All posts by Rick in West Sussex
Below are all of Rick in West Sussex's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Liam Boyle:
There used to be a good curry house in Dalry! That tri-fold aerial is wide-band and hence is not best suited for Darvel as its response is not so good at the lower end of the band. You should have been advised to buy a 16 or 18 element Group A aerial, which would likely yield 4-6dB more signal (6dB is four times as much!) It would have been cheaper, less obtrusive and less likely to come down in the first gale.
KMJ is right, the situation will probably improve after switchover.
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D Ruff:
Most people in BH are using either the Heathfield or Midhurst transmitters, which should give you a more resilient service than Crystal Palace. I doubt if your neighbours are receiving signals from Rowridge (Isle of Wight) - the South Downs are in the way.
Dave's point regarding frequency offsets is valid. Also, Heathfield Mux 2 is currently on Ch29 (on low power but with no offset) until 13 June when the digital switchover will be complete.
Try a good quality Group B (for Heathfield) or Group C/D (for Midhurst) aerial rather than a DIY store 'wide-band' or so-called 'digital' aerial.
Heathfield will give you BBC South East, whilst Midhurst carries BBC South.
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David Hemsworth:
I expected to see some aerials pointing at the Haywards Heath repeater around your location, but not so. Just a handful of houses appear to have aerials pointing at Crystal Palace (including one of those huge tri-boom wideband devices, which is not the ideal aerial given the distance from Crystal Palace). The majority seem to be pointing at Heathfield, suggesting that a reliable analogue service has been available.
Now, assuming that your aerial is pointing at Heathfield, perform a re-scan following switchover on 13 June. Then, if your receiver allows it, though not all of them do, turn any automatic update function off. That should stop your receiver storing channels from other transmitters that it may see from time to time.
Repeat this after 27 June, when the SDN multiplex adopts its final location.
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All seemed to be up and running OK this morning.
There were a couple of apparent momentary dropouts on D3&4 just before lunch.
SDN is OK on Ch48.
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Chris James:
You have a few options.
What type of aerial do you have? Is it a 'Grouped' or a 'Wideband' aerial?
If it pre-dates the dawn of digital it may be a 'Group C/D', (it would have a green bung in the end) which would have been the preferred choice for Oxford, and indeed is now.
If it's a DIY shop 'Wideband' or so-called 'Digital' aerial (with a black bung) it would not be the best choice for Sandy Heath, as the 'PSB' multiplexes there are at the lower end of the frequency band, and such aerials are less efficient in that region.
If you want reliable reception of all services from Sandy Heath, you could install a good quality 'Group A' (red bung) and a 'Group C/D' (green bung) aerial and feed them via a diplexer.
Using the same pair of aerials, but pointing the 'Group A' at Sandy Heath and the 'Group C/D' at Oxford should give you the choice of two BBC / ITV regions.
Use a diplexer rather than a simple combiner, otherwise you will run into all sorts of other problems.
Alternatively, try a good quality 'Group C/D' aerial mounted in the clear for Oxford.
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Thursday 13 January 2011 4:44PM
Recently bought a Sony KDL32EX301 (to replace KDL26S2000 which had a better picture by far, sadly now given away!)
Severe picture / sound breakup on all channels on Heathfield Mux 2 (Ch29).
Signal strength: High, Signal quality: Low to No signal.
Stand in front of / next to the set or put my hand on the top and everything is perfect - signal quality goes to Good - High.
No problems with any other Heathfield Mux.
Noise radiated by the receiver on or about 538MHz perhaps?
Retuned Mux 2 from Midhurst (2nd antenna) and no problem.