All posts by Richard Cooper
Below are all of Richard Cooper's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Marcia: Hi, Marcia. Whilst there are problems on the Wonersh transmitter, you shouldn't be using it. You should have your aerial with its little rods horizontal, with the aerial pointing in an East-North-Easterly direction towards Crystal Palace in South London, from where you should obtain excellent reception in Walton -on-Thames. You need to carefully check that your aerial is set up as I've described here, as well as checking the aerial lead connections, all the way from where the aerial is, down to the tv set you're trying to use. Hope this helps, Richard in Norwich.
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Nick Wallace: Hi, Nick. You don't need an app, just ask on here and we'll give you the answer! The Craigkelly transmitter site is near enough North West from Spence avenue, Burntishead, so make sure that the loft aerial you wish to use is pointing more or less in that direction. When aligning a loft aerial, it's an idea to have one person in the loft gently rotating the aerial whilst another person is down in your tv room, watching the tv and calling up to the person in the loft stating things like,"better, worse, much better, perfect", etc., as the loft person rotates the aerial either side of North West. The aerial also needs to have its little rods (elements) going horizontally. One more thing: the downstairs viewer needs to try all of the different channels your family members would watch whilst calling to the person in the loft, because it's possible - indeed 'probable' that some channels will be received better wit the aerial on one alignment, whereas other channels will 'come in better' on a slightly different alignment, so you are after the 'best compromise across the whole range of channels you'd normally watch. Note that your local Edinburgh tv service is transmitted at a much lower power than other channels and the following are also at lower power: the Com 7 & Com 8 channels which carry the HD programmes not carried on the PSB3 HD group of channels - see UKFree.TV web page on Craigkelly. Hope all of this info helps. Richard, norwich.
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Peter: Hi, Peter. The usual problem with not being able to receive a lot of channels from a 'main' transmitter is that the tv aerial cabling has developed a dodgy connection somewhere along its route, either as a result of a break in the copper wire within the cable, frayed wiring, or even water ingress, so you need to check for all of these things as any or all of them can mean you can get one group of channels but not other groups of channels. I would not carry out these checks until it has been confirmed that Winter Hill 'has no reported problems',so to attempt these checks whilst Winter Hill is reporting 'possible weak signal' wouldn't be a good idea, because this suggests that some of the channels are currently being transmitted at below their usual powers whilst engineering works are going on. Hope all this will help you, Richard, Norwich.
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StevensOnln1: Hi, StevensOnln1. I'm sorry that I should've realised that Moss Bank was Freeview Light before replying to James about Dave! Richard, Norwich.
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steve P: Good afternoon, Steve. FM radio receivers will not be of much use once the National FM broadcast transmitters have been switched off, other than for receiving very local community radio stations if these decide to continue to use FM when Ofcom is encouraging the likes of them on to the trial local dab 'minimuxes'. DAB radios are nowhere near as expensive as they were in the early 'noughties' and the latest models are not 'battery hungry' because improvements have been made to their designs so that they consume much less power than the late nineties/early noughties models did. It is all very well for you to have the opinion that,"FM radio will continue to be needed for decades', but when there is a digital radio switchover in the 2020s, your opinion will no longer have any weight, I'm sorry to tell you. Richard, Norwich.
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Richard Baguley : Hi, again, Richard. Heavy rain over a longish period of time caused water ingress down into my father's masthead amplifier on the mast of his aerial a few miles North of Lowestoft. The water collected inside the plastic case of the amplifier caused the electronics to fail, resulting in no signal. Don't forget that such a technical issue wit your own system can cause the loss of one multiplex (or 'group of channels'), such as either the PSB HD multiplex or one, the other or both of the COM 7 or COM 8 multiplexes. So even though your aerial system was thoroughly checked a couple of years ago, water ingress over a period of time could have occurred since. By all means, check with neighbours who have and use the HD transmissions before investigating your own installation again. Richard, Norwich.
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Steve P: Hi again, Steve P. Again you are expressing your own, obviously firmly held opinions. If you look at the most recent quarter's RAJAR statistics you'll see that actual listening to DAB is very close to 50% and is expected to reach that figure by sometime next year. When this figure has been achieved, the Government intend to decide on a date for analogue radio switch off and digital radio switchover, which would be no sooner than two years after the date that the Government choose this date. There was no compensation on offer in the mid-2000s when television viewers discovered that Freeview digital terrestrial television could not be received directly on analogue tuner television sets and so I don't expect there to be any compensation on offer at digital radio switchover, although I would expect the Government to make financial help available to the elderly, the disabled and the vulnerable, so that they have access to a digital platform for broadcast radio. Richard, Norwich.
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Ian Farrow: Hi, Ian. There has been engineering work taking place at the Newhaven transmission site on Friday 16 September, but this may have been completed by now, so it's worth trying to receive D1 stations again today. Alternatively, try re-aligning your DAB aerial on to the Heathfield transmitter to your north-North-East, this being the main DAB transmitter for East Sussex. Richard, Norwich.
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steve P: Hi, Steve P. I need to correct what I said in my last post. It is when the share of all digital listening via ANY digital platform reaches 50% that the Government will discuss an analogue switch off date, whereas I had INCORRECTLY stated that it was when the share of listening by DAB dad reached 50%. Please accept my apologies for this error. So, as you can see, the 44% of digital listening via any digital platform is quite likely to increase to 50% by this time next year. When I myself sell an FM radio from my collection, I always warn potential buyers in my 'item description' of the redundancy of the item within a few years, just as I did when I put my 2k Ondigital 'Freeview' DTT box ON an online auction website in 2009, but amazingly it sold at my 'reserve' price anyway, even though I'd given the redundancy warning! I think that it is a pity that online retailers of brand new FM only radios such as the Philips combined FM radio/ CD Player do not give a redundancy warning notice on the item before selling it. Apparently, radio manufacturers have jointly agreed not to manufacture any more analogue only radio sets, whereas retailers seem only to be interested in profits from sales of any item on their shelves! Perhaps I'm being too cynical! Incidentally, I am neither a duke nor an Archbishop, so you may address me as 'Sir' rather than 'Your Grace', Steve! Richard in Norwich.
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Sunday 18 September 2016 9:44AM
Richard: Hi, Richard. No-one has reported any problems wit the Tacolneston transmitter, so I think that you should check with a neighbour who uses Tacolneston Freeview HD. Make sure the neighbour watches the HD transmissions though. SD transmissions from Tacolneston are 'near perfect' this morning. Richard in Norwich (Sunday, 18th September at 09:45).