carrying this out have been suggested in the posting on this site by jb38 at 6:10 p.m. I totally concur with what jb38 says and would recommend that you follow his professional, reliable instructions! Good Luck, Richard, Norwich.