All posts by Big Dave
Below are all of Big Dave's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
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Bretch Hill (Oxfordshire, England) Freeview Light transmitterMonday 26 September 2011 4:46PM
Banbury
Chris - Judging by your location you should be on the Bretch Hill Transmitter. If so until wednesday both Bretch Hill & oxford are using Channel 52 (MUX B & Freeview HD respectively). I now have problems receiving mux b in the Austin Drive area although the transmissions from bretch hill are not really focussed my way. Should be OK from Wednesday.
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Just a reminder that the three commercial multiplexes (SDN, ARQ A & ARQ B) are restricted to 12.5KW ERP until april next year so a lot of people (I suspect that includes me) may struggle to receive these muxes in all conditions until then.
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Ralph - The Public Service muxes at Oxford are now at full power (100 KW) which broadcast the BBC channels & ITV1, Channel 4 & 5. If you can't get satisfactory reception of these then you are unlikely to get satisfactory reception from Oxford at all. You may wish to consider installing freesat (for a 1 off cost).It uses the same satellites as Sky but there is no subscription involved & there are more channels available (although not all the same ones) than with freeview.
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Sid - No Sky do not. The BBC simply rents satellite space off SES Astra in Luxembourg the same way Sky do. In fact from what I've read on these pages Sky charge the BBC to include BBC channels in their Electronic Programme Guide (EPG).
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Stephen - I too have bought the humax hd fox t2 receiver & like you I had it tuning into freeview from Crystal Palace which only transmits at 20KW until DSO. It seems that this tuner is extremely sensitive. Like you I had to resort to maunally tuning it. This then begs the question what the signal will be like after switchover next april & it goes to 200KW. However I have to say this was the only tuner this happened on. All the other boxes & TV's were fine.
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Jonathan - I assume you have an aerial socket plate on the wall. If so I have found some of these cheap plates give very poor connection when installing them around my house. In one case I gave up and fitted a F plug face plate & made an F plug to standard aerial plug fly lead up which works extremely well.
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The BBC wants to stop paying Sky ten million pounds a year for Wednesday 12 October 2011 9:29PM
Banbury
Steve P - I would Guess yes the BBC would still be on Freesat & you would still be able to manually tune it on a sky box using the "other Channels" section. The sky box would not automatically select the correct regional variation & you would have to select it manually.Nor would you be able to get programme listings. Briantist - would this be correct ?
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Jean Brennan - There are definitely no problems with the Oxford transmitter. Since DSO I have been able to reliably receive all the multiplexes on 4 TVs using 1 aerial & a passive splitter here in Banbury. It may be that the signal you are receiving is too strong (in which case you will need to fit an attenuator) or there may be another problem with your aerial installation.
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Robert - I noticed the same effect on the Com muxes last night here in Banbury although the PSB's were absolutely fine. I used to notice the same thing happening when it rained on the old MUX2 (now D3+4) which used to broadcast at similar power (10KW ERP) & in 64QAM mode on C68. The will problem will probably resolve itself next April when the COM muxes power up to 50KW ERP.
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Sunday 25 September 2011 7:56PM
Banbury
Jay Blanc - you may be right. Since Bretch hill started broadcasting freeview HD on C52 I have had problems picking up MUX B from Oxford. But another 3 days and when switchover at Oxford is complete there should be no more problems.