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All posts by Tim

Below are all of Tim's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.


I did notice last night (31st Jan) that after the analoque signals on Crystal Palace for BBC1 ch26, ITV ch23, and Channel 4 ch30 were switched off that a Mux appeared on ch 23 and ch 26 on a manual scan, there was no program info or program service. These do not appear on a auto scan. The engineers must be tinkering with things for switch over

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here's a story that's about the Digital switchover help scheme.
My Aunt who is 86 lives in the SE9 area of London a very strong signal area and who has been using Freeview for a number of years using an internal aerial which 99.9% of the time works fine. She has a PVR connected to her TV enabling her to record one channel whilst viewing another, After I told her about the £40 help scheme she applied and an aerial contracted was sent out to check the system and give her a STB for her 2nd set in her bedroom.
As I live some 40 miles from her I was unable to be there when he called, I spoke to her on the phone that evening to ask how it went she told me that the man was there for 20 mins had check the installation and connected the free STB to the TV. This is when alarm bells started to ring!
I saw a copy of the check list tick sheet he had completed, this is what it show. Aerial face plate fitted, YES, Benchmark cables use, YES, Aerial checked, YES. The answer to all these questions is NO in her installation. What the man had done was remove her PVR leave a basic Freeview box under the TV and charge £40 for a box that I could have got from Tesco for £20. I made a complaint to the scheme and another appointment was made that I could attend, the whole idea was to get her an basic outside aerial which the scheme provides not for some aerial guy to make a quick £40 doing little or nothing!

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Mim, I would strongly suggest you get a freeview set top box starting around £ 20 as Crystal Palace will start to stop analogue broadcasting in the next 4 weeks. At the moment they are testing the new equipment and this loss of analogue channels will happen again in the small hours. Check the top of this page for crystal palace transmitter analogue shutdown schedule.

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I'm not as expertised as others who post on this site but I can absolutely say that one or more muxes can and are effected by weather conditions. As note of interest on Saturday night I was watching Yorkshire tv with perfect stability here in south west Hertfordshire at a distant of a 100 miles plus for an hour. I have problems with channel 22 as its one of the weaker muxes and I live about 20 miles from Crystal Palace. After switchover I'm pretty sure these problems will stop. This site is a very valuable source of free information and I do get annoyed with people disbelieving the information given here. The information here is much better than some advice I have been given by more so called professional bodies.

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Dave, I think it must on reduced power as I live near St Albans about 22 miles from CP and its quite a grainy picture which is not normal for here.

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Will, have just tried another aerial and you are correct all crystal clear.

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Took a chance on a retune at 2am when BBCA came on air all channels present and correct,

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My pocket freeview tv now works on its built in rod aerial here in hertfordshire but only on BBCA, wandered around with it with only a small break up in signal.

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