All posts by Karl
Below are all of Karl's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Chris.SE:
Many thanks for the info Chris. Coincidental then that it happens today of all days when a retune was performed. COM7 (News 24 in HD) has been fine right up until today.
Thanks again.
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Can confirm CH55 back at normal levels here on the Fylde coast.
Was this posted here or elsewhere? Useful.
Tropospheric Ducting Forecast for VHF & UHF Radio & TV
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I noticed a couple of days ago that 'BBC Wiltshire' appeared in the EPG in the 800's on my Sony RDR-870 along with some other '+1''s' such as ITV3. Wiltshire is quite a long way out of area from the Fylde coast. These look to be on Ch24 and 27.
I'm using a loft mounted Group A log periodic on Winter Hill.
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Thanks for the reply Chris,
The Sony does scan for channels in the background and this has been a bit of a nuisance in the past because of picking up North Wales and this causing problems with timer recordings and the PDC (programme delivery system). It was frequent enough to be a problem and prior to the Log Periodic I had a roof mounted wideband Yagi. The log aerial set up has stopped this particular issue. Possibly lower signal levels (loft) have helped as well.
As an aside to that, the Panasonic DMR-EX97 HDD recorder has countless reviews where owners comment on lockups and having to unplug the recorder. Panasonic are aware of the issue but had no fix. I have one of these and it suffered this issue. Since switching to the Log Periodic loft system the issue has vanished confirming my suspicion that the lockups were a result of out of band transmissions causing problems with background channel scans. I noticed the problem was guaranteed to show whenever Freeview changes occurred, but not now.
The recent BBC Wiltshire event caused no apparent problems in use. The Panasonic has not registered anything in the EPG.
The aerial I chose was a Blake BLA-LP28A which is a Ch 21-37 Log Periodic. It is marketed as a Group A with 28 elements.
I deliberately went down that route and sacrificed COM 7 on the basis that it is going to disappear anyway. The Yagi had to go because I had an external chimney removed and in all honesty the loft set up has been truly excellent in everyway. The change from C/D to A for Winter Hill really worked in my favour on this one and going 'loft'.
Thanks again and Merry Christmas.
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Thanks for the reply Chris,
The Sony does scan for channels in the background and this has been a bit of a nuisance in the past because of picking up North Wales and this causing problems with timer recordings and the PDC (programme delivery system). It was frequent enough to be a problem and prior to the Log Periodic I had a roof mounted wideband Yagi. The log aerial set up has stopped this particular issue. Possibly lower signal levels (loft) have helped as well.
As an aside to that, the Panasonic DMR-EX97 HDD recorder has countless reviews where owners comment on lockups and having to unplug the recorder. Panasonic are aware of the issue but had no fix. I have one of these and it suffered this issue. Since switching to the Log Periodic loft system the issue has vanished confirming my suspicion that the lockups were a result of out of band transmissions causing problems with background channel scans. I noticed the problem was guaranteed to show whenever Freeview changes occurred, but not now.
The recent BBC Wiltshire event caused no apparent problems in use. The Panasonic has not registered anything in the EPG.
The aerial I chose was a Blake BLA-LP28A which is a Ch 21-37 Log Periodic. It is marketed as a Group A with 28 elements.
I deliberately went down that route and sacrificed COM 7 on the basis that it is going to disappear anyway. The Yagi had to go because I had an external chimney removed and in all honesty the loft set up has been truly excellent in everyway. The change from C/D to A for Winter Hill really worked in my favour on this one and going 'loft'.
Thanks again and Merry Christmas.
(Posting again as get a 'fatal server error'. This happened yesterday as well. Might take a screen grab of the error)
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Looking further on the EPG on the Sony and I've got:
BBC Berkshire
BBC1 South
BBC Solent
BBC Solent Dorset
BBC Sussex
BBC Wiltshire.
Wow, I wish I had been aware and had a poke around at the time.
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Hi Chris, yes Ch 40 comes in at a fair signal strength. The aerial set up is the loft mounted Blake feeding a loft situated distribution amp. I went for a low gain Blake twin output one, I think around 4db gain. One feed from that amp feeds the main lounge where there is a three way passive Triax splitter with a feed each to the Sony TV. Sony HDD recorder and the Panasonic recorder.
The Sony recorder shows 52% strength and 100% quality on Ch 40. Other main muxes are around 89 to 85%. Viewing has been 100% glitch free since installing this set up. The original instinct was to go for the biggest Yagi that would fit the loft but considered thought and all I read of the log periodic giving a flat response and immunity to impulse noise (loft... wiring etc) had me settle on the Blake. Well its proved a winner. Each of the three feeds that already see a loss from the three way splitter will still withstand an additional 10db (at least) before things start to get flaky.
I suspect had Winter Hill remained on groups C/D that the loft set up would not have been as successful as I understand that the higher frequencies would suffer much more attenuation through tiles and from trees and so on.
Thanks for the link, I'll have a look at that.
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Chris.SE: Yes, some Pioneer (which are rebranded Sony) were affected. This post (#777) was the start of the latest episode:
Sony 870 (and all Sony HXD and some Pioneers) DVD Recorders - No Freeview | Page 32 | AVForums
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Thanks Chris. I'm no expert on how the code is configured and I wouldn't be able recognise where the errors might be without being shown.
(Couldn't actually retrieve the file, got as for as 'download' and constant requests to confirm 'I am not a robot' which eventually brought up a web based (so not genuine) security warning saying you are infected with harmful files and click here to scan... so I just closed the browser)
All good. No worries :-)
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Thursday 17 September 2020 2:34PM
The updated channels/retune for Sky Arts and Pick have just gone live but I've also noticed that COM 7 seems to have gone missing. It was fine last night.
Wondering if it has been turned off permanently now. We know it is coming but... today?