All posts by Jack Luxon
Below are all of Jack Luxon's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Jack Luxon: From this I gather that those who pick up 4G interference and use a booster will have to scrap it and buy a new aerial. A 'nice little earner' for the aerial suppliers. Hopefully the 'free' filter works OK with the new aerial.
As for using a booster to overcome a low signal prior to switchover I feel that this is not necessarily the case; prior to switchover some 625 line transmissions were at the high end (800+) of the spectrum and the aerials were of a classification to suit this. Since switchover, to accommodate 4G, the frequencies have moved further down the spectrum so a 'high end' aerial is not as efficient, hence the use of booster.
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Dave Lindsay, I feel I have been misunderstood regarding booster. When 625 line transmission was introduced almost 50 years ago many transmitters were using the high end of the spectrum and the receiving aerials were manufactured accordingly, the folded di-pole of quarter wavelength etc. As digital was introduced and some transmission frequencies were reduced people were finding their old aerial would still work OK, up to a point. An improvement could be achieved by incorporating a booster rather than installing a more suitable aerial (less cost). This is why boosters have been used when at first they were not needed. From what I have seen on the at800 website, and your reply, I have inferred that the filter needs to be fitted between the aerial and the booster but might this be only where there are multiple feeds, perhaps, if there's only one feed the filter can be fitted after the booster? I guess it is preferable to have the filter prior to any booster, not much point in amplifying stuff that's going to be filtered out. Does anyone know if the Free filter will cause any signal attenuation? If so someone might think of manufacturing a booster tuned only to TV frequencies which I guess would also act as a filter? I suppose it's a case of wait and see. I get my signals from Mendip with frequency bands from 49 to 58, I have a mobile phone mast about 300 yards away, but not in line, and another 800 yards away in line with Mendip, but operated by Network Rail so I guess this may not be used for 4G.
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Thanks to all who have provided me with answers to my questions/suggestions etc. I look forward to reading about the Brighton trial as top end of spectrum is used there. I should be interested to know how these trials are run, are local phone masts broadcasting 4G stuff or is there a bloke going around in a van with a transmitter?
I have discovered that signals from phone masts are normally cross polarised at + and - 45 degrees. This is good news.
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Daniella, having checked your aerial is plugged in OK you might try seeing if you can get into 'Menu' etc and try re-tuning. If you have an inbuilt or external DVD player you might also see if that works OK. If it doesn't then your problem is unlikely to be anything to do with aerial,tuning or 4G.
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J
Expecting 4G interference? Tests now show that you have a one Thursday 13 June 2013 10:51AM
Weston-super-mare
I'd like to make a suggestion. I'm fairly new to this website and in common with most websites it has lots of info, and for an old geezer it's sometimes a little difficult to negotiate, however I've seen that somehow or other you've got my postcode and at the top of most pages I have the opportunity to click on a link to Digital UK which displays transmitter info for my location. This is brilliant especially as elsewhere there is a listing of what programmes are on which muxes. Having read some of the problems that some people are having I feel that some may be able to help themselves to a certain extent by using the Digital UK link to discover the transmitter that is likely to be serving them, and also to check to see if their problem is happening on all programmes, or possibly only those from one particular mux, which may be out of action, or need a re-tune. I realise this is nothing to do with 4G, but at the moment there are many suspecting 4G to be the cause of problems.
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J
Expecting 4G interference? Tests now show that you have a one Thursday 13 June 2013 11:05AM
Weston-super-mare
PS Further to my question of June 11th, it's not a bloke in a van, the 4G test signals are broadcast from masts at existing sites in selected areas.
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J
I've got an HD TV ... why can't we have high definition channelSaturday 22 June 2013 7:29AM
Weston-super-mare
I visited a friend who receives his Freeview from Mendip with HD on frequency band 58. I think something happened during his latest retune as he is finding BBC1 HD when he keys in 101, but the other HD programmes are still on numbers starting with 5, 52,53 and 54 (I think). I realise that this would probably change if he retuned, but only if prior to retuning he reverts to default settings which not only wipes out existing tuning data, but also all his carefully set up brightness, contrast settings. How much longer is he likely to get HD programmes on 52,53 and 54?
I watch Freeview HD using a Sony HDT-500 PVR. If I select BBC1 or BBC2 SD and the programme is also available in HD I get a message inviting me to watch in HD, similarly when setting up recordings using the EPG. Sadly this doesn't happen with ITV1 or CH4 programmes. Sony blames the broadcasters. Sony have discontinued their HDT-500 and HDT 1000.
I also use the Mendip transmitter, 58 for HD.
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J
I've got an HD TV ... why can't we have high definition channelMonday 24 June 2013 6:40AM
Weston-super-mare
Michael, thanks for info. I did try manual tuning 58 (Toshiba 32RV753B) but it simply came back 'No new channels found', or words to that effect. I didn't try removing the aerial although I did try this some time ago with my Humax 9200T, but when attempting to tune manually the message 'No Signal' came up and the existing tuning remained intact. At the moment LCN 51,52,53 & 54 are not allocated; once they are I guess he will HAVE to re-tune to get BBC2,ITV1 and CH4 HD, however it puzzles me as to why he got LCN 101 (BBC1HD) to tune OK. Was 101 introduced to replace 51 before the introduction of 102-104? I'll look into manual channel editing. Recently tuning has become more straightforward as newer digital equipment asks where one lives. Here in WSM manual tuning is a must on older equipment to avoid picking up the welsh programmes from Wenvoe.
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J
Expecting 4G interference? Tests now show that you have a one Tuesday 25 June 2013 9:35PM
Weston-super-mare
Although Yagi aerials are designed to be directional they do exhibit a certain amount of 'fringe' reception. Here in WSM those in the lee of the Mendip hills use the Ubley relay station. This is vertically polarised, as are the users' aerials, but some find that they can also pick up the Wenvoe transmitter which is almost exactly 180 degrees in the opposite direction AND polarised horizontally. This is seen as an advantage. Users manually tune to Ubley for BBCA and D3&4 plus SDN, ARQA & ARQB from Wenvoe as these programmes are not in welsh, but also not available from a relay station.
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Sunday 9 June 2013 2:19PM
I have sent off a request to Ofcom in order to discover (a) if new mobile phone masts will be erected to cope with 4G (b) if the signals are horizontally or vertically polarised. Perhaps this website knows the answers. I realise that those using signal boosters will be vulnerable, irrespective of polarisation, as the bandwidth of these is designed to accommodate TV, VHF, UHF etc and will no doubt pick up 4G signals. Many of those using boosters do so as they were not conned into buying a 'Digital' aerial when digital TV was introduced as their possibly 40 year old 625 line aerial worked adequately, albeit perhaps with a booster. Buying a booster is somewhat cheaper than having a guy on the roof fixing a new aerial. Will these people now be 'given' a more up to date aerial if they are no longer able to use their booster as I understand a filter will not improve matters if a booster remains in circuit?
As for polarisation, TV relay transmitters are vertically polarised whereas 'main' transmitters use horizontal. Interference from 4G will probably be conditional on polarisation, will those receiving their signals from relay stations be more susceptible than those receiving from 'main' transmitters?